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The Gaza war, which broke out on October 7 last year, is approaching the end of its first year, but the pages of tragedies that have been opened cannot be closed, perhaps for decades or hundreds of years. The Gaza Strip, small in area and the most densely populated on earth, was subjected to a war that the United Nations, humanitarian organizations and the Hague Court described as a “war of extermination,” with all the unprecedented destruction that resulted from it in everything related to the infrastructure, without forgetting that Israel also suffered human and economic losses that it was not accustomed to.
Because there is nothing more precious than the human being, talking about the losses of wars must begin with the human losses. The greatest loss that the Palestinian people are suffering at the present time is the human loss, and since a large number of the victims are children who would have become young men, their loss means a loss that strikes future generations.
As of yesterday, September 15, the number of Palestinians killed by the Israeli occupation army in the Gaza Strip has reached 41,206, and the number of injured has reached 95,337. It is worth noting that more than 10,000 are still under the rubble, and ambulance and civil defense teams have not been able to reach them, in addition to tens of thousands of wounded, injured and at risk of death, due to diseases, epidemics, hunger and lack of opportunities for appropriate treatment.
According to United Nations statistics until the beginning of May of this year, 5 percent of the population of the Gaza Strip were killed or injured by the occupation forces during various forms of targeting.
The human toll also includes the consequences of the destruction of schools and universities, which deprives more than half a million school-age children of their right to adequate education. We are likely to see a new generation of uneducated people in Gaza, along with the high levels of deformities resulting from the high rate of killing of children and women.
At the level of losses in physical capital, starting from public facilities and infrastructure, to all components of commodity and service production, the losses that the sector is exposed to due to the war of extermination exceed everything it has been exposed to since 1948 and the establishment of Israel.
Repair the damage
UN experts estimate that repairing the destruction that the Strip has been subjected to may take approximately 20 years, taking into account that the war on Gaza began while the effects of the destruction of previous wars had not yet been erased, and that the percentage of destruction in the infrastructure, economy and housing now reaches approximately 88 percent.
The United Nations organizations estimate that if the war continues until the end of this year, the Palestinian economy will lose the equivalent of 29 percent of the gross domestic product, with the percentage of loss in the construction sector rising to 75.5 percent.
A report by the United Nations and the World Bank stated that the damage to infrastructure is estimated at about $18.5 billion, and affected residential buildings, commercial and industrial areas, and basic services such as education, health, and energy.
In Gaza, production has been halted or destroyed, sources of income have been lost, poverty has deepened and spread, entire neighborhoods have been razed to the ground, and communities and cities have been destroyed, a report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development said last week. The war has caused “unprecedented humanitarian, environmental and social crises, transforming the region from underdevelopment to total destruction,” adding that “reaching the pre-October 2023 level will take decades.”
Oxfam says in a recent report that Gaza City has lost almost all of its ability to produce water, with 88 percent of its water wells and 100 percent of its desalination plants damaged or destroyed.
Economic hardship
The economic impact of the war on Palestinian civilians was staggering, with poverty rising from 39 percent to over 60 percent, and household consumption of the middle class declining by nearly 40 percent. Large segments of the middle class have fallen into poverty, with an estimated 1.9 million people living below the poverty line, or 82 percent of Gaza’s population, roughly the same number of displaced people who have taken refuge in temporary shelters, lacking basic amenities and suffering from severe shortages of food and basic care services such as health and education.
The United Nations organizations estimate that human development indicators in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank have all deteriorated due to the war, falling by nearly 20 years in Gaza, and between 13 and 16 years in the West Bank.
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) says in a report issued in Geneva on September 12 that by the end of this year, between 80% and 96% of agricultural assets in Gaza will have been destroyed.
The private sector has also been hit hard, with 82% of businesses, the main driver of Gaza’s economy, damaged or destroyed, while the damage to the productive base has continued to worsen as the war continues. The report says Gaza’s GDP fell by 81% in the last quarter of 2023, leading to a 22% contraction for the entire year, and by mid-2024 Gaza’s economy had shrunk to less than a sixth of its 2022 level.
The situation in Gaza is particularly dire, with two-thirds of jobs lost since the war began, he said, noting that labour market conditions in the West Bank have also deteriorated significantly, with 96% of businesses reporting reduced activity and 42.1% reducing their workforce. Up to 306,000 Palestinians have lost their jobs, increasing unemployment from 12.9% before the war to 32%, with the loss of daily labour income amounting to approximately $25.5 million.
On the other hand, the report confirms that the West Bank is at the same time witnessing a rapid and worrying economic deterioration, due to factors such as settlement expansion, land confiscation, demolition of Palestinian buildings and increased settler attacks.
He points out that the impact extended throughout the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, where trade, tourism and transportation suffered a significant decline, and as a result 80% of businesses in the Old City of East Jerusalem stopped operating partially or completely.
