Israeli forces have attacked a seed bank in the West Bank city of Hebron, destroying equipment used to reproduce heirloom seeds, according to the group managing the facility. The attack comes as an Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip has fueled widespread hunger in the enclave.
On July 31, members of the Israeli military used bulldozers and other heavy machinery to demolish storage facilities at the Hebron seed bank, according to the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC).
The bank was established in 2003 to preserve hardy strains of local crops, those especially resistant to disease and harsh weather. It houses varieties of tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants, zucchini, and other seeds gathered from farms in the West Bank and Gaza.
In 2021, Israel named the UAWC a terrorist group, a designation that neither the U.N. nor the EU has endorsed, and shuttered its offices in Ramallah. The recent attack on the Hebron seed bank represents a “grave escalation” by Israeli forces, according to the UAWC.
“The destruction was carried out without warning, under military protection,” the group said in a statement. “Destroying a national seed bank is an act of erasure, intended to sever the generational ties between farmers and their land.”
In other conflict zones, in Ukraine and Sudan, seed banks have been looted or attacked, Yale Environment 360 recently reported. Scientists in these countries have rushed to preserve rare seeds — which may be needed to grow resilient crops in a warming world — by sending recovered samples to the Global Seed Vault in Svalbard, Norway.
In October, the UAWC deposited seeds from 21 varieties of vegetables, legumes, and herbs in the so-called “doomsday vault” in Svalbard. It said the deposit was part of its “strategy to protect Palestinian crops from the threat of confiscation and deliberate vandalism.”
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