I read two articles today that got me thinking far more in-depth than I had been about the agricultural issues resulting from October 7. I knew that fields and farm animals suffered severe damage. That vast swaths of crops were rotting because many farm workers had been called up into the military and a lot of foreign workers had gone home (there are still local- and regional postings almost every day looking for volunteers to pick crops). I certainly knew that food prices had gone up.
What I didn't realize is that it was all part of the evil plot Hamas carried out on October 7. Mishpacha magazine's excellent article "Bitter Fruits" quotes the head of an agricultural community in the affected region who says, "Agriculture wasn't just collateral damage, as the general narrative goes. It was a deliberate target". The area affected, the WSJ notes, "produces 70% of the country's vegetables, 20% of its fruit and 6% of its milk".
The Wall Street Journal discusses Kibbutz Alumim, just 2 miles over the Gaza border. Three chicken coops there were burned to the ground on October 7, but 300,000 more chickens died of thirst and hunger after terrorists destroyed the automated dispensers that gave water and food for five more chicken coops, and no humans were around to tend to the chickens by hand.
In Nachal Oz, where the Mishpacha interviewee lives, "all 40 irrigation control boxes were smashed and the terrorists went straight for the customized computer chips that regulate the entire system; every farm vehicle was either burned or taken into Gaza".
In a previous post here about "The Hostages You Might Not Have Heard About" I mentioned foreign workers like Bipin Joshi. Why would Hamas want to take him hostage? Yonoson Rosenblum (of whose work I am quite the fan) and Rachel Ginsberg of Mishpacha explain:"Because Israeli agriculture can't survive without foreign workers, the terrorists located, massacred and abducted foreign workers in order to neutralize this vital labor source.....When the first Israeli soldiers reached [the barracks where Thai workers slept] they found Thai workers not just killed, but horribly mutilated. Those photos were subsequently sent to the king of Thailand, with the specific intent that he would order his subjects to return to Thailand". Which something like 85 percent of them have done....
I encourage you to read both pieces:
https://mishpacha.com/bitter-fruits/
Click here if you would like to donate to the Save a Farm Fund from Keren HaShviis (mentioned in the Mishpacha article):
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| photo from Save a Farm Fund |
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