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These growers include Taysir Dahdouh, whose farm in the Zeytun neighbourhood, east of Gaza City, is a little smaller than a football pitch.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His land was once covered with greenhouses, but they\u2019ve been destroyed or lost during the conflict that erupted on 7 October 2023. Today, he needs tools, seeds, fertilizer and water to grow the cucumbers and tomatoes he used to.<\/p>\n Alessandro Mrakic, Head of the Gaza Office for the UN Development Programme (UNDP), told UN News\u2019s<\/em> correspondent in the enclave that families who had once lived in one heavily bombed area had had to move multiple times before returning.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe have provided 200 relief housing units to provide shelter to the families who came back and started, as you see behind me, agriculture \u2013 started producing eggplants, tomatoes, molokhia, among others,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The UN\u2019s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Thursday it has scaled up its cash assistance programme to help around 1,500 Palestinian farmers cultivate land across Gaza during the 2026 planting season, enough to produce fresh vegetables for more than 100,000 people.<\/p>\n But FAO warned that farmers \u201care squeezed into rapidly shrinking space\u201d amid ongoing Israeli military activity, and it is calling for access to land, sea and production inputs including seeds, fertilizers, irrigation equipment and fishing gear<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Elsewhere, Deputy Special Coordinator for the peace process Ramiz Alakbarov welcomed new commitments worth almost $58 million from eight Member States to the UN Horizon Fund, and called on further partners to join the initiative.\u00a0<\/p>\n The World Food Programme (WFP) said people forced to move within Gaza risk losing access to basic services and called for safe access to reach those in need; despite the obstacles, it and its partners reached more than a quarter of a million people across 36 distribution sites in the first 12 days of this month.<\/p>\n Humanitarian partners also distributed more than 5,440 educational kits to support around 217,600 children during summer learning activities.<\/p>\n Turning to the West Bank, a high-level delegation led by aid coordination office OCHA visited Deir Nidham village<\/strong> in the Ramallah governorate on Wednesday, meeting Palestinian families affected by settler violence and the expansion of settlement outposts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n Taysir Dahdouh, a Palestinian farmer, works on his farmland, which was rehabilitated following the ceasefire in Gaza.<\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n200 new homes<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Not enough space<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\n Children play and swim at Gaza City’s beach to escape the intense summer heat.<\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\nSummer respite<\/strong><\/h2>\n