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Amid war, food rescue group switches from relying on farmers’ generosity to helping them survive
Yariv Hagbi, a farmer whose family has been growing produce in the area of southern Israel near Gaza for generations, spent part of Oct. 7 fighting terrorists who broke into his family home in the town of Yakhini.
That Saturday, his brother, Yizhar Hagbi, and several other relatives were killed. Since then, the entire community of Yakhini has been displaced, but Hagbi stayed behind because he’s determined to save the family farm — despite all the grief, shock and devastation.
“At a certain point, you have to get back to life,” Hagbi said.
A range of produce grows at Hagbi’s farm in Nir Moshe, including broccoli, potatoes, cabbage, melon, tomatoes, corn and chickpeas. Until the war, the farm relied on Thai farmhands — part of an agricultural workforce of tens of thousands of foreign laborers in Israel. But most fled their places of work after Hamas’s brutal attack left dozens of foreign farmworkers dead or abducted and turned a large swath of southern Israel into a war zone. Without the 20 Thais who had worked at Hagbi’s farm, Hagbi’s produce was left unpicked and was starting to rot.
Hundreds of other farms in southern Israel — the source of approximately 75% of the country’s vegetables — were in similarly dire circumstances.
Joseph Gitler, Founder and Chairman of the Israeli food rescue organization Leket Israel, quickly pivoted his organization’s focus to address the crisis.
In normal times, Leket Israel collects surplus produce from farms around the country — and excess cooked meals from institutions such as hotels and army bases — and distributes the food to needy families via a network of nonprofit organizations. In 2022, Leket rescued 58 million pounds of agricultural produce, and the 20-year-old organization was on track to increase those numbers in 2023.
Then came Hamas’s attack and the war in Gaza.
“We immediately understood that the Oct. 7 attack would bring an upheaval to our work,” Gitler said. “We realized that our food sources were about to dry up.”
First, Leket shifted gears to aid Israeli farmers, who until the war had been Leket’s primary donors of surplus food. The organization began recruiting volunteers from Israel and around the world to help fill the gap left by the absence of farm workers, organizing 15,000 to 20,000 volunteers to farms amid a nationwide movement of volunteers helping pick, plant and protect produce from weeds.
Leket also began purchasing produce from farmers rather than just collecting surplus. The need is particularly high because Israeli farms have lost many export customers due to the challenges of harvesting and transporting the produce at a time when workers and overseas flights are both in short supply (most international carriers have canceled all their Israel flights).
Volunteers with a sign reading “United until victory” pause for a group photo amid work on a farm. (Courtesy of Leket Israel)
At the same time, Leket has been continuing to provide meals to needy Israelis even as some of the organizations it works with to distribute those meals have suspended operations during the war due to logistical difficulties — or, like the army, don’t have surplus food anymore. Today Leket provides about 15,000 meals per day — 50% more than before the war — all via purchased rather than donated food.
“The situations of people we help hasn’t gotten any better since October 7,” Gitler said. “In some cases, they have gotten worse.”
For farms in the vicinity of Gaza, the challenges are tremendous. Almost all farming families in the south are mourning loved ones or friends, have been evacuated from their homes, or have family members doing military reserve duty. The farms themselves have suffered significant damage, including incineration by Hamas terrorists, fields torn up by military vehicles, structures damaged by rocket or mortar fire, and locations commandeered by the army. Farms within four kilometers of the border must obtain special permission from the Israeli Defense Forces to continue operating amid the fighting. Then, of course, there’s the loss of the farmworkers themselves.
That problem is afflicting farmers all over Israel, not just those in the war zones.
Yuval Shargian, a farmer in Tzofit, north of Tel Aviv, whose 100-acre tract grows broccoli, zucchini and leeks, for years has donated his surplus to Leket. But when his entire workforce of Thai and Arab workers disappeared after Oct. 7, he became reliant upon volunteers.
“It’s been amazing with the volunteers,” Shargian said. “They have a lot of good will and a desire to help. My farm will survive because of them.”
Debbi Hirsch Levran, a retired social worker and lawyer living in Jerusalem, is among those who have has been volunteering on farms during the war, and she frequently helps organize buses of volunteers through her synagogue, Kol Haneshama.
“We have worked in cauliflower fields and strawberry fields. We picked sweet potatoes, oranges and tomatoes. We planted broccoli,” Levran said. “It has been therapeutic for us — not only to be in the fresh air and to be with friends, but also to assist people who we’ve never met before but who are part of our larger community of Israel.”
Dan Greenberg, 51, joined a Leket volunteer group on a recent visit to Israel from his home in Brooklyn, New York, picking tomatoes and pomegranates near Gaza.
