Palestinian banks operating in the Gaza Strip will resume their activities later this and next two weeks, respectively, after the ceasefire enters into force starting last Sunday morning.
The day before yesterday, Sunday, the Palestine Monetary Authority issued a statement calling on banks active in the Gaza Strip to take measures to resume providing banking services, including restarting a number of bank branches and ATMs that were not destroyed.
On Sunday, the Monetary Authority held a meeting with directors of banks operating in Palestine that have branches in the Gaza Strip, to prepare the remaining branches to receive customers, provide basic services, and encourage the use of electronic payment services.
The banking sector in the Gaza Strip suffers from a scarcity of cash liquidity, reaching the point of almost complete absence, in addition to the high volume of damaged cash, which has prompted citizens to resort to electronic payment tools issued by the Monetary Authority.
For months, most banks in the Gaza Strip have not been able to meet their customers’ requests to withdraw part of their deposits (in cash), except in low numbers due to the lack of cash and the damage of a large portion of the banknotes.
Yesterday, Monday, the Monetary Authority issued instructions to borrowing bank clients in the sector, with the aim of rescheduling loans due throughout the 15 months of the war, and said that it would provide facilities and interest reductions in a way that achieves the interests of both parties (lender and borrower).
The Gaza Strip economy faces a rebuilding battle during the coming period, amid expectations that Gaza will need more than two decades to reach the GDP numbers recorded until the eve of the war on the Strip.
The day before yesterday, Sunday, the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Palestinian factions in Gaza entered into force. In its first phase, it includes the entry of 600 trucks of humanitarian aid into the Strip on a daily basis, and the opening of the Rafah crossing 7 days after the agreement was implemented.
The Gaza ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement consists of 3 phases, each lasting 42 days.
The banking sector in numbers
For his part, Muhammad Manasra, Deputy Governor of the Palestine Monetary Authority, says that 10 banks operate in the Gaza Strip out of a total of 13 local and foreign banks operating in the Palestinian market.
Manasra added – in an interview with Anadolu – that out of 56 branches of the ten banks, only 8 to 11 branches may be fit to receive bank customers during the next two weeks, because the rest of the branches were exposed to total or almost total destruction.
The Monetary Authority provided a list of devices to the official Palestinian authorities to bring them into the Gaza Strip, including ATMs and some equipment that branches need to resume their minimum work, in light of the current security conditions, according to Manasrah.
He said: “Among the most prominent services that we are aiming to provide to our people in Gaza are opening accounts, resuming corporate banking services, issuing bank cards, and activating frozen bank accounts.”
Due to the instability of the security situation in the Gaza Strip, bank lending services to individuals will be limited until the situation is confirmed to be stable, according to the Deputy Governor of the Palestine Monetary Authority.
However, according to Manasra, banks will resume providing their services to the corporate sector, especially credit facilities and financing services, based on these companies fulfilling banking requirements.
Even before the war on Gaza, the number of ATMs was 97, but the number of active machines today does not exceed 3, due to bank branches and ATMs being destroyed by bombing.
Bank deposits
Data from the Monetary Authority show that total banking sector deposits in Gaza grew by more than 83% during the period between September 2023 and November 2024.
By the end of last September, currency deposits in Gaza amounted to $1.74 billion, but they began recording successive jumps as the war on the Strip intensified and its area expanded to affect various governorates, settling at the end of November at $3.2 billion, which is the highest in the history of the banking sector in the Gaza Strip. , going back to historical data going back to the year 2000.
This is because displacement operations make it difficult for individuals to keep their money, with banks acting as custodians of the money.
Despite Manasrah’s statements in which he confirmed the lack of cash liquidity in Gaza branches due to their damage or withdrawal by customers and the theft of some of them, all banking sector deposits in Gaza and the West Bank are insured.
Deposit guarantee
The Palestinian Deposit Insurance Corporation operates in the market, and Manasrah says about it: “The institution immediately guarantees deposits worth $20,000 for each account holder, and guarantees the full amount if it exceeds $20,000, but over longer compensation periods.”
He said, “By immediate guarantee, we mean that any deposits in the banking sector are exposed to any type of risk. The Palestinian Deposit Insurance Corporation pays the amount within a maximum of several days.”
He added, “We insure customer deposits in two ways: the first is through the Palestinian Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the second is that the Monetary Authority guarantees these funds, as long as they are deposited in an institution subject to its supervision.”
Between October 7, 2023 and January 19, Israel committed genocide in the Gaza Strip, leaving more than 157,000 Palestinians martyred and wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 11,000 missing.
