APN | Cairo – Zoom

4 June 2024

During the eleventh meeting of the Sub-committee for the Eradication of Hunger in the Arab Region, APN Chairperson, Razan Zuayter, as a member of the committee, made interventions stressing the destruction of 60-75% of the agricultural sector in Gaza due to the occupation targeting agricultural lands and sites with bombing and bulldozing, in a systematic starvation war. Despite this, some farmers continued agricultural production and brought their crops to markets, posing a challenge to the occupation, which had hoped for Gaza's surrender due to hunger.

Zuayter noted that several of these farmers appealed to the Arab Group for the Protection of Nature for support which led to the launch of the "Revive Gaza’s Farmland" project. The project aims to enhance food and water security and nutrition, create income-generating projects, and reinforce food sovereignty and, consequently, sovereignty over decisions and destiny. She outlined the components of the project, including the rehabilitation of damaged vegetable farms, planting fruit trees, rehabilitating poultry projects, constructing agricultural ponds, planting fodder seeds, rehabilitating destroyed greenhouses, distributing beehives, and rehabilitating fishing projects.

Zuayter recommended that committee members become partners in the Revive Gaza’s Farmland project and work to expose and criminalize ecocide in Gaza. She also proposed forming a committee for Gaza and participating in organizing a conference in Lebanon on environmental and food militarization in cooperation with the American University of Beirut.