GENEVA: The Palestinian economy is “in free fall,” the United Nations reported Thursday, with production in Gaza plunging to one-sixth of its level before Israeli forces began a blistering military response to the Oct. 7 attacks in the territory.
The report from UN Trade and Development, or UNCTAD, also warned of “rapid and alarming economic decline” in the West Bank, citing expanded Israeli settlements, land confiscations, demolition of Palestinian buildings and violence by settlers.
The report made no mention of corruption in Palestinian institutions.
“The Palestinian economy is in free fall,” Pedro Manuel Moreno, the agency’s deputy secretary-general, told reporters in Geneva. “The report calls for the international community to halt this economic free fall, address the humanitarian crisis, and lay the groundwork for lasting peace and development.”
That would include a “comprehensive recovery plan” for Palestinian areas, more international aid, the lifting of Israel’s blockade on Gaza, and the release of revenues and withheld funds for Palestinians retained by Israel, he said.
Gaza’s economy was weak even before the war, when unemployment was close to 50 percent, but the war has brought it to a near-standstill, with the UN estimating that roughly 90 percent of the territory’s population has been displaced, many living in squalid tent camps and dependent on international aid.
The war has also hurt the West Bank. After the Oct. 7 attacks, Israel immediately revoked work permits that allowed some 150,000 Palestinians to work inside Israel, depriving them of a key source of income.
A military crackdown that Israel says is aimed at militants has also rippled through the economy, with frequent army raids and military checkpoints making it difficult for people to work or move around.
With violence continuing, there’s little sign of any recovery plan being launched anytime soon.
Mutasim Elagraa, who coordinates UNCTAD’s assistance to Palestinians, said: “If we want to return Gaza to pre-October 2023, we need tens of billions of dollars, or even more, and decades.”
The ultimate goal is “to put Gaza on a path of sustainable development,” which will take more time and money, he said.
Economic output in Gaza plunged to just over $221 million in the half-year including the last quarter of 2023 and first quarter of 2024 — the last quarter for which figures are available — or about 16 percent of the total figure for the same half-year period in 2022 and 2023, when the total was just over $1.34 billion, the agency said.
Meanwhile, more than 300,000 jobs in the West Bank — home to some 3 million Palestinians — have been lost, driving unemployment rates up to 32 percent, up from under 13 percent before the conflict, the agency reported.
By early this year, as much as 96 percent of Gaza’s farming assets, including livestock farms, orchards, machinery and storage facilities, had been “decimated,” UNCTAD said.
Over 80 percent of businesses were damaged or destroyed, and the damage has continued to worsen, it said.
Since the 1990s, Israel has collected import duties for Palestinians — leaving about two-thirds of all Palestinian tax revenue under the control of the Israeli government. Israel has repeatedly withheld or suspended the payments, accusing the Palestinian Authority of encouraging violence or taking hostile steps against Israel in the UN and other international bodies.
From 2019 through April this year, Israel had withheld or deducted a total of more than $1.4 billion, crimping the ability of Palestinian officials to provide public services and pay salaries, pensions and debts, it said. The European Union last month said it paid some $43 million to help the Palestinian Authority pay salaries and pensions in the West Bank.
Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed at least 41,084 Palestinians and wounded another 95,029, the territory’s Health Ministry said. The ministry’s count does not differentiate between civilians and militants.
Israel launched its campaign vowing to destroy the Palestinian group Hamas after the Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel in which militants killed some 1,200 people and abducted 250 others.
Palestinian economy is in free fall and will require billions to rebuild: UN
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Palestinian economy is in free fall and will require billions to rebuild: UN
- The report from UN Trade and Development, or UNCTAD, also warned of “rapid and alarming economic decline” in the West Bank, citing expanded Israeli settlements
- The report made no mention of corruption in Palestinian institutions
US raid allegedly killed Syrian undercover agent instead of Daesh group official
- Neither US nor Syrian government officials have commented on the death, an indication that neither side wants the incident to derail improving ties
- Weeks after the raid, interim President Ahmad Al-Sharaa visited Washington and announced Syria would join the global coalition against Daesh
DUMAYR, Syria: A raid by US forces and a local Syrian group aiming to capture an Daesh (IS) group official instead killed a man who had been working undercover gathering intelligence on the extremists, family members and Syrian officials have told The Associated Press.
The killing in October underscores the complex political and security landscape as the United States begins working with interim Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa in the fight against remnants of IS.
According to relatives, Khaled Al-Masoud had been spying on IS for years on behalf of the insurgents led by Al-Sharaa and then for Al-Sharaa’s interim government, established after the fall of former President Bashar Assad a year ago. Al-Sharaa’s insurgents were mainly Islamists, some connected to Al-Qaeda, but enemies of IS who often clashed with it over the past decade.
