Titled The Gaza War: Expected Socioeconomic Impacts on the State of Palestine, the analysis confirms a staggering 26.9 percent drop in Gross Domestic Product, representing a loss of $7.1 billion compared to what scheduled 2023.
Prepared by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (CESPAO), the update considers that the unemployment rate in the occupied territories could increase approximately 0.5 additional points for each month offensive.
That index would reach between 46.1 percent after six months of conflict and 47.8 after nine months.
UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner stressed the costs and aggravations of the war for the people of Gaza and all Palestinians with each passing day, with an unprecedented toll of human losses, destruction of capital and a sharp increase in poverty in such a short period of time.
“Compared to our preliminary assessment, these new figures warn that the suffering in Gaza will not end when the war ends,” he said, warning of a serious development crisis that will endanger the future of generations to come.
Other projections estimate that, after nine months of continuous war, poverty will more than double and more than 1.86 million more Palestinians would face poverty.
The fall in GDP would reach 29 percent in that case with total losses of seven thousand 600 million dollars.
“Unlike previous wars, the current destruction in Gaza is unprecedented in scope and scale and, coupled with the loss of homes, livelihoods, natural resources, infrastructure and institutional capacities, can have profound and systemic impacts for decades to come. ”, said Cespao.
The assessment projects that Gaza will become totally dependent on foreign assistance on a scale not seen since 1948, as it will be left without a functional economy, nor any means of production, self-sufficiency, employment or capacity for trade, warned the Executive Secretary of that entity, Rola Dashti.
Meanwhile, the Human Development Index (HDI) reflects a sharp drop that may exceed what was estimated two decades ago, before 2004, when the HDI was calculated for the first time in the State of Palestine, a statistic established by the UNDP that measures welfare.
Another assessment recently published by the World Bank and the United Nations estimated the direct damage inflicted on the infrastructure built in Gaza in January 2024 at $18.5 billion, equivalent to $97 million of the total GDP of the State of Palestine in 2022. .
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