UN warns of ‘staggering’ economic devastation in Gaza, occupied West Bank
Al Jazeera
Eighty percent of Gaza businesses damaged or destroyed since Israel launched war, according to a UN report.
Israel’s war on Gaza has devastated the Palestinian enclave’s economy, reducing it to less than one-sixth of its 2022 size, while there has also been a “significant downturn” in the occupied West Bank, according to a United Nations report.
“Production processes have been disrupted or decimated, income sources have disappeared, poverty has intensified and expanded, neighbourhoods have been eradicated, and communities and towns have been ruined,” a report published on Thursday by the UN Trade and Development agency (UNCTAD) found.
Mutasim Elagraa, who coordinates UNCTAD’s Palestinian assistance programme, said it remained unclear how much it would cost to rebuild.
“But the evidence we have now [indicates] it will be high tens of billions or maybe even more,” he told reporters in Geneva.
“It will take decades to bring Gaza back to where it was in October 2023.”
