Hamas massacre on Gaza border left Israeli farmers on brink of collapse

The sky above Meshek Michaeli (Michaeli’s Organic Farm) is unseasonably blue for December. The sun is beating down on the more than 40 hectares of land that David “Dudu” Michaeli and his family have been farming for 20 years – about three kilometers from the Gaza border.

His father ran the same family farm in Gush Katif for 20 years before the Disengagement. Michaeli’s three siblings and his two oldest children (of six) are also involved in the farm.

Before October 7, he supervised a workforce of around 120 laborers and coordinated the growing, harvesting, and delivery of upwards of 40 crops – red and yellow peppers, kohlrabi, cabbage, celery, tomatoes, parsley, and clementines.

“Today,” he tells The Jerusalem Post, “I cannot sleep at night. I cannot manage. Everything is falling apart.”

On the morning of the Hamas massacre, Michaeli was at home with his family in Ashkelon when the rockets started coming down. He immediately phoned his foreign workers on the farm, located meters from Kibbutz Zikim.

“We were in shock,” he recalls. “There were terrorists on our fence. A terrorist at the entrance had been shot and killed. They came in. There were bodies here [on the farm] for 10 days.”

Despite the ongoing security situation, Michaeli visited his farm on Saturday night and Sunday morning, October 8. The stench of death infiltrated his farm, mixed with the smell of burnt hopes and dreams. A rocket or artillery shell from Gaza sparked a blaze in Michaeli’s storage sheds, burning everything inside and charring several adjacent greenhouses.

The walls of the sheds are the suffocating color of rust. The greenhouses are lined with ashes – gray and sad. Shriveled peppers lie lifeless on the ground.

“We lost NIS 3 million in one day,” Michaeli says, his head hung low. “You see that machine? Melted. It cost me 260,000 euros.”

Michaeli says the farm struggles to stay open, operating at between 5% and 15%. His family has embarked on a fundraising campaign, but he is competing with dozens of other farms and thousands of different needs across Israel. There are days he does not even open his packaging facility. Before the war, he moved at least three truckloads of produce daily to Israel’s top markets.

How does he live? “I don’t,” he tells the Magazine. “This is not living. My phone rings all day, and I no longer know which calls to answer. I am naturally optimistic, but I don’t know what to say today. I have no idea where I will be in six months.”

He says the government has yet to give him any compensation or support. And he warns of a food insecurity “catastrophe” for Israel if something does not change fast.

“There will be no vegetables and fruit,” Michaeli says. “I have no idea where the food will come from.”

He says, “When they kicked us out of Gush Katif, people held signs that read ‘Our brothers, return home.’ Well, we returned home. Now, where are our brothers?”

No one to work in the fields

The Hamas attacks have cost Israel’s farming communities around $500 million in lost income, according to ReGrow Israel, a new farmers’ fund powered by Volcani International Partnerships and Mishkei Hanegev.

The organization says that some 40,000 hectares of agricultural land were affected by the massacre, with damages including stolen and destroyed farming equipment and infrastructure; compacted soil, reducing productivity; field crops being trampled; and loss of labor in the range of about 7,000 foreign workers who fled the country.

A survey of 389 farmers released last month by the Migal Galilee Research Institute found that nearly all Israeli farmers from all regions of the country have experienced disruptions to their operations since the October 7 Hamas massacre and the start of the Gaza war.

Specifically, the survey showed that some 89% of farmers had experienced some form of damage to their farms, and almost all (96%) expect to experience additional harm in the coming three months.

When asked what their top challenges were, 52% said disruptions to the workforce, 16% said market disruptions, and 11% said physical access to their farms.

Moreover, 75% of farmers estimate a loss of agricultural production – the average loss is estimated at 35%, according to the survey. However, in the Gaza area, the average loss is estimated at 70%.

Adam Abramson, a research group leader in agricultural economics at Migal and the survey’s initiator, tells The Jerusalem Post that “When October 7 happened, the weak points in the chain were stressed. Some things broke. Some things bent. And some things are okay. What broke first was the workforce on the farm.”

According to the survey, some 72% of farmers said they were experiencing disruptions to their workforce because of foreign workers had fled the country, Israeli farm workers were called up to reserves, or the lack of Palestinian labor from the West Bank. According to HaShomer HaChadash, around 5,000 Palestinians worked on Israeli farms before the war.

“We do not have people to work in the fields, and when you do not have workers you do not have food at the end of the day,” says On Rifman, co-founder and vice president of education for HaShomer HaChadash. “Israel will become more and more dependent on tomatoes from Turkey and other countries.”

To help answer the need, the organization has spearheaded a volunteering initiative, delivering some 70,000 volunteers (around 3,200 a day) to Israeli farms since the start of the war. In partnership with Bezeq International, it launched a program with 30 staff members answering volunteer calls and triaging the people into the fields.

The organization is working closely with high schools, such as getting approval from the Education Ministry for students to volunteer with their classes for up to five days. A new grant from the Agriculture Ministry recently agreed to provide subsidies to help arrange buses for student volunteers.

