Gaza farmer returns to the grapevines he couldn’t bear to abandon

Gaza City, Gaza Strip - It's 4am, and Gaza is still dark and quiet. But Khaled Abu Madeen has a routine, one that he has recently picked up again after being forced to abandon it over nearly three years of war.

He walks between the rows of grapevines in Sheikh Ijlin, in the southwestern corner of Gaza City, alongside his workers, checking the fruit and cutting bunches from the vines that have survived Israel's genocidal war.

The early morning air is cooler. The first light begins to spread across the vineyard, revealing rows of green that, for a time, Khaled feared he might never see again.

For Khaled, who is 50, this year is more than a harvest. It is the return of a life he thought he had lost.

“I feel like I have returned to my soul,” he says, as he works among the vines.

His family has cultivated grapes and figs in Sheikh Ijlin for generations. The land was inherited from his father and grandfather, and Khaled eventually made farming his full-time profession, leaving behind a career in project management.

Then, in October 2023, the war began. Khaled had the opportunity to leave. His wife is Lebanese-Italian, and Khaled himself had previously studied in Italy, earning an undergraduate and a postgraduate degree.

Moving to safety in Italy made sense. But that would mean abandoning his vineyards, and Khaled couldn't do it.