The Israeli checkpoint in Qalandiya, in the occupied West Bank, April 5, 2024 (AFP/Archives/Zain JAAFAR)
Having been in bad shape for years, the economy of the Palestinian Territories is sinking even further because of the war in the Gaza Strip, which is accelerating its very strong dependence on Israel.
“Technically, there is no Palestinian economy under Israeli occupation,” said Adel Samara, an economist based in Jerusalem. “Our economy has been annexed by Israel.”
The Palestinian economy is in fact largely governed by a set of rules agreed between Palestinians and Israelis, and set out in the Paris protocols, signed in 1994.
Like the Oslo Accords within the framework of which they were signed, these texts were supposed to apply for five years, until the creation of a Palestinian state.
Broken promise: the economy remains dependent on a road map which, over time, has proven increasingly unsuitable.
Palestinians shop at a market in Ramallah during the month of Ramadan, March 11, 2024 in the occupied West Bank (AFP/Archives/Zain JAAFAR)
“Our economy is handicapped,” comments Mr. Samara, who lists the bureaucratic obstacles encountered by Palestinian entrepreneurs in setting up, the control of resources by Israel, the constraints to develop agriculture or even tourism…
The war with the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in Gaza allowed Israel to tighten its grip on the Palestinian economy, using pre-existing mechanisms, regrets Mr. Samara.
– “Unprecedented financial crisis” –
These 1994 texts, for example, give Israel exclusive control of Palestinian borders and the collection of import taxes, which it must then pay to the Palestinian Authority.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during a swearing-in ceremony for newly appointed ministers on March 31, 2024 in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank (AFP/Archives/Jaafar ASHTIYEH)
Thus, the day after the bloody attacks of October 7 committed by Hamas in Israel, leading to the death of 1,170 people, according to an AFP count, Israel stopped paying all of these customs revenues, arguing that it refused to finance the Palestinian Islamist movement, in power in Gaza since 2007 and which it considers a “terrorist organization”.
Outraged, Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, refused to receive the remainder. Norway, which is leading mediation, announced in February that some $115 million (108 million euros) had finally been disbursed by Israel.
But the crisis is not resolved.
Israel has already suspended these transfers on several occasions. According to some economists, these sums represent nearly 60% of the Palestinian Authority’s revenues.
Without these funds, it is “in difficulty paying the salaries of its civil servants and for its current expenses”, recalls Taher Labadi, researcher in political economy at the French Institute of the Middle East.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa deplores an “unprecedented financial crisis”, with a hole of seven billion dollars (around 6.5 billion euros) in the current fiscal year, or more than a third of GDP of the Palestinian Territories.
A member of the Israeli security forces stands guard as Palestinians wait behind a barrier at the Bethlehem checkpoint, March 15, 2024 in the occupied West Bank (AFP/Archives/HAZEM BADER)
To strengthen Israel’s “security” after the Hamas attack, 130,000 Palestinians were deprived of work permits in this country, leaving them without income.
More than one in three workers is unemployed in the West Bank, a territory occupied by Israel since 1967 where three million people live. Twice as many as before the war.
“By prohibiting Palestinian workers from entering Israel and withholding Palestinian taxes,” Israel aims “to undermine the Palestinian Authority because it considers it an enemy,” judges Israeli researcher Michael Milshtein, specialist in Palestinian issues. .
Mr. Milshtein estimates, based on Israeli data, that until October 7, almost a third of the West Bank’s income came from the salaries of the 193,000 Palestinians working in Israel.
– “Punish collectively” –
Palestinians observe a cloud of smoke after an Israeli bombardment on the Firas market area, April 11, 2024 in Gaza (AFP/Archives/-)
According to him, only some 8,000 Palestinians now work legally in Israel. Israel also aims to “collectively punish the Palestinians whom it also considers enemies”, accuses Michael Milshtein.
Some Israeli political figures, such as Minister Benny Gantz or MP Gideon Saar, want to allow workers to return to Israel in order to avoid, according to them, an uprising in the West Bank which would further complicate the task of the Israeli forces already deployed in the Strip. Gaza and on the border with Lebanon.
“Benjamin Netanyahu is putting the Palestinians under pressure and showing the Authority that the levers of its economy are in his hands,” summarizes Nasser Abdel Karim, professor of economics at the Arab American University in Jenin.
“He thinks he will weaken the Authority and make it accept political concessions,” he continues.
“The Israeli government wants a strong Authority even less, as it does not want it to have a central role at the end of the war” in Gaza, he summarizes.
The academic does not judge this strategy to be profitable, because according to him, it is based on the principle according to which the pacification of the West Bank would require its prosperity.
Flour rationing during a humanitarian aid distribution in Gaza, March 17, 2024 (AFP/Archives/-)
However, “previous uprisings broke out when the economic situation was not particularly difficult,” he notes.
“The Palestinians certainly want to live in dignity, but for them this also implies the liberation of their people and the creation of a Palestinian state.”
© 2024 AFP
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