“The work was tough and exhausting. Every muscle hurt at the end of the day,” Greenberg said. “And it was the most fulfilling work I have ever done.”
Volunteers are helping keep Israeli farms afloat amid a dearth of farmhands and other problems resulting from the war in Israel. (Courtesy of Leket Israel)
Leket has set up a series of partnerships to create new avenues to support farmers and volunteers. A new partnership with Bank Leumi, the Israel Student Union and the Keshet media company will give 800 students who volunteer on a farm for 160 hours a yearlong academic scholarship. In a new partnership with Strauss foods, farmers can receive a debit card through which they get direct funding.
Supporting the farmers is vital not just to keep them in business but also to support Israel’s entire food system. If the farms in southern Israel were to collapse, Israel would have to embark on a major food import campaign with long-term repercussions for Israel’s economy and the national ethos of being self-sustaining.
“That would start a difficult path to come back from,” Shargian said. “Had the volunteers not helped with the planting, Israel would be having a real food crisis now.”
Levran and Hagbi both say planting is critical at this moment.
“The most important thing is to keep planting; it is about preserving our way of life,” Hagbi said. “My family has been farming here for generations, and our enemies want to erase our entire way of life. We are fighting for our very existence. Planting is our way of ensuring our long-term survival here in a Jewish, democratic state. We are doing this for all of Israel.”
Through Leket, tourists to Israel may volunteer for as little as several hours planting, packing or harvesting.
“We need all hands on deck right now,” Gitler said. “Leket is doing what we can. But we need more help. If you’re coming to Israel, be ready to roll up your sleeves. Everyone has to participate.”
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Mamdani Says He Will Discourage Use of ‘Globalize the Intifada,’ Reaffirms Commitment to Anti-Israel Movement
Candidate Zohran Mamdani speaks during a Democratic New York City mayoral primary debate, June 4, 2025, in New York, US. Photo: Yuki Iwamura/Pool via REUTERS
Facing mounting pressure from Jewish community leaders, business executives, and fellow Democrats, New York City mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani has moved to clarify his stance on the controversial slogan “globalize the intifada,” signaling he will discourage its use while continuing to back the broader anti-Israel movement it represents.
In a closed-door meeting this week with over 100 business leaders organized by the Partnership for New York City, Mamdani said he will not use the phrase himself and will urge allies to stop using it as well, attendees told multiple news outlets. The candidate, a democratic socialist and state assemblyman from Queens, emphasized that while the slogan has become a flashpoint, his commitment to the Palestinian movement remains unchanged.
The slogan, which gained traction at pro-Palestinian protests worldwide amid the Israel–Hamas war in Gaza, has been criticized by many Jewish New Yorkers who associate it with calls for violence against Jewish and Israeli civilians. “Intifada,” Arabic for “uprising,” is widely known from two bloody periods of sustained Palestinian terrorism against Israelis. Many observers have argued that calls to “globalize the intifada” will encourage activists to take up political violence worldwide, especially against the Jewish community and supporters of Israel.
“I heard from Jewish New Yorkers who told me that phrase brings up very real fear,” Mamdani reportedly said in the meeting. “That’s not the intention I want to convey.”
Nonetheless, Mamdani was clear that he does not view “globalize the intifada” as inherently violent. Instead, he said it symbolizes a transnational protest against what he calls Israeli “apartheid.” He described it as a call for political pressure, boycott movements, and international solidarity, not physical confrontation.
Last month, Mamdani defended the phrase “globalize the intifada” by invoking the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising during World War II. In response, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum repudiated the mayoral candidate, calling his comments “outrageous and especially offensive to [Holocaust] survivors.”
Mamdani’s attempt to reframe the slogan has drawn mixed reactions. Some Democratic leaders have said the clarification doesn’t go far enough.
High-profile Democrats in the US Congress from New York such as Rep. Ritchie Torres, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand have all urged Mamdani to condemn the slogan, arguing that the phrase has violent connotations.
New York City’s Jewish community, already alarmed by a rise in antisemitic incidents since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel, has expressed deep concern over Mamdani’s embrace of language they consider inflammatory. Leaders from groups such as the UJA-Federation and the Anti-Defamation League have called on him to unequivocally disavow the slogan.
Mamdani’s team has pushed back against claims that the phrase advocates violence, pointing to other progressive politicians who have used similar language in solidarity with Palestinian movements. In recent days, his campaign has worked to strike a more conciliatory tone, especially in conversations with Jewish leaders and the business elite.
During the private gathering, which reportedly included executives from Pfizer, Uber, major real estate firms, and banking institutions, Mamdani reiterated policy goals that have rattled the city’s corporate class: tax hikes on high earners, rent freezes, and public investment in city-run grocery stores. He also emphasized his opposition to police budget increases, while pledging to expand mental health crisis response programs as an alternative.
