The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has sounded the alarm over a catastrophic rise in food prices across the Gaza Strip, holding Israel’s systematic destruction and seizure of agricultural land responsible for what it called an “unprecedented humanitarian collapse.”

In a statement released Friday, UNRWA said that nearly all of Gaza’s once-fertile farmlands have been either destroyed, burned, or rendered inaccessible by Israeli forces, depriving thousands of Palestinian families of their only source of livelihood. After two years of relentless bombardment, siege, and deliberate targeting of Gaza’s food infrastructure, the territory now faces one of the most severe food crises in its history.

“Farmers who once sustained entire communities with their produce now stand amid scorched fields and demolished irrigation systems,” the statement read. “This destruction has not only stripped families of income but has also pushed the prices of basic goods beyond the reach of ordinary Palestinians.”

According to UNRWA, the price of basic vegetables has reached staggering levels, symbolizing the economic devastation gripping Gaza. “A kilo of tomatoes that once cost 60 cents now costs $15 – if found at all,” the agency reported on its official X page, highlighting the scale of hunger and deprivation spreading across the besieged enclave.

UNRWA further emphasized that Israel’s deliberate targeting of Gaza’s agricultural heartlands – including greenhouses, orchards, and water wells – is part of a broader strategy aimed at making the Strip uninhabitable. “The destruction of farmland is not an unintended consequence of conflict,” one UN official said, “but a deliberate act to starve and subdue an entire population.”

The agency called for an immediate, unrestricted flow of humanitarian aid and urgent international efforts to rebuild Gaza’s agricultural sector, which once provided food security to more than two million Palestinians. “Without the restoration of farmland and freedom of movement for aid and goods,” the statement warned, “Gaza’s population faces the prospect of chronic hunger.”

UNRWA reiterated that the current crisis is a man-made disaster, rooted in Israel’s continued blockade and military aggression. “The world cannot remain silent as Gaza is starved into submission,” it said, urging the international community to hold Israel accountable for violations of international humanitarian law and to act swiftly to alleviate the suffering of the Palestinian people. (ILKHA)