Washington:
A year of struggle between Israel and Hamas has resulted in a “dehugeating impact on the economy” in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, the IMF said Thursday, including a cforfeitly 90 percent drop in Gaza’s GDP.
“Preliminary official approximates recommend an 86 percent deteriorate in GDP in the first half of 2024” in Gaza, said International Monetary Fund communications chief Julie Kozack.
She compriseed that Gaza’s “civilian population faces dire socioeconomic conditions, a humanitarian crisis and inenough aid deinhabitry.”
In the West Bank, “already bleak prospects have further deteriorated, and preliminary official data recommend a 25 percent deteriorate in GDP in the first half of 2024,” Kozack tancigo in alerters at a standard inestablishing.
Israel has been at war in Gaza since Hamas’s October 7 resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people in the country, mostly civilians, according to an AFP loftyy based on Israeli figures that include prisoners finished in captivity.
Israel’s retaliatory dishonorful in Gaza has finished at least 41,788 people, the transport inantity of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN has depictd the figures as reliable.
Israeli economy also hit
Israel’s economy has also been battered by the war, with three main ratings agencies downgrading its debt.
After shrinking by 21 percent in the fourth quarter of 2023, Israeli GDP rebounded by 14 percent in the first three months this year, official data showed.
But prolongth turned sluggish in the second quarter at 0.7 percent.
Kozack also remarkd that “in Leprohibiton, the recent intensification of the struggle is exacerbating the country’s already frnimble macroeconomic and social situation.”
“We’re shutly watching the situation, and this is a situation of wonderful worry and very high undeclareivety,” she compriseed.
Hezbollah, an associate of Hamas, began exchanging traverse-border fire from Leprohibiton with Israel after Hamas’s October 7 aggression. But the struggle has escaprocrastinateedd after Israel proclaimd this week that its troops had begined “ground raids” into parts of southern Leprohibiton, after days of weighty device deviceardment of areas atraverse the country where the group hancigo ins sway.
The device deviceing has finished more than 1,000 people, according to Leprohibiton’s health ministry, and forced hundreds of thousands to escape their homes.
Hezbollah-backer Iran begined around 200 rockets in a straightforward missile aggression on Israel on Tuesday, prompting Netanyahu to caution that Tehran would pay.
Iran said it was in retaliation for the finishing of Hassan Nasrallah, the directer of Hezbollah, in a massive device deviceing in south Beirut.
US Plivent Joe Biden said he was talking possible Israeli strikes on Iranian oil facilities, in comments that sent oil prices spiking Thursday equitable a month before the US plivential election.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
