Hasan's rabbits are surviving war in Gaza

Each of the four times that Hasan and his family moved to escape the Israeli military’s ongoing invasion of Gaza, he took three rabbits with him in his backpack. 

Rabbits had been a significant source of income for the family since 2020, when his wife Elham started raising rabbits through a project of Al-Najd Developmental Forum, a Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) partner. She was among 250 women who learned to raise and sell rabbits to support their families, despite limited land and job opportunities. 

She had 56 rabbits when the invasion started in October 2023, but the sound of bombing, which can kill a rabbit, and lack of food left the family with just three surviving rabbits, two females and one male. 

Unlike the 1.7 million people who fled their homes in Gaza in the first three months after the war began, Elham, Hasan and their two young daughters found a way to stay in Gaza City. (Only their first names are used for their security.) However, in the second half of 2024, they joined 90% of the population that was forced to flee their homes to escape the Israeli military bombardment. 

For five months, they moved around to find safety.

Life was harsh during the displacement. “It was a time of fear and killings,” Hasan told Al-Najd staff in April. “How can I describe it to you, we were … fighting for our survival.”
 

More than 50,000 people have been killed since the start of the war. Somehow the family and their three rabbits survived and even added one rabbit. When the family returned home in 2025, they found their own house was destroyed, but the rabbit cages were largely intact.

So, rabbit rearing began again, with the rabbits eating grass that Hasan gathered for them, along with dry bread and crushed pasta. The rabbits began to reproduce, and their offspring did too. Three months later, 25 rabbits are living in the original cages.

Without nutritious rabbit food, the babies now require four months instead of three to gain enough weight to sell, Hasan says. 

Al-Najd staff were surprised to discover the rabbits while they were conducting an assessment of MCC’s winter humanitarian distributions of food and hygiene supplies. They believed that all the rabbits that the organization had distributed in 2020 had died. 

Al-Najd has carried out multiple rabbit-rearing projects in northern and central Gaza since 2009, with some breaks during previous incursions. Al-Najd provides rabbits and housing supplies, along with training in rabbit production, nutrition, basic financial skills and marketing with MCC funding from Growing Hope Globally.

“The project provided a lifeline for families,” says Michael Adeola, food security and livelihoods program lead for MCC. “It helped participants build their livelihoods, earn income and gain confidence in their ability to support their families.”

The newborn rabbits suckling from their mother, one of the original backpack rabbits, give Hasan hope for the future, as does another female who is pregnant. If he can get nutritious rabbit food and the bombing stops, the rabbits will again provide a reliable source of income and protein for the family.

MCC invites you to donate to its ongoing humanitarian response in Gaza and to urge legislators in Canada and the U.S. to support a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. To contact legislators in Canada, visit mcc.org/campaign/canadas-toolkit-peace-gaza. In the U.S. visit mcc.org/campaign/continue-call-peace-and-restoration-gaza.