NEW YORK — Israel’s military operations and prolonged closure of Gaza, has caused economic damage of $16.7 billion between 2007 and 2018, driving the poverty rate up almost fourfold compared to what it might have otherwise been, the UN trade and development agency UNCTAD said in a report published on Wednesday.
Gaza’s economy was on the verge of collapse, notes the report for the UN General Assembly, entitled “Economic costs of the Israeli occupation for the Palestinian people: The Gaza Strip under closure and restrictions”.
The damage from Israel’s military operations was equivalent to around six times the Palestinian enclave’s annual gross domestic product (GDP) in 2018, or 107 percent of the total Palestinian GDP, the report said.
The depth of inequality was also far more severe than it could have been.
The “poverty gap”, a measure of how far from the poverty line households are on average, was 20 per cent in 2017, but would have been around 4.2 per cent if not for the impact of military operations, the report said.
Between 2007 and 2017, Gaza’s economy grew by 5 percent, or less than half a percentage point per year, and its share in the overall Palestinian economy halved from 37 percent to 18 percent, UNCTAD’s Coordinator of the Assistance to the Palestinian People, Mahmoud Elkhafif, told a press conference.
“The result is the near collapse of the regional Gaza economy while trade is severely restricted from the rest of the Palestinian economy and the world”, the report said.
Most people in Gaza had no access to safe water, regular and reliable electricity supply or even a proper sewage system, the report said.
UNCTAD’s analysis of the potential economic upside of ending Israeli military operations and travel restrictions did not include wider benefits to the Palestinian people, such as the income from a natural gas field off the shores of Gaza.
Richard Kozul-Wright, Director of UNCTAD’s Division on Globalization and Development Strategies, said the 2 million Palestinians living in Gaza were now facing a health emergency because of the COVID-19 pandemic. But he added that there was “cautious optimism” that the incoming US administration of President-elect Joe Biden could lead to a positive change of tone in Washington, DC.
“That obviously raises hopes that there may be changes in the relationship between Israel and Palestine,” he said.