Israel’s killing of Palestinian farmers part of systematic policy to enforce starvation in Gaza
Damaged Gaza farmland
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reports on 22 August 2025:
The Israeli army’s deliberate killing of five Palestinian farmers while working on their land in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, reflects a recurring pattern and an ongoing systematic policy aimed at destroying any attempt to secure the minimum food supply through local production. This is part of Israel’s broader strategy to entrench starvation as a central tool in its ongoing genocide against Gaza’s population for the past 23 months.
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor’s field team documented the killing of the five farmers after an Israeli drone fired at least one missile at them around 9:00 a.m. on Thursday, 21 August, while they were working on farmland east of Asdaa Prison, west of Khan Younis, in southern Gaza.
The five victims, all from the same family, were identified as: Suleiman and Mohammed Jamal Darwish al-Astal, Mousa Abdullah al-Astal, Mahmoud Naif Mustafa al-Astal, and Mohammed Marwan Ahmad al-Astal.
Israel’s escalating attacks on food sources in Gaza come just as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) formally declared famine in Gaza Governorate for the first time ever. In its report issued today, Friday, 22 August 2025, the global IPC index stated: “After 22 months of continuous conflict, more than half a million people in Gaza face catastrophic conditions characterized by extreme hunger, dire poverty, and death.”
The IPC further warned that famine is expected to spread to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis by the end of September 2025 if current trends continue.
The killing of the five farmers is not an isolated incident but part of a consistent and deliberate policy. Over the past months, Israeli forces have killed or injured hundreds of Palestinian farmers, while systematically destroying or occupying Gaza’s farmland. Today, Israel controls over 93 per cent of Gaza’s agricultural land, approximately 178,000 dunams, through bombardments, bulldozing, and military occupation, effectively dismantling Gaza’s food production capacity and stripping civilians of their most basic means of survival.
Israeli forces intentionally target Palestinian farmers working in the few agricultural areas that have not yet been destroyed, using airstrikes, direct gunfire, and repeated shelling. This has turned farmlands into high-risk zones where the simple act of trying to secure food has become a deadly gamble.
Ongoing bombings and ground incursions have also prevented farmers from accessing lands that survived earlier destruction, while other areas remain unusable due to the lack of irrigation caused by power outages, the destruction of water wells, and shortages of fuel required to operate irrigation systems.
Available data reveals the enormous scale of destruction inflicted by Israel on Gaza’s agricultural sector:
1,218 agricultural wells have been destroyed and rendered completely inoperative.
Planted vegetable areas have shrunk from 93,000 dunams to around 4,000 dunams only.
Over 85 per cent of greenhouses have been destroyed.
This amounts to the total collapse of Gaza’s food production system.