As soon as he stepped on his land located in the Shuka area to the east of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip Abu Muammar grabbed some grains of sand and began smelling them after being deprived of doing so for 12 years.
Using his both hands Abu Muammar threw the seeds of wheat that his land was thirsty for after it was classified within the ‘buffer zone’ and closed down by the Israeli occupation forces on the eastern border of Rafah. He has thus accessed his land for the first time since 2006 when then it was full of fruitful and old trees.
Happiness!
Dozens of Palestinian farmers were gleeful after being allowed by the Israeli occupation forces to plough their land near the border area following an intervention and supervision of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
The Israeli army prohibits farmers from planting their lands in the Gaza border areas imposing a buffer zone of 300 meters inside the Gaza Strip as it is a security zone that prevents anyone from approaching it.
Abu Muammar and other farmers hope to replant their lands similar to the past times when they were full of greenery scenes and provided abundant livelihood.
Throughout this period Abu Muammar was looking at his land full of sorrow and pain because he was prevented from accessing it. He called on the Red Cross and international institutions to protect them in their land so that they could complete their job and cultivate their land.
The land of Abu Muammar is 20 dunums which he used to plant to support his eight-member-family. He hopes that he would replant it to compensate for the losses he suffered during the previous years especially in light of the difficult economic conditions in the Gaza Strip.
The sounds of agricultural tractors levelling the land are heard in the area after the area was full of Israeli bulldozers turning it into deserted hills.
The happiness of Abu Muammar and the rest of the farmers was not complete because the Israeli army only allowed the cultivation of crops that is not more than 70 centimeters in height which destroys their dream of planting trees such as almonds and citrus.
Amid an atmosphere of anxiety farmer Mohammed Ibrahim 57 stands at a corner of his land staring at the Israeli military towers which often shoot at anyone approaching the fence.
He recalls his green-colored land filled with lemon and almond trees and the smell of the local melons in the area.
He hopes that the farmers’ happiness will be completed by providing them with the necessary equipment and water pumps by donor institutions so that they could replant their lands again especially since the current economic situation does not allow the purchase of such expensive equipment.
1400 dunums
Osama al-Mukhlalati an official in the Economic Security Department of the Red Cross said that this step comes to rehabilitate settle and reclaim more than 1400 dunums of agricultural land in the border area.
Al-Mukhlalati confirmed that the farmers were flooded with joy after being allowed into their land after 12 years of Israeli army ban.
He explained that the land was reclaimed and fertilized and cultivated with varieties of wheat and barley pointing out that the Red Cross provided good quality seeds of wheat in cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture.
He pointed out that the border area lands are the agricultural future of the Gaza Strip explaining that the ICRC has rehabilitated and replanted about 1900 dunums this year.
Since the Israeli occupation forces withdrew from Gaza Strip in 2005 they have unilaterally and illegally established a ‘buffer zone’ an area that Palestinians are prohibited from entering which extends along the Gaza Strip’s land and sea borders.
