Politics of Food in the Arab–Israeli Conflict

Food has served both as a material necessity affected by conflict and as a vehicle for expressing national affiliation: boycotts target manufacturers and consumer purchases, while culinary campaigns attach political meaning to the names and presentation of dishes.[1][2] Agricultural production and food provision also formed part of Zionist settlement and Israeli development, including rural communities, technological innovation, and efforts to feed the population of the early state.[3]

Israeli and Palestinian food economies are interconnected rather than wholly separate: a 2013 study found integrated wholesale markets for major traded foods and rapid adjustment of deviations from their price equilibria.[7] Conflict-related movement restrictions could temporarily separate those markets, with consequences for consumers on either side depending on the direction of trade.[7] A 2024 review similarly linked Israeli and Palestinian food security through shared water resources, an arid climate, agricultural connections, and cross-border fruit and vegetable trade.[8]

Culinary identity operates across these economic and political connections: Israeli cuisine combines traditions brought by Jewish immigrants from more than 80 countries with regional ingredients and influences, including Middle Eastern foods and Eastern European Jewish dishes.[9] Palestinian citizens of Israel also maintain and adapt food traditions within a shared but politically tense cultural setting, with women shaping household food culture and selectively incorporating Jewish cooking practices and kitchen technologies.[10]

Some Zionist immigrants arriving from the mid-19th century chose agricultural work and established rural settlements, introducing modern techniques and collective forms including kibbutzim and moshavim.[3] Private Jewish buyers owned 75 percent of the land purchased by new Jewish immigrants by 1914, while national Jewish organizations became central to financing settlement during the 1920s.[3] Palestinian Arab rural farming was often oriented toward subsistence and faced drought, intermittent rainfall, locusts, war, debt, and limited cultivable land and water; citrus nevertheless provided an important cash crop.[3]

A 1939 account by Gershon Agronsky described the Arab rural economy as weakened by World War I destruction, poor crop years in the early 1930s, the 1936–39 disturbances, a six-month strike, and a boycott that reduced access to Jewish buyers.[11] Agronsky estimated that £1.2 million in agricultural goods remained unsold, contributing to falling prices and debt. He also estimated that no more than half of Arab farmers could work their farms in 1939, citing requisitioning by terrorist bands, loss of seed and work animals, and government collective fines totaling at least £500,000.[11]

Agricultural development continued into the Israeli period. Drip irrigation, shade-house agriculture, aquaponics, and fertilizers derived from Dead Sea minerals formed part of an emerging Zionist and Israeli agricultural transformation.[3]

The Arab League’s economic boycott preceded Israeli independence and initially targeted Jewish and Zionist products; after 1948, it developed into direct restrictions on trade with Israel and secondary and tertiary restrictions on companies connected to Israeli commerce.[12] A Central Boycott Office was established in Damascus in 1951.[13] The boycott weakened during the 1980s and following the beginning of the Oslo process in 1993, with secondary and tertiary provisions somewhat relaxed after the Oslo Accords and the Israel–Jordan peace treaty.[12][14]

In March 1948, the road connecting Jewish Jerusalem with the coastal area was blocked, preventing food and other supplies from reaching the city and prompting rationing of remaining food and water.[15] Small-plane airdrops could not meet the population’s needs; surviving photographs show food-ration bags, people scavenging in rubbish, and a woman exchanging half a loaf of bread for water.[4] During the War of Independence, Operation Nahshon sought to open the Jerusalem road, while Operation Dani captured Lod and Ramle in July as part of the fighting over the Jerusalem corridor.[16]

The first Burma Road convoy reached Jerusalem on June 1, 1948, carrying food and other supplies in 17 vehicles along a route bypassing the forces blocking the regular road.[17] Supply movements increased from 12 tons nightly in early June to 100 tons nightly by the month’s end.[17] Food convoys during both 1948 truces operated under international supervision, requiring negotiations, continuous monitoring, and escorts; apart from some early sniping, the arrangements worked effectively.[18] Attempts to restore water through the main pipelines were unsuccessful after the destruction of the Latrun pumping station.[18]

