The Genocidal Practice of Destroying Palestinian Agricultural Heritage

On July 31st of this year, Israeli bulldozers rolled through Hebron in search of one thing to destroy: Palestine’s only surviving national seed bank, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees’ seed multiplication facility. Hours after arriving, the bulldozers had succeeded in their goal of laying waste to the facility; propagation materials were scattered, infrastructure was demolished, and generations of Palestinian agricultural heritage were reduced to rubble.

In the independent media outlet Truthout’s article “Israel’s Attacks on Seed Banks Destroy Millennia of Palestinian Cultural Heritage,” Ilā Ravichandran, who is an academic, activist, artist, urban grower, and seed saver, writes about how the Union of Agricultural Work Committees’ seed facility “housed over 70 baladi (heirloom) seed varieties, many of which no longer exist elsewhere, that Palestinian farmers had cultivated over centuries.” The seeds in this seed bank, like the seeds in many Indigenous American seed banks, were living libraries of Palestinian agricultural knowledge. 

The destruction of this particular seed bank was not an accident. It was intentional. It was a deliberate attempt by the Israeli government to stop Palestinians from being able to grow their own food, both in the present and in the future. Food sovereignty – which is defined by the U.S. Food Sovereignty Alliance as the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods – has long been important in the lives of Indigenous peoples around the globe. Here in the U.S., Indigenous food sovereignty is important because it allows Indigenous peoples to resist colonial influences by producing their traditional foods on their own lands in order to sustain themselves and their communities. Food is a huge part of a lot of Indigenous cultures, and the food systems of today are detrimental to the health of Native peoples in a variety of ways.

Once lost, Indigenous seed varieties cannot be recreated. This is due to the fact that Indigenous seed varieties represent thousands of years of co-evolution between plants, soil, the climate, and humans. According to Ravichandran, “their destruction constitutes a temporal amputation – the severing of a community’s ability to reproduce itself across generations.” Destroying Indigenous seed banks – whether they be located in the U.S. or in Palestine – is a deliberate act of cultural genocide as well as ecocide. Ecocide, which is not a term many may know, is legally defined as “unlawful or wanton acts committed with the knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long term-damage to the environment.”

Palestinian agriculture – much like Indigenous American agriculture – has always represented a form of resistance against oppression. Traditional Palestinian farming practices, which according to Ravichandran “integrated olive groves with wheat, barley, legumes, and tree crops in polycultures that maximized both biodiversity and resilience,” sustained Palestinian communities for millennia – even in the face of apartheid and colonialism. These farming practices continue to sustain Palestinian communities today, even though settlers consistently threaten the livelihoods of Palestinian farmers and regularly destroy crops such as olive trees.

Speaking of the destruction of olive trees, in August of this year, the Israeli Occupation Forces uprooted 3,000 olive trees in al-Mughayyir – a village that is located near the West Bank city of Ramallah. The destruction of olive trees by the IOF is nothing new. The Land Research Center, a Palestinian NGO that focuses on the “protection, consolidation, and development of Palestinians and their lands, habitats, life styles, and capacities in standing up against the Israeli plan of forcible displacement,” has reported that since October 2023, the IOF, as well as Israeli settlers, have destroyed over 52,300 olive trees in the West Bank alone.

Even though the Israeli government has long sought to wipe out Palestinian culture, the truth is that the Palestinian people will continue to persevere. My hope is that someday, there will be more olive trees in Palestine than ever before and new Indigenous seed varieties that Palestinian communities will be able to plant and take care of for centuries. I believe that in the future, Palestinians will be able to reconnect with their ancestral lands via Indigenous seeds, which are a major part of Palestinian agricultural heritage. Honestly, it is my hope that one day, all Indigenous peoples will be free from the violence that comes from the destruction of Indigenous agriculture and foodways by colonial forces. 

Sources:

Ecocide Law. Ecocide Law, ecocidelaw.com/. Accessed 4 Sept. 2025. 

Fitt, Elizabeth. “Gaza and West Bank Farmers Salvage Olive Harvest amid Displacement, Destruction and Israeli Settler Violence.” Mongabay Environmental News, 5 Mar. 2025, news.mongabay.com/2025/03/gaza-and-west-bank-farmers-salvage-olive-harvest-amid-displacement-destruction-and-israeli-settler-violence/.

Ravichandran, Ilā. “Israel’s Attacks on Seed Banks Destroy Millennia of Palestinian Cultural Heritage.” Truthout, Truthout, 3 Sept. 2025, truthout.org/articles/israels-attacks-on-seed-banks-destroy-millenia-of-palestinian-cultural-heritage/.

USFSA. “Food Sovereignty.” USFSA, usfoodsovereigntyalliance.org/what-is-food-sovereignty/. Accessed 4 Sept. 2025.