High above Gaza City's war-scarred landscape, Ibrahim al-Dabba tends his hives, preserving a rare source of hope amid the devastation of the Israel-Hamas war.
Wearing protective netted hats and carrying metal bee smokers, al-Dabba and his sons carefully inspect rows of buzzing hives. As they lift each honeycomb frame, hundreds of bees swarm above the shattered neighborhood, creating a striking contrast in a city scarred by war.
The rooftop apiary is an unlikely setting, but for al-Dabba, who heads the Beekeepers Cooperative in the Gaza Strip, it has become a necessity.
He said the war that erupted in October 2023 devastated Gaza's beekeeping industry, destroying much of the territory's long-standing beekeeping tradition.
Ibrahim al-Dabba (L), head of the Beekeepers Cooperative in the Gaza Strip, tends to beehives with his sons on the roof of a destroyed building in Tel al-Hawa neighbourhood, where the displaced family has taken refuge, Gaza City, Palestine, Aug. 5, 2026. (AFP Photo)
