Iyad and Ziyad, the Fish Brothers

Appears in
The Gaza Kitchen: A Palestinian Culinary Journey
The Gaza Kitchen

By Laila El-Haddad and Maggie Schmitt

Published 2021

  • About

To converse with Iyad and Ziyad Al-Attar is to find oneself unexpectedly playing the straight man in a comedy routine. The patter is fast, the tone is absurd, and political irreverence is meted out to all parties in equal measure. But they’re not on stage or screen; their thing is fish. According to them, they are Gaza’s premiere freshwater fish-farm entrepreneurs, responsible for introducing fish farming to Gaza and now cranking out 300 tons a year of tilapia and mullet.

They learned the trade in Israel in the 1990s and managed to save up enough to open their own fish farm in Gaza in 2004. When Gaza’s borders were closed to imports in 2008, business got brisk and the brothers opened several more fish farms. For the moment, they only raise fresh-water fish, though in collaboration with colleagues in Israel and Egypt (by way of the Internet and telephone) they are working toward the elusive goal of hatching sea bream in captivity.