GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Strawberry season in the Gaza Strip comes to an end at the end of May. Some farmers in the village of Um al-Nasser in the northern part of Gaza, who started planting strawberries in December 2016, seem quite satisfied with this first-of-a-kind experience. They exported their strawberries into the West Bank and Israel and sold them in local markets.

The introduction of new crops was part of the project to reclaim desert or sandy land in the village, which the municipality first launched in cooperation with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in 2014.

The project aims to make these lands suitable for agriculture and then rent them to unemployed citizens from the village. An individual rents 2 dunams (0.5 acre) for an amount not exceeding $100 per year, a step that helps alleviate unemployment, which stands at about 41.7% in Gaza, according to a 2016 survey by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. In addition, the project allows residents to take advantage of state-owned border areas in a way that economically benefits citizens and the homeland.

In this context, Audi Abu Gharat, a farmer who participated in strawberry planting this year, told Al-Monitor, “I was unemployed and so were my sons, but once the project was launched we immediately registered to participate and we received 2 dunams each.”