Gaza economy shrinks to less than a sixth of its pre-war size, UN report says

Gaza’s economy has shrunk to less than a sixth of its size when Israel began its bombing campaign in the Strip nearly a year ago, while unemployment in the occupied West Bank has nearly tripled, a UN report said today, according to Reuters.

The report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) described Gaza’s economy as “in ruins” more than 11 months after Israel launched what the UN has described as a genocidal military campaign there that has reduced much of the Strip to rubble and killed more than 41,000 Palestinians.

The UN trade body said the Palestinian Authority (PA), which exercises limited self-rule under Israeli occupation in the West Bank, is under “immense pressure” that is jeopardising its ability to function.

“The Palestinian economy is in freefall,” UNCTAD Deputy Secretary General Pedro Manuel Moreno told reporters in Geneva.

“The report calls for the international community to halt this economic freefall, address the humanitarian crisis, and lay the groundwork for lasting peace and development,” he said, calling for a comprehensive recovery plan.

Read: What we now know after almost one year of Israel’s genocide in Gaza

Declining international aid and Israel’s policy of withholding Palestinian tax funds it collects on the Palestinians’ behalf- which UNCTAD estimated at more than $1.4 billion since 2019 – are adding to the strain on the Palestinians, the report said.

Israel also routinely deducts so-called “martyr payments” paid by the PA to families of Palestinians killed by Israeli occupation forces.

The document described “a rapid and alarming economic decline” in the occupied West Bank, which has suffered a surge in violence since the Gaza war.

Job losses

A total of more than 300,000 jobs have been lost in the West Bank since the war began, UNCTAD said, driving up the unemployment rate there from 12.9 per cent to 32 per cent.

UNCTAD blamed the decline on Israel’s military campaign in the occupied territory, which the UN says has resulted in the deaths of more than 650 Palestinians since 7 October 2023, as well as new illegal Israeli checkpoints which hinder Palestinian movement.