The Gaza Strip is renowned in Palestine for its bright red and delicious strawberries. Once a major agricultural export, Gaza’s fields of “red gold” have been decimated by Israel’s genocide.

Palestinian farmers are systematically prevented from working their land as Israelis thrive from ecotourism on stolen land. Agriculture in Palestine shows the damage done by Israeli apartheid.

For Palestinian farmers, protecting the land is more important than cultivating it when it is always under threat of colonial confiscation.

This is a story not of statistics and numbers and economics, this is a story about the generational transfer of skill. Munir Al-Kafarne passes his family’s bee keeping traditions to his sons as his small farming family attempts to subsist off the land only 1,000 feet from the highly-militarized separation wall in Gaza.

As apartheid Israel’s siege of Gaza enters its 15th year, food sovereignty, climate justice and self-sufficiency have become central issues in the greater fight for justice and Palestinian liberation.

The Palestinian table is famous for its abundance, but Palestinian food sovereignty is under threat due to Israel’s system of settler-colonialism and apartheid.

Due to the difficult economic conditions in Gaza two groups of women are turning to agriculture to provide for their families. “This land is not merely soil; it is our strength, hope, and soul,” says Aseel Al-Najjar.

One of the great reliefs of Gaza’s cold winters is knowing that strawberry season is coming in December.

Ibrahim Atta looks out at a dusty field of grasses on a hot Gaza afternoon in early fall and declares this land was once a fertile “piece of heaven.” Twenty years ago, he was earning an income from selling produce grown on this nine-acre family plot, but today Atta is no longer able to safely access the farm. The last time he tried to reach the land was in 2015. Israeli forces positioned on the other side of the fence “fired two tear gas bombs just under my feet,” Atta said. “I left and have not gone again. I just look at it from a distance and can’t get close, they may kill me.”

Palestinian knowledge of the land not only solidifies the Palestinian indigenous identity, but our right to the land as well.