Why Gaza's flowers are no longer in bloom
Gaza's flower exports had continued to grow since the 1990s, until it ran into the winter of the Israeli siege.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — When Ghazi Hijazi started to grow flowers nearly three decades ago on two dunams (0.49 acres) of land in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, he thought it was the opportunity of a lifetime and a legacy to leave his eight sons.
The farmer allocated two dunams of his land to flowers in 1991. By 2000, he had begun using 40 dunams (approximately 10 acres) to plant carnations. “My father expanded the farm every year. We worked with him,” one of his sons, Mohammad Hijazi, told Al-Monitor. “We had around 25 workers helping us, and during the harvest season of carnations, which begins in December and ends in June, we would hire more so we could quickly prep the flowers for export.”
