Bees: The latest victims of Israel's strikes on Gaza

"We have lost about 70% of thee bees we had, which is a grave financial loss for us"

by Mohammed Asad

Israeli occupation planes sprayed herbicides on the farms located near the Gaza-Israel fence once again this weekend, to kill vegetation in the area.

The regular attacks, which decimates the crops of local farmers, have also had a detrimental effect on the Strip’s bee population.

“I was working on beekeeping in the northern Gaza Strip in the border area of Beit Hanoun. We always keep our bees in these areas and put our hives there so that the bees collect nectar from the flowers in the wide-open areas and produce honey away from the crowded city centre and out of fear from the occupation’s missiles,” beekeeper Hamadah Hamadah says.

READ: Australia artists boycott Sydney Festival over Israel funding

After the occupation sprayed chemicals in the area on Saturday, “the planes destroyed over 50 per cent of the bees in the 50 hives I have for honey production,” Hamadah said.

“This is an appalling and heinous act by the occupation, which does not care and continues to fight the Palestinian economy.”

“I established this project many years ago, and now I am suffering heavy losses.”

Bees die from Israeli airstrikes in Gaza [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.