Relief needs extended beyond Jerusalem: a contemporary estimate identified approximately 360,000 Arab refugees and 7,000 Jewish refugees in Palestine and neighboring states as requiring assistance.[18] Many were infants, children, pregnant women, or nursing mothers, and losses of property and assets were expected to leave most dependent on host communities through the winter and the end of the 1949 harvest.[18] Relief responsibilities were envisaged as shared among international bodies, neighboring Arab states, Israel’s provisional government, specialized agencies, and humanitarian organizations.[18]

David Ben-Gurion’s government introduced the austerity policy known as tzena in spring 1949, initially rationing staple foods and basic commodities before extending controls to clothing and footwear.[19] Resource shortages and mass immigration—including Holocaust survivors and Jews from Arab and Islamic countries—were central circumstances behind the policy, which also promoted equality and modest consumption.[19] Adults, children, and infants received different quotas, with citizens registering at local groceries for personalized vouchers and food stamps under government supervision.[19]

Long queues and food-quality problems encouraged domestic improvisation, including eggplant in place of meat and powdered eggs instead of fresh eggs.[19] “Israeli couscous” was introduced for the multicultural population, while the canning industry expanded production of tomato products, hummus, tahina, and mayonnaise.[20] American food aid included dried eggs, skim milk, butter, dried codfish, and cheddar cheese; Israel’s chief rabbi permitted donated cheddar containing a small amount of non-kosher animal rennet for children up to age 14 amid severe childhood hunger.[20]

Worsening shortages helped a black market grow as merchants sold goods under the counter and consumers sold unwanted rations, prompting monitoring and searches.[19] Rationing preferences also reflected a predominantly Ashkenazi establishment and did not always accommodate Mizrahi immigrants’ food customs, which were sometimes stigmatized.[19] In a retrospective Sapir Journal essay, austerity is dated to 1949–59 and illustrated through reported daily allocations of 1,600 calories per person, monthly allowances of 750 grams of meat, 200 grams of cheese, and 12 eggs, and inspections of parcels and household iceboxes.[21]

In October 2000, the Palestinian Authority circulated a list of Israeli food manufacturers whose products were to be boycotted and banned from sale in its territory, including Tnuva, Elite, Osem, Strauss, and Telma.[22] The list focused on products with Palestinian-made alternatives and excluded beverage companies.[22] A further campaign adopted in 2010 initially targeted goods from Israeli settlements and industrial parks in the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria.[1] Prime Minister Salam Fayyad participated in publicly destroying settlement goods, while economy minister Hassan Abu Libdeh promoted local substitutes and volunteers encouraged households to avoid settlement products.[1]

During the summer 2014 Gaza war, the campaign broadened to Israeli goods made outside settlements, accompanied by stickers associating purchases with donations to Israel’s army.[1] In early 2015, Fatah-associated sources called for boycotting Tnuva, Strauss, Osem, Elite, Prigat, and Jafora-Tabori in response to the freeze in tax-revenue transfers to the Palestinian Authority.[1] A March 2015 poll found 85 percent support for boycotting Israeli goods, while 54 percent of respondents said they had stopped buying Tnuva and Strauss products.[1]

In March 2016, the Palestinian Authority formally announced a boycott of Tnuva, Strauss, Tara, Soglowek, and Jafora-Tabori after Israel’s Ministry of Agriculture barred goods from five Palestinian manufacturers from East Jerusalem markets.[1] Israel’s High Court of Justice revoked the ministry’s order three weeks later, after which the boycott ended.[1] Estimates placed the earlier boycott-related reduction in Israeli food manufacturers’ sales to the Palestinian Authority below 0.5 percent of industry revenue, while Palestinian consumers potentially faced higher prices for some local alternatives and replacement imports.[1]

These campaigns operated within an economic relationship structured by the 1994 Paris agreements, which treated Israel and the Palestinian Authority as a single economic unit and assigned Israel responsibilities for customs, tax collection, imports, and exports.[23] The protocol addressed agriculture and provided for gradually eliminating existing restrictions on agricultural produce exported from the territories to Israel, although not all restrictions were canceled.[23] By 2019, the joint economic committee had met only a few times, most recently in 2009.[23] The customs arrangement excluded a limited group of goods, mainly basic foods and imports from Arab states, to provide some Palestinian economic independence.[24]

