THE latest World Bank economic update said that Gaza’s unemployment rate – at 43.9% – is now the highest in the world, stressing that Israel’s blockade on the Strip caused a 50% decrease of Gaza’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
UNRWA, in a press release, reported on the World Bank as stating the average of youth unemployment in Gaza rose to more than 60% by the end of 2014. The report was presented to the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee (AHLC), a principal policy-level coordination mechanism for development assistance to the Palestinian people, at the bi-annual meeting in Brussels on May 27, 2015.
According to the report, Gaza’s GDP would have been about four times higher than it currently is if it weren’t for the conflicts and multiple restrictions. It also considers that the Israeli imposed blockade, in place since 2007, has resulted in a 50% decrease of Gaza’s GDP.
The report further states that in 2014 the average monthly salary in Gaza amounted to $174; with a poverty rate of 39%, an 11% increase from 2013. Real per capita income – approximately $970.3 in 2014 – is 31% lower than it was 20 years ago, while the population has at the same time increased by 230%, it said.
The World Bank also estimated that the Israeli aggression in 2014 has resulted in a $460 million decrease of the Strip’s output; the massive destruction has led to losses close to $4.4 billion. The report also highlights that Gaza’s population suffers from poor access to social services and underlines the alarming quality of basic public services such as electricity, water, and sewerage.
Nearly 80% of the population receives social assistance, and nearly 40% of them still fall below the poverty line, according to the World Bank. l Palestinian prisoner in Israeli jails Abdullah Barghouti on Sunday began an open-ended hunger strike to protest against his solitary confinement, Chairman of the Prisoners’ Affairs Committee, Issa Qaraqe, reported.
The Israeli prison administration placed senior Hamas official, Barghouti, in solitary confinement after he made a phone call from prison with the Hamas-affiliated al-Ray radio, in which he asked Hamas not to be too hasty in reaching a prisoner exchange deal with Israel, according to media sources.
According to Times of Israel, ‘Hamas prisoner Abdullah Barghouti was placed in solitary confinement after he conducted an illegal telephone interview from his prison cell on Sunday.’ It reported that Israeli Prison Service officials said in response that ‘disciplinary measures will be taken against him for that interview, and the issue of the smuggling will be investigated’.
Barghouti is serving 67 life-term sentences in Israeli jails for his involvement in several attacks against Israel, which is the longest sentence ever among other Palestinian detainees. So far, he has spent 12 years of his sentence. Barghouti’s hunger strike comes concurrently with a similar hunger strike by Islamic Jihad official and prisoner Khader Adnan, who has now been on hunger strike against his illegal administrative detention for 21 consecutive days.
• Israeli authorities on Thursday handed several Palestinian residents eviction and demolition notices of their 14 homes, located in two Palestinian towns in the Jordan Valley area, according to local sources.
The order gave the owners three days to evacuate the homes. In the Jordan Valley’s village of al-Fasayil, the houses that received demolition notices belonged to Ibrahim Salem, Ali Dawood, Ahmad, Ibrahim, and Yousif Ebaidat, Ali Hassan, Aziz Suliman, Suliman Sawarka, Dawoud Ebaidat, Ibrahim Ebayat, Yousef Nawawra, and Mahmoud Abu Kharbish.
Meanwhile in Al-Jiftlik village, Mahmoud Edis, Rasheed Morshed,Omar Abu Razqa and Mut’eb Atawna, received similar notices. Mayor of the Jordan valley, Majid al-Ftyani, considered this Israeli measure as a continuation of Israel’s displacement policy practiced against the Palestinian presence in the Jordan Valley.
The Jordan Valley is part of Area C of the West Bank, under complete Israeli control, where Israel rarely issues construction permits for Palestinians, prompting them to embark on construction without the legal construction permits. The Israeli army and police have repeatedly vandalised residencies in the Jordan valley under the pretext of construction without permission. Israel has heavily invested in transferring the Jordan Valley into a completely Israeli area, primarily in agriculture, to ban territorial contiguity between a future Palestinian state and the rest of the Arab world.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said Israel demolished 390 Palestinian-owned structures in the Jordan valley in 2013, up from 172 the year before. Some 590 Palestinians were displaced last year, compared to 279 in 2012.
Israel destroyed 590 Palestinian buildings in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in 2014, displacing 1,177 people, according to a new study by OCHA. It said that in three days, from 20-22 January 2014, 77 Palestinians, over half of whom were children, became homeless as a result to these demolitions.
It said that, ‘Israel’s extrajudicial demolitions continue into 2015. In January alone, Israel destroyed 77 buildings belonging to Palestinians in the West Bank, leaving 110 people, roughly half of whom were children, homeless in the cold of the winter’.
UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator James Rawley argued the demolitions violate international law. ‘Demolitions that result in forced evictions and displacement run counter to Israel’s obligations under international law and create unnecessary suffering and tension,’ he said. ‘They must stop immediately.’
OCHA wrote in an official statement: ‘The planning policies applied by Israel in Area C and East Jerusalem discriminate against Palestinians, making it extremely difficult for them to obtain building permits. As a result, many Palestinians build without permits to meet their housing needs and risk having their structures demolished. Palestinians must have the opportunity to participate in a fair and equitable planning system that ensures their needs are met,’ it added.
• Three Arabic dailies on Sunday reported that dozens of Palestinians suffered excessive tear gas inhalation and were injured as Israeli forces suppressed peaceful marches protesting against the construction of the Israeli separation wall. Al-Quds reported that Israeli forces physically assaulted a Palestinian woman and her son in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of al-’Issawiya.
Al-Ayyam and al-Hayat al-Jadida reported in this regard that several Palestinians were injured during the peaceful marches and five Palestinians, including two women, were detained. Al-Quds and al-Hayat al-Jadida reported that Israeli settlers pelted Palestinian-registered vehicles with stones and fired at them using blank cartridges near Nahalin town to the west of Bethlehem.
While suppression of weekly marches featured the main front page news article in al-Ayyam, al-Quds opted to give prominence to Israeli plans to construct new settler units in the East Jerusalem settlement of Jabal Abu Ghneim (Har Homa).
