The Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and the Regional Director for Arab Countries at the United Nations Development Programme, Abdullah Dardari, expected that the number of poor people in Palestine would rise by 45% by the end of the third month of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip to 2.46 million people, compared to 1.8 million people before the aggression.
A jump in the number of poor people
Al-Dardari noted, in a conference to announce the expected initial losses on Palestine’s neighboring countries (Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon), that the increase in poverty rates, as a result of economic declines, usually takes time, but in the Palestinian case it is expected that the number of poor people will increase by 660 thousand people. In just the last three months since the beginning of the Israeli war on the besieged Strip.
In response to a question from Al Jazeera Net, Al-Dardari said that the United Nations Development Program has begun planning for reconstruction in Gaza, but it is still in the stage of preparing technical files and has not communicated with internal parties in Palestine.
The ferocity of the bombing
Al-Dardari added that the numbers coming from Palestine indicate the ferocity of the bombing and the extent of the destruction, with the loss of about 60% of homes in Gaza and 19 years of human development, equivalent to $50 billion worth of investments in human development (in the aspects of health, education, infrastructure, drinking water, and economic growth). ).
Al-Dardari pointed out, by comparison, that Syria lost 45% of its homes in 5 years of conflict, and Ukraine did not lose this amount of buildings despite the war there, and the number of children killed in Gaza in two months is 10 times their counterparts in Ukraine in 18 years. A month of war.
Regarding losses in terms of gross domestic product, the Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations said that the Palestinian economy lost more than 12% of its value, or $2.5 billion, which he considered an “unprecedented economic shock.”
Al-Dardari indicated that the extent of the destruction and its resulting effects are at the rate of Palestinian losses in 3 months compared to those that Ukraine suffered at a rate of 30% in 18 months of war.
Paralyze the economy
He said: “We will not be able to rebuild everything that was destroyed immediately after stopping military operations. These years that it will take to rebuild are a loss in human development, gross domestic product and poverty. Therefore, the loss in human development in Palestine is 16 years of progress and in Gaza 19 years.”
As additional evidence of the extent of the destruction, Al-Dardari noted that the Gaza Strip represents about one-fifth of the Palestinian gross domestic product, indicating that when this decline occurs in the Palestinian economy, it carries an economic significance.
He considered that what happened in the West Bank was a dismemberment, as the Palestinian farmer was prevented from harvesting olive and citrus crops, the tourist season stopped, and salaries and wages for workers in government institutions stopped, saying that “the economy in the West Bank has become paralyzed.”
Regarding the reconstruction of Gaza, he said that about two million Palestinians in Gaza have become displaced without drinking water, sanitation, and education services, to the point that vaccinations and vaccinations for children have stopped.
Al-Dardari summed up his presentation by saying that the numbers “will not be able to express the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza,” no matter how accurate they are.