Restrictions on transporting perishable produce have affected agricultural earnings as well as food availability: Palestinian agriculture minister Hikmat Zeid said in 2001 that roadblocks disrupted movement between towns and agricultural exports, forcing some export-designated produce into local markets at sharply reduced prices.[5] He placed seasonal exports at close to 450 tons daily, averaging $250 per ton, and estimated that forced local sales could produce losses exceeding $100 per ton.[5] Checks and transfers between Palestinian and Israeli trucks could also delay shipments until they no longer qualified for export.[5]

Palestinian ministry estimates for the period from the beginning of the al-Aqsa Intifada through January 2001 placed agricultural damage at $157 million, including $50 million in infrastructure damage.[5] The ministry alleged that 180,000 fruit trees had been felled and that nurseries, irrigation networks, and wells had been damaged, affecting 1,750 farmers.[5]

A 2020 study used qualitative research and geospatial mapping of Israeli and Palestinian date-palm expansion from 1999 to 2016 to examine changes in Jordan Valley land and water tenure.[25] It linked replacement of resident sharecroppers by seasonal labor to reduced livelihood, housing, and food security for family farmers.[25] In the 2024 olive harvest, farmer Khaled Muammar received three days’ permission to harvest approximately 300 trees near Battir after restrictions had also prevented regular plowing, fertilizing, and pruning.[26] He expected enough oil for about 15 sixteen-liter containers rather than the 40 of a good year, mainly for family use rather than sale.[26] Reported estimates placed the previous year’s unharvested Palestinian olive groves at 23,700 acres, with losses associated with inaccessible groves and reported violence exceeding 1,200 metric tons of olive oil.[26]

Efforts to expand Palestinian production included a $23 million Agricultural Cluster Program launched in 2019 to increase fruit and vegetable output and reduce reliance on Israeli fruit imports.[27] Plans for Qalqilya included $2.2 million for restoring artesian wells, preparing 5,000 dunums, planting 180,000 seedlings, increasing harvests by at least 7 percent, and creating 3,200 permanent jobs.[27] The Palestinian Authority planned to provide $4 million over three years, with most other funding expected from local and international partners.[27]

Movement restrictions affecting Gaza intensified from the early 1990s and increased after the 2000 intifada, the 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council elections, and Hamas’s 2007 takeover.[6] Israel and Egypt subsequently maintained strict crossing controls; Israel justified restrictions as preventing Hamas from rebuilding military capabilities, while the measures also limited commerce and delayed humanitarian assistance.[28] Post-2007 restrictions included bans on marketing and exporting goods from Gaza and severe limitations on civilian imports.[6]

A January 2008 food-needs calculation used an average daily requirement of 2,279 calories per person and included locally grown produce when estimating necessary imports.[29] Import rules distinguished necessities from nonessential goods, allowing frozen salmon and low-fat yogurt while excluding cilantro and instant coffee.[29] Israel substantially eased restrictions on consumer goods in 2010 after international pressure following the deadly Gaza-bound flotilla raid, but retained a naval blockade and restrictions on exports and materials such as cement and metals.[29][30]

By 2012, Kerem Shalom was Gaza’s sole cargo passage and handled approximately 4,500 truckloads monthly, compared with 2,500 before the 2010 flotilla raid and an average of 10,400 monthly through all crossings in 2005.[30] Israeli officials identified security checks as the principal constraint on cargo movements.[30] Controls increasingly focused on goods categorized as dual-use after restrictions on foodstuffs were lifted in 2010.[6] In 2014, Gaza growers of tomatoes, flowers, and strawberries exported overseas rather than selling in Israel, while farmers were barred from working a defined border security zone.[31] Additional restrictions on civilian goods followed tensions surrounding the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers.[31]

Food insecurity affected 47 percent of Gaza households in 2014, approximately 2.5 times the reported West Bank share.[6] Before October 2023, areas extending up to 1,000 feet from Gaza’s perimeter fence were described as no-go areas, with areas up to 3,300 feet considered high risk, discouraging cultivation.[32] Israel cited Hamas’s use of border and coastal restricted areas for attacks and weapons smuggling, as well as security concerns surrounding dual-use imports.[32]

