Region | Palestinian Territories
Attacks destroy remaining battered infrastructure
The Gaza economy had been destroyed long before the Israeli bombardment and ground assault started.
- By Tobias Buck, Financial Times
- Published: 23:47 January 9, 2009
- Image Credit: AP
- A woman walks through the rubble of buildings after an Israeli airstrike In the Gaza Strip on Thursday.
Occupied Jerusalem: The Gaza economy had been destroyed long before the Israeli bombardment and ground assault started.
Now, following 13 days of death and destruction, even the most basic infrastructure for private sector activity lies in ruins.
"No one talks about business now," says Faysal Shawa, general secretary of the Palestinian Businessmen Association.
"Everything has been shut down for months and now we are suffering even more."
Israel's long-running closure of strip has starved companies of raw materials and robbed them of the chance to ship goods and agricultural produce abroad. The results have been nothing short of catastrophic - 98 per cent of industry was shut before the assault started, according to the World Bank.
During the past week, even small bakeries closed owing to a lack of electricity.
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There is particular worry about long-term damage to vital infrastructure. Power, water and sewage networks have all been hit in the bombing raids. The United Nations says at least five out of 10 electricity lines from Israel are not functioning and Gaza's only power station remains closed because of lack of fuel.
Damage to the water and sewage systems has triggered another crisis - the lack of drinking water is pervasive and raw sewage is spilling into neighbourhoods and fields. The principal university, several mosques and most administrative and government buildings have come under attack.
They are regarded as targets because they have been used by or are linked to the Hamas government.
No one has dared to assess the cost of rebuilding, once the guns fall silent. Some believe it will take years to get the economy back even to the levels prior to the current conflict.
"The bombing of the Gaza infrastructure has sent the economy far back, but the dismantling of the economy began long before," says Sari Bashi, director of Gisha, an Israeli non-governmental organisation that seeks to protect the right of Palestinians to freedom of movement.
For the past eight years Israel has progressively clamped down on the Gaza economy, allowing fewer and fewer goods and people to enter and leave.
Since June 2007, when Hamas took control of Gaza, the restrictions have been tightened further as Israel moved to halt the flow of all but the most basic humanitarian supplies.
Alarming rate
Businesses in what was a commercial and industrial hub folded at an alarming rate. Nearly 40,000 farmers and more than 70,000 workers in other sectors lost their jobs, the World Bank found.
"June 2007 was the death knell for economic activity in Gaza. December 2008 marked the death knell for even the basic physical infrastructure in the Gaza Strip," says Bashi.
Experts say there is no chance of reconstructing Gaza without Israel agreeing to reopen its border crossings with the strip and end the blockade.
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