Feature: Gaza farmers gain golden harvest in buffer zone

Abdul Kareem Wahdan, a Palestinian farmer, was very happy as he watched a big combine machine harvesting his wheat farm for the first time in 15 years since Israel imposed a buffer zone along its borders with Gaza in 2001.

Wahdan, who owns a four-donum (4,000 square meters) farm in the northern Gaza Strip town of Biet Hanoun which touches the borders with Israel, managed to access his land after Israel allowed farmers to harvest their crops under a deal with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

The last time Wahdan visited his farm was in January when he planted it with wheat under the supervision and support of the ICRC.

"It is one of the happiest moments for me to watch my wheat crop being harvested," Wahdan told Xinhua as he observed the machines harvesting the ripe golden grain.

"We managed to enter our farms, plant them and harvest them," he said, adding "now we want to retrieve our lands and work our farms normally whenever we want."

Dozens were killed and injured in the buffer zone by Israeli fire. Most of the deaths have occurred when farmers have been trying to reach their land within, or near to, the buffer zone, or during demonstrations where communities have tried to assert their right to reach their fields.

For Wahdan, farming the land he inherited is the only profession he knows and is the only source of income.

"This is really dangerous, because in recent years the Israeli troops guarding the fence regularly open fire at farmers whenever we get into the fields," he added as he tried to avoid the hot sun rays behind a dead fig tree.

The man urged international organizations and international community to practice pressure on Israel to allow farmers cultivate their fields normally.

"We also appeal to the international community to support farmers financially to rehabilitate their long abandoned lands," he pleaded.

The buffer zone was established after the Oslo Accords, signed between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel in early 1990s, taking 50 meters of land on the Palestinian side only and all along the border.

In 2000, this was unilaterally expanded by the Israelis to 150 meters on the Palestinian side only and expanded again to 300 meters with the threat to shoot anyone found within that distance in January 2009.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs (OCHA), the buffer zone takes up 17 percent of Gaza's total land, making up to 35 percent of available farmland unsafe for Palestinians to use, with the areas nearest the border fence being the most restricted.

The OCHA has divided the zone into two danger grades: 'no-go' areas where Palestinians risk their lives if they enter as they are considered free-fire zones by Israel (within 500 meters of the fence) and 'high-risk' areas, where the restricted access still has a severe consequences for farmers and where property destruction and leveling of the land occur on a regular basis (within 500 and up to 1500 meters of the fence).

Meanwhile, Mamdou Sow, ICRC Gaza head of Sub-Delegation, said ICRC has succeeded, in collaboration with the Ministries of Agriculture and Interior in Gaza as well as the Israeli authorities, to enable farmers in the Gaza Strip whose lands lie between 100-300 meter border area to access their lands again after 15 years.

"Now, farmers are here for the first time in 16 or 15 years for some; very close to the border to harvest the product of their work," he told Xinhua.

Sow said this is the final phase of an important project of the ICRC that started a few months ago when ICRC had to re-level the lands that were damaged during Israel's repetitive wars on Gaza.

He added that ICRC removed all the unexploded ordinances of war from the area and also ploughed the fields for the farmers, in an attempt to help them work their lands and make a living.

Gaza has been placed under a tight Israeli blockade since Islamic Hamas movement seized the territory by force in 2007.

In the recent six years, Israel and Hamas movement have been engaged in three major wars that claimed the lives of thousands of Palestinians and Israelis.

Israel launched a major war against Hamas in Gaza during the summer of 2014. The offensive killed around 2,200 Palestinians and wounded 11,000 others. Some 70 Israelis were killed during the conflict.

Although the cease-fire agreement that was reached after the war allows access up to 100 meters from the fence, Palestinian farmers complain that the no-go is still 300 meters, and that anyone going closer than 500 meters from the border is putting themselves in danger. Endit