Only weeds have flourished in the 30 greenhouses at Sheikh Ejlein since the farm south of Gaza City was abandoned in May last year. They were shut – along with hundreds of others throughout Gaza – after the Palestinian development body that managed the enterprises found it was impossible to get the strawberries, cherry tomatoes and bell peppers grown at its sites to customers in Europe and Israel.

Time and again, the trucks carrying the harvest were stopped at the crossing into Israel and refused permission to leave Gaza. “There the produce stayed, sometimes for seven days. We brought it back and had to throw it away,” recalls Fawzy Edwan, a farm labourer.