On October 9, 2023, Israel’s defense minister announced a “complete siege” encompassing food, water, fuel, electricity, and other goods; Israel subsequently permitted limited aid through Rafah and Kerem Shalom under its approval procedures.[32] Limited fuel supplies were permitted from November 15 for specified humanitarian purposes, with Israel citing concerns about military use by armed groups.[32] Average daily truck entries, including food, fuel, and commercial goods, fell from approximately 500 before October 7 to fewer than 100 between October 7 and December 31.[32]

Gaza’s prewar supply combined local food manufacturing, agriculture, livestock, and imports.[33] During the war, damaged or inaccessible farmland curtailed agriculture, and electricity shortages largely stopped local food production, apart from bakeries gradually reopening.[33] Residents depended on existing stocks, remaining produce, aid, and international relief organizations, while Israel also began permitting private imports.[33] By October 25, reported food entry amounted to only 2 percent of the volume that would have entered before the closure, alongside damage to bakeries, grain mills, farmland, and water and sanitation infrastructure and electricity cuts affecting refrigeration and irrigation.[32]

December 2023 food-security monitoring found virtually all households skipping meals daily, with some northern and displaced southern households going days and nights without eating.[32] Adults often went hungry to allow children to eat, and inadequate food access was reported for 97 percent of households in northern Gaza and 83 percent in the south.[32] On March 28, 2024, the International Court of Justice observed that “famine is setting in” and ordered provisional measures requiring effective action, in cooperation with the UN, to enable aid at scale, increase land-crossing capacity, and prevent military obstruction of urgently needed assistance.[34]

A study using the daily Israeli shipment registry for January–July 2024 calculated 478,229 metric tons of food supplied after projected losses and an average of 3,004 kilocalories per person daily.[35] Estimated energy, protein, and fat entering Gaza exceeded Sphere standards after adjustment, although dietary iron did not; the study lacked reliable information on actual food access and consumption.[35] A separate planning article distinguished availability at entry from accessibility to households and likewise identified the absence of reliable distribution data.[36]

The January 19, 2025 ceasefire provided for 600 aid trucks daily.[37] Approximately 25,200 trucks entered during the ceasefire, including about 16,470 carrying roughly 338,676 tons of food.[38] After phase one ended on March 2 without negotiations on a second phase having taken place, an informal truce continued into mid-March while Israel renewed its aid blockade and cut electricity, demanding the immediate release of hostages scheduled for the second phase.[37]

By early May, projections placed more than half of Gaza’s population in emergency food insecurity and one-fifth in catastrophe or famine.[37] An April price survey found food prices averaging 50 percent above March, with increases reaching 740 percent relative to February ceasefire-period prices, alongside increased child-malnutrition screenings.[39] Plans for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation concentrated distribution at a limited number of southern sites under U.S. and Israeli supervision.[37]

An August 13, 2025 open letter by economists and academics warned of spreading starvation, cited a warning that nearly one-third of Gaza’s 2.1 million residents had gone multiple days without food, and claimed basic-food prices were ten times higher than three months earlier.[40] Its signatories alleged deadly crowding at the new distribution sites and argued that increased aid after July 26 remained insufficient.[40] By February 2026, markets were largely open and reported food prices had fallen approximately 11.5 percent in a month, but limited purchasing power remained an obstacle to recovery.[41] Agricultural access remained restricted across large areas, and some restaurants adapted to damaged infrastructure and uncertain deliveries by preparing food from that morning’s available flour, oil, and legumes rather than maintaining fixed menus.[41]

Restaurants identified as Mizrahi or Middle Eastern served Palestinian dishes, particularly grilled meats, and introduced many Israelis to hummus.[42] Some veteran Israelis associated Palestinian cuisine with locality, authenticity, and regional ingredients, making it a source for an emerging national food culture.[42] Palestinians introduced hummus to European immigrants in Israel during the 1950s, and it became standard army mess-hall fare by the late 1950s, alongside its consumption by Sephardic Jews, Arab Israelis, and other communities.[43]

Institutional settings initially gave Ashkenazi food particular prominence through transit-camp and school meals, army recipes, nutrition advice, and government-sponsored cookbooks.[42] Diverse cuisines brought by Jews from Arab countries were frequently grouped together as “Mizrahi cuisine,” while Ashkenazi-Israeli cooking was treated as simply “Israeli”; Palestinian dishes and foods associated with immigrants from Arab countries subsequently gained wider followings.[42]

