Palestine's Economy Could've Doubled Without Israeli Occupation, UNCTAD Says

The UN development body (UNCTAD) said Wednesday that the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank has prevented Palestine from doubling its GDP.

The report included details of what UNCTAD described as the "staggering economic cost" of Israel's occupation. UNCTAD said the occupation deprived the Palestinian people of their human right to development and hollows out the Palestinian economy. Some of the main reasons included confiscation of land, water and natural resources. There was also the fragmentation of domestic markets and its separation from international markets. Another reason was what the report said " forced dependence on the Israeli economy." The report then went on to describe how these policies have led to declines in employment and in the contribution of agriculture and industry to GDP since 1975 to 2014. It estimated the cost of occupying Area C of Palestine's West Bank as equivalent to 35% of the country's GDP, or $4.4 billion as of 2015.

The report also alluded to the slow reconstruction of Gaza since Israel's military operations on the strip in 2014. UNCTAD said that Israel's with holding of Palestinian tax revenue led to the GDP per Capita for 2015 to become stagnant and fail to cross above the pre-war levels.

The report said that t the occupation has cultivated permanent crises of unemployment, poverty and food insecurity. In 2015, 25% of the people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory were unemployed and 66 per cent were food-insecure. In Gaza, unemployment reached 38% in 2015. Some 73% of the population are in need of humanitarian assistance, a statement from the UNCTAD said.

The report registered that for the first time in 50 years, the infant mortality rate in Gaza escalated from 12 to 20.3 per 1,000 live births between 2008 and 2013. This trend is unprecedented and rarely observed outside communities affected by HIV epidemics.

Source : QNA