While many attendees remain skeptical of Mamdani’s politics, several expressed cautious optimism after the event.
Mamdani is expected to hold additional meetings with labor unions, faith groups, and small business owners in the coming weeks as he attempts to broaden his coalition ahead of November’s general election. With incumbent Mayor Eric Adams and former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo both running as independents, the race remains hotly contested, although Mamdani is generally considered the frontrunner in the largely Democratic city.
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AMIA Bombing: The Hate That Terrorized Jewish Argentines 31 Years Ago is Just as Present Today
People hold images of the victims of the 1994 bombing attack on the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) community center, marking the 30th anniversary of the attack, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Irina Dambrauskas
This Friday, July 18, marks 31 years since an Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist drove a van packed with explosives into the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish Community Center building in Buenos Aires.
The attack murdered 85 people, and injured more than 300. Now, three decades later, the world still remains subject to the reach of Iranian-backed terrorism.
Just last month, as an American Jewish Committee (AJC) Project Interchange delegation of Consuls General was ending their visit to Israel, our group (including one of the authors of this op-ed, Brandon) abruptly received an alert: an Iranian-made Houthi missile was headed for our area and we needed to seek shelter immediately. Once the AJC group had returned from Israel, millions of Israelis were forced into bomb shelters as the Iranian regime launched hundreds of ballistic missiles at civilian targets across the country. Scenes of blown out and destroyed buildings, eerily reminiscent of the AMIA bombing, were once again seared into memory.
The other author of this op-ed, Jacques, is an Argentine Jew. For him, the AMIA bombing — and the ensuing decades long fight for justice — continues to hit close to home. The bombing shattered more than the AMIA building — it shattered the Argentine Jewish community and its sense of security.
Jacques’ family lived in fear that they too could be the next victims of terror. The AMIA bombing was the single worst act of terrorism against the Jewish people since the Holocaust, a distinction surpassed only by the Iranian regime-backed Hamas slaughter on October 7, 2023.
To this day, those who planned the AMIA bombing are still walking free. In 2024, in a long overdue step, Argentina’s highest federal court officially held the Iranian regime — the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism — responsible. While this is a key step toward accountability for the Iranian regime’s actions and justice for AMIA’s victims, there is still work to be done.
Following last month’s preemptive military action from both the United States and Israel against Iran’s nuclear program — a regime that has consistently declared, “Death to America, Death to Israel” — Argentine President Javier Milei offered a rare moment of moral clarity in an otherwise foggy global response. In declaring that Israel was “saving Western civilization,” he named what too many other leaders refuse to admit — that Iran’s terrorism knows no borders.
But missiles and bombs are not the only threats we face. As in the case of AMIA, the Iranian regime’s and Hezbollah’s activities started with calls to target Jews worldwide. Terror grows in atmospheres where antisemitism is abided.
In sensing the urgency to act to curb rising antisemitism, last year, on the eve of the 30th commemoration of the AMIA bombing, Buenos Aires hosted the signing of the new Global Guidelines for Countering Antisemitism, which to date has been signed by 36 countries, including the United States and Argentina.
The current global rise in antisemitism is especially alarming in the United States. While antisemitism has historically emerged from the far-right and far-left, it is the fusion of far-left ideology and Islamist rhetoric that has been driving much of the recent violence. Consider the recent D.C. shooting after an American Jewish Committee event outside the Capitol Jewish Museum, when the killer proclaimed, “I did it for Palestine” or the assailant in Boulder, Colorado, who threw Molotov cocktails at a rally of Jews calling for the release of the hostages while shouting, “End Zionists.”
Elected leaders must act and speak out with moral clarity – especially in New York, home to the largest Jewish population outside of Israel. There were a record 345 reported antisemitic incidents in 2024 according to the NYPD, more than all incidents against other minority groups combined. And these were just the incidents that were officially reported.
These statistics are entirely unacceptable. Staying silent when antisemitic phrases like “globalize the intifada” are used — an expression that is nothing more than incitement — legitimizes violence. Suicide bombings were the defining feature of the Second Intifada — and of the AMIA bombing itself. It is no wonder that the Jewish community feels more apprehensive with this rhetoric.
Thirty-one years after the AMIA bombing, the lesson remains brutally clear: when terrorists are not prosecuted, they are emboldened. When hateful rhetoric is tolerated, violence follows. When antisemitism is qualified or grouped together with other forms of hate, the call to protect Jewish lives is cheapened. Words may not pull the trigger, but they load the gun.
