Gaza, once known for its fragrant citrus groves and good-quality honey, has seen its beekeeping industry collapse as hives and vegetation fall victim to Israel's war.
The soft hum of bees, a sound that signalled life, livelihoods and tradition, has all but disappeared. The Ministry of Agriculture said 90 per cent of Gaza's 30,000 beehives have been destroyed, as well as 76 per cent of the vegetation cover that sustained them.
Some hives were wrecked by a lack of sugar and vegetation for bees to feed on, while others were dismantled for fuel as Israel blocked aid deliveries into the strip. Even after the October ceasefire was arranged, some apiaries have been cut off by the 'yellow line' that marks out Israeli-held territory.
Before the war, about 800 beekeepers in Gaza produced as many as 400 tonnes of honey annually. Today, production has plunged to just 20 tonnes, leaving honey scarce and its price soaring from 70 shekels ($21) per kilogram to 300, if it can be found at all.
“The honey production sector has suffered losses exceeding 90 per cent,” Ihab Taha, the head of the ministry's beekeeping department, told The National. “What happened to Gaza’s apiaries is not only an environmental disaster, it is a violation of international humanitarian law and a threat to food security.”
Ayman Abu Daqa, a 45-year-old beekeeper near Deir Al Balah, saw his farm of 150 hives bulldozed in Israeli ground operations. He lost more than $35,000, along with the bees and the flowering plants on which they relied.
“The war destroyed everything,” he told The National. “We don’t see bee swarms anywhere any more. The land is barren, no trees, no flowers.”
At one point during the conflict, Mr Abu Daqa burnt the remains of his wooden hive boxes for cooking fuel. He no longer believed he would return to his farm.
When a temporary ceasefire was declared in January, he went back to the land that had once buzzed with life. He salvaged broken frames, sifted through debris and slowly began to rebuild.
He managed to assemble 30 new hives but without vegetation the bees had nothing to forage. “I began feeding the bees sugar water,” he said. “It wasn’t ideal but it was the only way to keep them alive.”
When crossings closed again and sugar vanished from the market, he halted operations for months. Only recently, with limited supplies trickling in, was he able to resume.
Imad Ghazal, head of Gaza’s Co-operative Beekeepers Association, said the future of the sector is uncertain because the natural vegetation to support it no longer exists. “Even if the war ended tomorrow, it would take years for the ecosystem to recover," he said.
“Many apiaries lie behind the expanding yellow line, areas under direct Israeli military control, inaccessible to farmers. Efforts to rehabilitate those lands are currently impossible."
Before the conflict, honey from Gaza was prized for its purity and used in medical treatments for rheumatism, women’s health conditions and chronic pain. Medical centres across the strip used therapies derived from bees.
Now, that ecosystem of knowledge, like the bees themselves, is disappearing. Thousands of beekeepers, once dependent on their hives, have no source of income.
For Gaza, the collapse of beekeeping is more than an agricultural setback. It is also a sign of broader environmental breakdown. Without bees, pollination declines. Without plants, soil erodes. Without vegetation, entire ecosystems fail.
On Mr Abu Daqa's farm, he watches over his reconstructed hives, adjusting to a changed world. “It won’t be like before,” he said. “But we must try. Even in this darkness, we must try.”
His harvest this year will be modest, the honey thinner, the flavour altered, but for him it represents something more important: a refusal to let the war erase a tradition.
