Israel’s siege killing demand for Qurbani meat in Gaza

Livestock farmers in the Gaza Strip are grappling with a low demand for their produce as a result of Israel's continued siege of the enclave.

by Mohammed Asad

Livestock farmers in the Gaza Strip are grappling with a low demand for their produce as a result of Israel’s continued siege of the enclave [Mohammed Asad/Middle East Monitor]

The 12-year blockade has stifled demand and left Palestinians unable to afford the cost of animals in order to complete the Islamic ritual of slaughtering and distributing the meat.

Livestock seller Sami Al-Batniji said the coming days will determine how successful this season is for farmers, but to date, only a handful of people have come forward to buy an animal.

READ: Siege leads Gaza’s Qurbani market to crash

To tackle the economic crisis, the Ministry of Agriculture in Gaza has made available smaller quantities of meat which residents can buy and saves them from buying a whole animal.

It said that there are 12,000 cows and 30,000 sheep on offer this season. The Gaza Strip consumes more than 10,000 heads of cattle during the Eid Al-Adha period.

Prices range from $4.5-5 per kilogramme of beef and $5.5-7.5 per kilogramme of lamb.

Livestock farmers in the Gaza Strip are grappling with a low demand for their produce as a result of Israel’s continued siege of the enclave [Mohammed Asad/Middle East Monitor]

Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.