In Gaza, flowers were once part of life.
Farmers woke before sunrise to tend fields filled with damask roses, carnations and gladioli stretching across the southern plains of Rafah.
Before the war, the territory exported more than 60 million flowers annually, said Mohammed Abu Odeh, spokesman for Gaza’s Ministry of Agriculture. Its roses were known for their bright colours, long stems and quality that rivalled international competitors.
They adorned weddings, birthdays, engagements and graduations. Men carried bouquets to their wives. Young people saved small amounts of money to buy roses for loved ones.
Today, those flowers are gone.
The fields that once coloured Gaza in shades of red, pink and white have been bulldozed into dust. The greenhouses are destroyed. The flower shops stand in ruins. And for the first time in decades, there is not a single natural flower being grown in Gaza.
For many Palestinians in the enclave, the disappearance of flowers is not simply an agricultural loss. It represents the collapse of beauty, tradition and ordinary life.
“We grew some of the best roses in the world,” said Abdulrahman Hijazi, 29, a flower farmer from Rafah. Before the war, his family cultivated 0.7 hectares of land in Moraj, southern Gaza, producing flowers for export to Europe, the Gulf and Jordan.
“Our flowers competed with international roses,” he told The National. “People around the world waited for them.”
Mr Hijazi grew up surrounded by flowers. His father and grandfather were known across Gaza for rose farming and he inherited not only the profession but also an emotional attachment to the land and its colours.
At 27, he dreamt of marriage and imagined picking flowers from his own fields for the woman he loved. Instead, he was displaced by war.
Ten months ago, he married Nasreen Abu Madi inside a displacement tent in Mawasi, Khan Younis. Despite searching desperately, he could not find a single natural flower for the wedding.
“That hurt me deeply,” he said. “I was a flower farmer, yet I couldn’t give my wife one rose.”
Mr Abu Odeh said Israel has destroyed 100 per cent of Gaza’s flower-growing areas, erasing an agricultural identity that existed for decades.
Sense of devastation
The absence of flowers has changed Gaza visually and emotionally.
In neighbourhoods already flattened by bombardment, the disappearance of greenery and colour deepens the sense of devastation. Streets once lined with flower displays outside small shops are now covered in concrete dust, shattered buildings and grey tents.
Flowers in Gaza were never merely considered luxury items, they were woven into social life.
Mohammed Abu Mansour, 34, once owned flower shops in Jabalia refugee camp in the north of the Gaza Strip. He and his brothers designed bouquets and decorated weddings. He says Gaza’s people cared deeply about these details, especially in recent years as social media encouraged new wedding trends and celebrations.
“Even someone with only 20 shekels [$6.80] could buy a small bouquet for a special occasion,” Mr Abu Mansour told The National. Today, that same amount cannot buy even one artificial flower.
Natural flowers are no longer available in Gaza’s markets, and imports of both natural and artificial flowers have largely stopped since the war began. Most remaining stock was damaged inside warehouses during bombardments.
The shortage has transformed celebrations. Couples getting married now often pose with rented artificial bouquets because buying them outright is too expensive. Shop owners rent flowers for a few hours so families can take photographs before returning them.
“It sounds unbelievable,” Mr Abu Mansour said, “but people now rent flowers because they can no longer afford to own them.”
After a temporary ceasefire, delayed weddings and birthday celebrations resumed, creating renewed demand for flowers. Mr Abu Mansour reopened a tiny shop in Deir Al Balah, trying to rebuild from nothing after losing all his outlets in northern Gaza.
But even there, colour feels fragile. “The war has not only changed Gaza’s skyline, it has changed its palate,” he said.
