How Israel Caused A Dent In Gaza’s Economy

Esra Hassanat watched in utmost dubiety as the buildings she had worked in for more than 20 years came crashing down.

Israel’s 11-day hostilities in Gaza city have brought Palestinian lives into shambles, disrupting Gaza’s economy. During the continuous Israeli bombardment in the coastal territory, more than 250 Palestinians were killed, along with 67 children.

The continuous Israeli airstrike inflicted losses of hundreds of millions of dollars, as per initial estimates. Locals say at least 200 airstrikes hit the worn-torn city during the 11-day war, putting neighbors, cafes, restaurants, shops, and homes into shambles and charred debris.

As reported by Reuters, Gaza’s housing ministry spoke on Thursday regarding the 16,800 damaged houses. Of those, 1,800 had become inadequate for sustenance and 1,000 were destroyed completely.

“When Israel bombs our suburb areas, the whole house shakes like we are experiencing an earthquake, no human on earth should go through what we had to bear all these days,” said Esra Hassanat, a 23-year-old resident of north Gaza city told Core Middle East.

The Hamas media offices estimated that the bombardments caused $40 million in damage to factories and the strip’s industrial zones along with other industrial facilities, in addition to $22 million damage to the energy sector.

Residents were estimated to be getting 3-4 hours of power versus and only 12 hours before the hostilities, said Mohammad Thabet, spokesman for the Gaza Strip’s power distribution plant.

“I work in the medical field, we already were devoid of vaccines and basic health amenities due to the pandemic and now the apartheid state has left no stone unturned to destroy our economy, our families, they have ruined our workers, the hospitals, schools, employees, What did they get out of it? said Majd Abushbak, a dentist and a professor at the Al-Azhar University Gaza told Core Middle East.

The United Nations in a report mentioned the Palestinians suffering due to limited or no access to water facilities.

The UNRWA  for Palestinian refugees, launched an appeal on Thursday for an additional $38 million funding to cover urgent humanitarian relief and aids for the needs of Gazans and those in the Israeli-Occupied West Bank, as the unrest continues. The funding’s facilitated would cover an initial 30-day emergency period, from the start of the crisis on May 10.

Gaza was already suffering due to the occupation and now the added pandemic and bombings have added to its poor economy. Gaza already topped the number in the world’s highest unemployment rates- more than 50% before Israel’s latest airstrikes.

Henrietta H. Fore, Executive director of UNICEF said: “One million children in Gaza are reeling from the mounting consequences of violent conflict with nowhere safe to turn. Lives have been lost and families shattered.”

The deadly Israeli onslaught, hit by air raids that demolished structures, destroyed a five-storey building, that housed international media offices including Mashareq, one of Gaza’s oldest media production firms, including Aljazeera’s office in the Gaza strip

Israel’s age-old policy

Speaking to Core Middle East, Mohsen Abu Ramadan, a political and economic analyst, said the “Israeli policy of bombing the civilian areas and the infrastructure is not appalling, it’s an age-old strategy they employ to destroy the Palestinian lives.

“We have witnessed it previously as well, they keep targeting the Palestinian civilians, but the scale of targeting the lives this time in the Gaza strip is much higher,” he told Al Jazeera, arguably that the Israelis are backed by the United States and it’s the European Union and the incompetence of the Arab leaders enabled to imply such a tactic.

Gaza’s agriculture ministry appraised around $27 million in damage included greenhouses, agricultural lands and, poultry farms.

Israel has vandalized factories, commercial buildings, farms, and business; more than 500 enterprises were demolished in the Gaza Industrial Estate, a major economic center based in the southeast of Gaza city, established in the year 1996 with support from the US government, and the European Union and the World Bank.

“It’s pathetic to see my city turn into debris, the building you see in front of my house was is into rubbles now, I spent most of my childhood within the four walls of that home, they destroyed my childhood memories, I won’t be able to get over the traumas Israel is responsible for making our life miserable”, said Najah, a resident of Gaza.

This is the outcome of Israel’s apartheid state and its repeated military attacks on Gaza, the 14-year blockade backed by the US and its allies.

While Israel on the other side is in no plan to forward its evidence and deny statements on “their perpetuated genocide on the indigenous citizens of Palestine”, and even step back its colonial strategies in parts of Palestine.

The recent major hostilities in Gaza makes clear that Israel is in no plan to remove its tag of an apartheid state, their actions have further improvised and fomented in strengthening the Palestinian resistance to the right to self-determination

Nevertheless, Israel has tried its colonial tactics for decades to break and fragment the territory and its people through change in demographics and implanted biased laws but has failed to break the collective freedom movement of Palestinians.