Unemployment in the besieged Gaza enclave has soared to nearly 80 per cent since Israel’s invasion, with its devastated economy in almost total collapse, according to the International Labour Organization (ILO).
Economic output has shrunk by 85 per cent since the conflict began a year ago, plunging almost the entire 2.3 million population into poverty, the United Nations said.
The conflict has caused ‘unprecedented and wide-ranging devastation on the labour market and the wider economy across the Occupied Palestinian Territory’, the ILO said, referring to Gaza and the West Bank.
Palestinians either lost their jobs entirely or have only irregular work ‘primarily centred on the provision of essential goods and services,’ it added.
The stark warning comes as the UN Security Council heard that reality is brutal in Gaza and gets worse every day, with essential humanitarian supplies and assistance blocked at every turn, according to a senior official.
Since last week, Gaza’s population has suffered multiple mass casualty incidents due to Israeli airstrikes, with nearly 400 reportedly killed and almost 1,500 injured
Joyce Msuya, Acting Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, briefed ambassadors from across the world on the situation in the north, where fighting has escalated.
She said that since her last briefing a week ago, Gaza’s population has suffered multiple mass casualty incidents due to Israeli airstrikes, with nearly 400 reportedly killed and almost 1,500 injured.
She also spoke of patients and displaced persons sheltering near Al Aqsa hospital burning alive, while scores more are suffering from excruciating burns, and more than 20 people were killed and injured in a strike on a school serving as a shelter in Nuseirat.
Msuya added that 13 members of a single family were killed after rescue workers were prevented from reaching the wounded trapped under the rubble.
Meanwhile, only three of the 10 hospitals in North Gaza Governorate are now operational, but only at minimum capacity, and with dire shortages of fuel, blood, trauma treatment and medications.
Msuya also highlighted the situation of the 155,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women in Gaza, where giving birth is exhausting and traumatic.
‘There is no antenatal care. There is no medication. And then there is hunger,’ she said. ‘Some 11,000 pregnant women are suffering hunger and malnutrition, putting not just their lives at risk, but also the lives of their newborn babies.’
Israel’s bloody campaign, both from the air and on the ground has killed more than 42,000 people, according to Gaza’s health authorities.
Two-thirds of Gaza’s pre-war structures – over 163,000 buildings – have been damaged or flattened, according to satellite data.
‘The impact of the war in the Gaza Strip has taken a toll far beyond loss of life, desperate humanitarian conditions and physical destruction,’ said ILO regional director for Arab states Ruba Jaradat.
‘It has fundamentally altered the socio-economic landscape of Gaza, while also severely impacting the West Bank’s economy and labour market. The impact will be felt for generations to come.’
