The socio-economic “shock” of the war between Israel and Gaza will plunge hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into poverty, warns a United Nations report on the possible long-term effects of the conflict on Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
As the war passed the one-month mark this week, poverty increased by 20 percent and gross domestic product declined by 4.2 percent, according to the report released by the United Nations Development Program and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA). .
The level of economic impact exceeds that of the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine, or any previous Israeli-Palestinian war, the agencies said.
At least 10,800 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and more than two-thirds of the 2.3 million residents have fled their homes since Israel blockaded the enclave and unleashed a campaign of air and ground strikes. At least 182 Palestinians have been killed and more than 2,250 injured as violence spreads across the West Bank.
If the war persists for a second month, the UN projects that Palestinian GDP, which previously stood at $20.4 billion a year, will decline by $1.7 billion, or 8.4 percent.
The economy is expected to contract by 12 percent, with losses of $2.5 billion and more than 660,000 people pushed into poverty, if the conflict continues into a third month, the report predicts.
UN Development Program Deputy Secretary-General Abdallah al-Dardari told a news conference that a loss of 12% of GDP at the end of the year would be “massive and unprecedented” .
By comparison, he said, Syria’s economy was losing 1 percent of its GDP per month at the height of the conflict, and it took a year and a half of fighting for Ukraine to lose 30 percent of its GDP, an average of around 30 percent. 1.6 percent per month.
At the start of 2023, the Palestinian territories – the West Bank and Gaza – were considered a lower-middle-income economy, with a poverty level of $6 per day per person, said ESCWA Executive Secretary Rola Dashti.
As of January, Gaza was already grappling with a high unemployment rate of around 46 percent, three and a half times higher than the West Bank’s rate of 13 percent, according to the report. Four weeks of war have destroyed some 390,000 jobs.
“As the war approaches for a month, an estimated 61 percent of jobs in Gaza, the equivalent of 182,000 jobs, have been lost,” the statement said.
“Unimaginable” destruction
About 24 percent of jobs in the West Bank were also lost, the equivalent of 208,000 jobs, according to the report.
Al-Dardari highlighted the massive economic disruptions in the agriculture and tourism sectors of the occupied territory. In addition, he added, there are major disruptions in trade, in money transfers from Israel to the Palestinian Authority, which controls the West Bank, and in a lack of investment.
ESCWA’s Dashti called the level of destruction in Gaza “unimaginable and unprecedented.”
“As of November 3, it is estimated that 35,000 homes have been completely demolished and around 220,000 homes are partially damaged,” she said. The report indicates that at least 45 percent of Gaza’s housing has been destroyed or damaged.
If this persists, the majority of Gaza residents will no longer have a home, and even if the fighting stops now, there will be massive displacements in the long term, “with all their humanitarian, economic and security consequences”, al said. -Dardari.
Satellite images show that in the northern Gaza and Gaza City governorates, more than 36 percent of greenhouses were destroyed or damaged, and more than 1,000 fields were damaged, the report said.
“We must recognize that the consequence of what is happening now is literally a development crisis for years to come,” UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner told the AFP news agency.
“In our most conservative scenario, this conflict risks setting back development (in the Palestinian territories) by more than a decade,” he added.
In the most pessimistic outlook, the human development index – which measures life expectancy, education and living standards – could return to 2007 levels, according to the UN assessment.