Neither US nor Syrian government officials have commented on Al-Masoud’s death, an indication that neither side wants the incident to derail improving ties. Weeks after the Oct. 19 raid, Al-Sharaa visited Washington and announced Syria would join the global coalition against IS.
Still, Al-Masoud’s death could be “quite a setback” for efforts to combat IS, said Wassim Nasr, a senior research fellow with the Soufan Center, a New York-based think tank focused on security issues.
Al-Masoud had been infiltrating IS in the southern deserts of Syria known as the Badiya, one of the places where remnants of the extremist group have remained active, Nasr said.
The raid targeting him was a result of “the lack of coordination between the coalition and Damascus,” Nasr said.
In the latest sign of the increasing cooperation, the US Central Command said Sunday that American troops and forces from Syria’s Interior Ministry had located and destroyed 15 IS weapons caches in the south.
Confusion around the raid
The raid occurred in Dumayr, a town east of Damascus on the edge of the desert. At around 3 a.m., residents woke to the sound of heavy vehicles and planes.
Residents said US troops conducted the raid alongside the Syrian Free Army, a US-trained opposition faction that had fought against Assad. The SFA now officially reports to the Syrian Defense Ministry.
Al-Masoud’s cousin, Abdel Kareem Masoud, said he opened his door and saw Humvees with US flags on them.
“There was someone on top of one of them who spoke broken Arabic, who pointed a machine gun at us and a green laser light and told us to go back inside,” he said.
Khaled Al-Masoud’s mother, Sabah Al-Sheikh Al-Kilani, said the forces then surrounded her son’s house next door, where he was with his wife and five daughters, and banged on the door.
Al-Masoud told them that he was with General Security, a force under Syria’s Interior Ministry, but they broke down the door and shot him, Al-Kilani said.
They took him away, wounded, Al-Kilani said. Later, government security officials told the family he had been released but was in the hospital. The family was then called to pick up his body. It was unclear when he had died.
“How did he die? We don’t know,” his mother said. “I want the people who took him from his children to be held accountable.”
Faulty intelligence
Al-Masoud’s family believes he was targeted based on faulty intelligence provided by members of the Syrian Free Army.
Representatives of the SFA did not respond to requests for comment.
Al-Masoud had worked with Al-Sharaa’s insurgent group, Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, in its northwestern enclave of Idlib before Assad’s fall, his cousin said. Then he returned to Dumayr and worked with the security services of Al-Sharaa’s government.
Two Syrian security officials and one political official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly, confirmed that Al-Masoud had been working with Syria’s interim government in a security role. Two of the officials said he had worked on combating IS.
Initial media reports on the raid said it had captured an IS official. But US Central Command, which typically issues statements when a US operation kills or captures a member of the extremist group in Syria, made no announcement.
A US defense official, when asked for more information about the raid and its target and whether it had been coordinated with Syria’s government, said, “We are aware of these reports but do not have any information to provide.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with regulations.
Representatives of Syria’s defense and interior ministries, and of US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack, declined to comment.
Increased coordination could prevent mistakes
At its peak in 2015, IS controlled a swath of territory across Iraq and Syria half the size of the United Kingdom. It was notorious for its brutality against religious minorities as well as Muslims not adhering to the group’s extreme interpretation of Islam.
After years of fighting, the US-led coalition broke the group’s last hold on territory in late 2019. Since then, US troops in Syria have been working to ensure IS does not regain a foothold. The US estimates IS still has about 2,500 members in Syria and Iraq. US Central Command last month said the number of IS attacks there had fallen to 375 for the year so far, compared to 1,038 last year.
Fewer than 1,000 US troops are believed to be operating in Syria, carrying out airstrikes and conducting raids against IS cells. They work mainly alongside the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in the northeast and the Syrian Free Army in the south.
Now the US has another partner: the security forces of the new Syrian government.
Airwars, a London-based conflict monitor, has reported 52 incidents in which civilians were harmed or killed in coalition operations in Syria since 2020.
The group classified Al-Masoud as a civilian.
Airwars director Emily Tripp said the group has seen “multiple instances of what the US call ‘mistakes,’” including a 2023 case in which the US military announced it had killed an Al-Qaeda leader in a drone strike. The target later turned out to be a civilian farmer.
It was unclear if the Oct. 19 raid went wrong due to faulty intelligence or if someone deliberately fed the coalition false information. Nasr said that in the past, feuding groups have sometimes used the coalition to settle scores.
“That’s the whole point of having a hotline with Damascus, in order to see who’s who on the ground,” he said.
