War has knocked Gaza back to the 1950s, says UN agency
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The cost of repairing damaged infrastructure in Gaza is expected to run to US$18.5 billion (S$24 billion).
PHOTO: REUTERS
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BERLIN – The war between Israel and Hamas has devastated the Palestinian economy and left nearly all of Gaza’s population in poverty, with quality of life indicators such as health and education knocked back 70 years, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said on Oct 22.
Launching a study on the war’s socio-economic impacts, the UNDP’s Ms Chitose Noguchi said the economy of the Palestinian territories – the Gaza Strip and the Israeli-occupied West Bank – was now 35 per cent smaller than it was at the start of Israel’s invasion of Gaza a year ago.
By some measures, the poverty level in Gaza is now approaching 100 per cent as a result of the disruption, with unemployment now at 80 per cent, said Ms Noguchi, the deputy special representative of UNDP’s Programme of Assistance to the Palestinian People.
“The state of Palestine is experiencing unprecedented levels of setbacks,” she said at a UN news conference in Geneva over a sometimes crackling line from Deir Al-Balah. “For Gaza, reversing development by an estimated 70 years to 1955.”
Even under optimal conditions, with international aid remaining at current levels and flowing into Gaza and the West Bank unhindered, it would still take at least a decade for economic output to recover to pre-war levels, she said.
The war, launched by Israel after attacks by Hamas on Israeli territory
Schools, hospitals and other essential infrastructure have been razed to the ground. Nearly 43,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to Health Ministry figures.
Some 3.3 million Palestinians, 2.3 million of them in Gaza and 1.5 million of them children, need urgent humanitarian assistance, the report said.
The cost of repairing damaged infrastructure was expected to run to US$18.5 billion (S$24 billion), almost the entire annual economic output of the Palestinian territories in 2022.
The war has taken a similarly severe toll on human capital, the report added, with 625,000 students in Gaza having no access to education at the end of September and 93 per cent of school buildings severely damaged.
The situation was similar with regard to healthcare. A total of 986 health workers had been killed by the end of September, and less than half of primary healthcare centres were even partially functional. REUTERS