In addition, HaShomer HaChadash has raised money from all over the world to help fuel the program, and it is working with volunteers of all ages and from dozens of countries. Rifman says it has been inspiring.

“There were Jews from France who bought airline tickets, flew to Ben-Gurion Airport, got on a bus, stayed at a youth hostel in Bedouin-style tents, and then went out and volunteered and worked hard,” Rifman says.

“It was so emotional to see these people who put their lives on hold in France and come especially to help Israel.”

On Tuesday, Taiwanese Ambassador Abby Ya-ping Lee and 15 embassy staffers volunteered at the Rishpon farm near Herzylia.

“It is important for people to connect to the land and humanity during these challenging times,” the ambassador says. In addition, she explains that volunteering helps draw Israel and Taiwan closer together.

“We always feel there are a lot of similarities between Taiwan and Israel,” Lee says.

“Both countries are shining democracies in their respective regions. We are called the beacon of democracy in Asia, and Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. We also share our innovative spirits and a deep-rooted friendship.

“We want to demonstrate to our Israeli friends that they have a friend in Taiwan and me.”

At the same time on Tuesday, on Michaeli’s farm, around 100 volunteers worked in various parts of the establishment.

Mozes Pines from Pardess Hanna, who has helped organize volunteers from his northern region, was in the strawberry greenhouse.

“When everything started, after two weeks I understood there was a need to come help and volunteer; since then, I have been here twice a week in the Gaza border communities supporting the farmers,” he says. “This is my seventh week.”

He says that he is not scared, even as the sounds of Israeli rocket fire consistently burst and boom in the background. The first time, some volunteers jumped. But within minutes, it has become a familiar sound.

“What we are seeing here is a big hug from the people of Israel to this area that was hurt the most,” Pines says. “I think the fact that Israelis are not afraid to come and help gives the farmers a lot of strength. I am optimistic that they will rise.

“These farms are our backbone of agriculture in Israel, and we must keep them going,” he asserts.

An older woman from central Israel is picking weeds from the strawberry beds. While she does not want to disclose her name or exact age, she says she is old enough to take the train for free, which means she is over 75.

“It is much better to come here to work than watch it on TV,” she says. “It is also wonderful exercise.”

She demonstrates what it looks like when there is a red alert, and they all have to go from kneeling to lying flat in seconds.

“It stretches out the back,” she chuckles.

A pair of new French immigrants is also on hand. Both are retired; he was the CEO of a hi-tech company, and she was in education. When the war started, they determined to volunteer as often as possible. They love to work in the greenhouses.

“Our therapy is to donate to the country,” says Maurice Belais. “All of the kids and grandkids are proud of us.”

But Yossef Paz says he can feel the pain in the ground that he is working.

“Until two months ago, we had the legitimacy to enjoy our abundance. That all changed on October 7,” he says. “I am grateful I am here and can give some of my energy to the field, the land that needs it, and all the community and my people that need it too.”

Richard Peres from Beit Shemesh organizes the volunteers for Michaeli’s farm. He says before it started to rain, they could get as many as 200 to 250 people on hand a day. Now, that number is closer to 100.

“When I got here, the farm had been sitting dormant for a month; everything was overgrown and dying,” Peres shows the volunteers. “Look, now you can see that the land is flowering. It just takes hard work, and look what happens.”

He says that the farm appreciates the volunteers – many from abroad, and some who even stay on the farm. The Michaelis provide coffee, fresh salads, and soups for the teams who arrive and work hard to ensure that they feel what a difference they are making.

However, the challenge is that they cannot make up for the 120 trained workers who served at Michaeli’s before. Both Peres and Michaeli admit that volunteers are not a long-term solution.

Keeping the next generation inspired

“The worst thing would be if the farmers gave up,” says Rifman.

“Agriculture is essential to humanity – we have to breathe and eat. We need to make sure that our farmers feel secure and that they know the nation is behind them so we can continue to have healthy food,” he continues. “The body needs cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers.”

He also says there is a growing contingent of the next generation interested in farming, and it is essential that even after October 7, they stay inspired.

“I did not realize how important agriculture was in this country until I came here,” adds Peres. “All of Israel lives on the agriculture that is happening in the Gaza border communities. If anyone at the top does not understand that, they should not be at the top.”

In Abramson’s survey, he asked an open-ended question, seeking ideas from the farmers to ease their pain. He received answers like the following:

1. Define food security as a national priority.
2. Reduce barriers to marketing and allow direct marketing.
3. Subsidize Israeli workers.
4. Reduce the price of water and subsidize other inputs, such as pesticides.
5. Create a logistical center or packing house for produce, with quality checking.
6. Fund shelters for farm workers in the fields
7. Reduce the bureaucracy for the establishment of greenhouses.

“I think this is an opportunity to build something new and better and to learn where the problems were and are,” Abramson says. “Hopefully, from this we can have a stronger agricultural system in the next six to 18 months – whatever that looks like.” 