In the absence of justice, terrorism reigns free without consequence. Silence is complicity. As citizens of the two countries with the largest Jewish populations in North America and South America respectively, we are calling on our neighbors, friends, and leaders to draw a clear line: there can be no tolerance for antisemitic hate, and no haven for those who preach or perpetrate violence on Jews.
The time to stand up is now.
Brandon Pinsker is the Associate Director of the American Jewish Committee office in New York.
Jacques Safra is a Board Member of AJC New York and AJC’s Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Institute for Latino and Latin American Affairs (BILLA).
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EU Rejects Sanctions on Israel Amid Diplomatic Battle, PA Condemns Decision as ‘Shocking and Disappointing’
European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas speaks to the media as she arrives at the 5th EU-Southern Neighbourhood Ministerial meeting in Brussels, Belgium, July 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman
Israel welcomed the European Union’s decision not to pursue punitive action against the Jewish state over the war in Gaza, calling it “an important diplomatic victory” as some member states push to undermine Jerusalem’s military campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in the war-torn enclave.
On Tuesday, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas announced that the bloc would not impose sanctions on Israel, following a meeting of EU foreign ministers to address the issue.
In a post on X, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar praised the news as the result of a “complex, grueling, and multi-front diplomatic battle.”
“The attempt to impose sanctions on a democratic country defending itself against efforts to destroy it is outrageous,” the top Israeli diplomat said, expressing gratitude to Israel’s allies in Europe who helped block the punitive measures.
ישראל עומדת מזה קרוב לשנתיים במערכה צבאית במספר חזיתות. אבל היא עומדת גם במערכה מדינית מורכבת, מפרכת ורבת חזיתות.
היום השגנו הישג מדיני חשוב כשעלה בידנו להדוף את כל סוגי הניסיונות האובססיביים של מספר מדינות לנקוט סנקציות נגד ישראל באיחוד האירופי. אותן מדינות לא הציעו, למשל,… pic.twitter.com/j4ivwv2WUF— Gideon Sa’ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) July 15, 2025
Speaking at a press conference following the Brussels meeting, Kaja Kallas noted “positive signs” in Israel’s progress toward fulfilling last week’s agreement with the EU to increase humanitarian access to Gaza, while emphasizing that “more concrete steps” remain necessary.
The top EU diplomat stated that the bloc will carefully watch Israel’s execution of the agreement — which aims to open additional crossings, increase aid and food shipments, support critical infrastructure repairs, and protect aid workers.
According to Kallas, if Israel fails to follow through on the agreed measures, the bloc will reconsider imposing punitive actions against Jerusalem, with an update on its compliance to be presented at the next foreign ministers’ meeting in two weeks.
“We will keep these options on the table and stand ready to act,” Kallas said.
During this week’s meeting, the bloc discussed 10 potential measures against Israel over alleged violations of human rights commitments under the EU-Israel Association Agreement — a pact governing the EU’s political and economic ties with the Jewish state — such as suspending trade-related deals and imposing arms embargoes.
Despite efforts by some European countries to undermine Israel’s defensive campaign against Hamas in Gaza, there was not enough support within the EU to take any action, as Jerusalem still retains significant backing among member states.
In an interview with Euronews, the Palestinian Authority’s Foreign Minister, Varsen Aghabekian Shahin, condemned the EU’s decision not to take action against Israel, describing it as “shocking and disappointing.”
“These violations have been unfolding in front of everybody’s eyes. The whole world has been seeing what is happening in Gaza. The killing. The atrocities, the war crimes, the weaponization of food, the killing of people queuing to get a pack of flour,” Shahin said.
This latest anti-Israel initiative follows a recent EU-commissioned report accusing Israel of committing “indiscriminate attacks … starvation … torture … [and] apartheid” against Palestinians in Gaza during its military campaign against Hamas, an internationally designated terrorist group.
According to the report, “there are indications that Israel would be in breach of its human rights obligations” under the 25-year-old EU-Israel Association Agreement.
While the document acknowledges the reality of violence by Hamas, it states that this issue lies outside its scope — failing to address the Palestinian terrorist group’s role in sparking the current war with its invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Israeli officials have slammed the report as factually incorrect and morally flawed, noting that Hamas embeds its military infrastructure within civilian targets and Israel’s army takes extensive precautions to try and avoid civilian casualties.
Following calls from a majority of EU member states for a formal investigation, last month’s report builds on Belgium’s recent decision to review Israel’s compliance with the trade agreement, a process initiated by the Netherlands and led by Kallas.
Last month, Ireland became the first European nation to push forward legislation banning trade with Israeli communities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, an effort officials say is meant “to address the horrifying situation” in the Gaza Strip.
Ireland’s decision comes after a 2024 advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared Israel’s presence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem illegal.
The ICJ ruled that third countries must avoid trade or investment that supports “the illegal situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
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