A Jewish Review of Books essay interprets early post-independence cookbooks as promoting frugality, nutrition, hygiene, and inexpensive ingredients in the construction of national cuisine.[44] It links cooking with wild greens to foraging during Jerusalem’s 1948 siege and describes popular restaurants serving hummus, falafel, meat skewers, and salads as making simplified Middle Eastern fare simultaneously recognizable as Arab and authentically local Israeli food.[44] The review identifies later shifts toward international cuisines in 1980s cookbooks and immigrant communities’ ethnic cooking in the 1990s.[44]

Culinary nationalism became especially visible in the “Hummus Wars,” which combined record-breaking servings with assertions of national heritage.[2] In 2008, Lebanese industrialists campaigned over hummus, tabouli, falafel, and baba ghanoush; Fadi Abboud declared that calling hummus a traditional Israeli dish constituted “aggression.”[45] Lebanese chefs attempted the largest serving in 2009, followed by a record-setting batch made in Abu Gosh in January 2010 under Arab-Israeli restaurateur Jawdat Ibrahim; Lebanon reclaimed the record five months later with a 23,042-pound serving.[43]

Lebanon also sought European Union registration for hummus, while the Abu Gosh events placed Palestinian citizens of Israel in a mediating role within the wider competition.[2][43] The earliest identified written appearance of hummus is in a 13th-century Cairo cookbook, and the modern dish is associated broadly with the Middle East and western Asia.[46]

Integrated food markets mean that a closure intended to affect one population can also alter prices and consumer welfare across the boundary, making trade direction important to understanding its consequences.[7] Shared water and agricultural systems likewise connect food safety to differing wastewater-reuse rules, farming practices, and socioeconomic conditions.[8] Research on regional food security therefore recommends coordinated Israeli-Palestinian oversight of wastewater reuse, alongside attention to differences in food quality and contaminant exposure.[8]

Food also provides a setting in which national identity is negotiated through ordinary practices: Palestinian women in Israel maintain household traditions while adapting techniques and equipment, and hummus competitions make cultural heritage visible through public events and records.[10][2] The distinction between food entering a territory and food actually reaching households is equally important for evaluating humanitarian conditions, because shipment totals alone do not establish distribution, access, or consumption.[35][36]

The purpose and effects of Gaza food controls remain central disputes: Israeli officials described calorie calculations as safeguards against malnutrition, while critics argued that they limited imports and pressured civilians.[29] In 2010, Israel denied a humanitarian crisis while humanitarian assessments described worsening poverty, food insecurity, and aid dependence.[47] A Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs commentary emphasized weapons interdiction and continued humanitarian entry, while also recounting the September 2007 authorization of economic sanctions.[48]

After October 2023, human-rights groups characterized deprivation as collective punishment, while Israeli officials denied using hunger as a military tool.[32][33] Tammy Caner assessed the 2025 aid suspension as strategic leverage that worsened civilian suffering, but not as a deliberate starvation policy.[38] Israel’s High Court ruled on March 30, 2025 that petitioners had not proved starvation, expressly excluding the period after the complete aid halt.[39] An October international advisory opinion subsequently held that Gaza was inadequately supplied and that Israel must ensure basic needs.[49] Israel rejected that opinion and cited alleged UNRWA terror activity; UNRWA rejected infiltration allegations, which the court found unsubstantiated.[49] The March 2024 measures were provisional, not a final judgment in the underlying case.[34]

Cultural interpretations also differ: Ronald Ranta and Yonatan Mendel describe marginalization and appropriation of Palestinian contributions, while another scholarly account emphasizes changing gastronomic and economic processes rather than an inevitable trajectory of appropriation.[50][51] In a Sapir interview, Michael Solomonov emphasizes regional, hybrid foods while acknowledging Palestinian heritage and the legitimacy of identifying food as Palestinian.[52] Ilan Zvi Baron argues that exclusively Israeli labeling can erase Arab and Palestinian claims, while cautioning that regional cuisines do not map neatly onto nations.[53] Neither these interpretations nor nationalist campaigns establish exclusive origins for shared dishes.[46][53]