Israel Destroys Palestine’s Last Surviving Seed Bank, Echoing a Colonial Legacy of Erasure
On July 31, 2025, Israeli forces bulldozed the seed‑multiplication unit of the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC’s) seed bank in Hebron. Built from the ground up beginning in 2010, the unit had served as the only seed bank in the West Bank, safeguarding over 70 varieties of indigenous heirloom seeds, many of which no longer exist elsewhere in Palestine, according to Fouad Abu Saif, UAWC’s director general.
According to a press release by the UAWC, the devastation was swift and unannounced, with bulldozers and heavy machinery reducing into ruins the tools, propagation materials, and infrastructure essential to food sovereignty, constituting “a direct blow to Palestinian efforts to preserve local biodiversity and ensure food sovereignty.”