Forsaken Israeli farms cling to life in evacuation zone

In an abandoned kibbutz in Israel’s evacuation zone near the Lebanese border, Lior Shelef has stayed behind to keep watch as a reservist in a protection force. He still tends the cows and chickens, even as Hezbollah rockets keep coming closer.

The chicken coops had been damaged in a rocket attack and the frequent sound of explosions panics the animals.

“We don’t know what will happen tomorrow. We don’t know if the day will escalate to be worse or better,” he said.

More than 2,000 rockets have been fired from Lebanon into northern Israel since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, when Lebanon’s Hezbollah group launched attacks in support of Hamas Islamists.

About 100,000 Israelis have had to evacuate from the area around the northern border, as have tens of thousands of Lebanese from communities on the opposite side.

The evacuation has turned some of Israel’s most productive farming communities into ghost towns, like Kibbutz Snir, which rears cows and chickens and grows avocados and some vegetables 3km from the Lebanese border.

Shelef said suppliers were not coming into the area due to the bombardments, making it hard for the skeleton staff to keep the farm fully functioning.

Israel’s northern region accounts for a third of the country’s agricultural land, and about 73% of its domestic egg production is concentrated in the Galilee and Golan regions, the ministry of agriculture & rural development said.

Parts of southern Israel near the Gaza Strip have also been evacuated since Hamas fighters burst across the border on October 7, the event that precipitated the war. Greenhouses and dairy farms have been damaged, a hit to an agriculture sector that is the pride of a country founded on dreams of making the desert bloom.

In February the farm ministry said it would lift duties on imported eggs to meet needs for the Jewish festival of Passover in April, forecasting a drop in local production due in part to the security situation.