Gaza’s economy, society and basic infrastructure have been almost entirely wiped out. With 90 per cent of people displaced, food systems destroyed and schools and hospitals in ruins, reconstruction is becoming harder by the day.

Two years and more into the Israeli genocide on Gaza, which began in October 2023, the Gaza Strip confronts an economic and social reality beyond description. It is a complete breakdown of life and everything related to it – the economy, education, health, agriculture, land, society, and humanity itself.

It is an unprecedented scenario – the United Nations calls it the “deepest economic crisis reported in the Palestinian territories since the start of the documentation”, and UNCTAD has put Gaza on the list of the 10 worst economic disasters in the world since 1960. The situation is very grim: UNCTAD estimates Gaza has lost the equivalent of 70 years of development in just two years, which is a situation not even faced by countries that have gone through long civil wars.

The crisis is mainly about total economic destruction. From 2022, Gaza’s gross domestic product has dropped by 87 per cent. This is not just a downturn of the economy; it is a complete breakdown that has reduced the economy to only 13 per cent of its former capacity. For the year 2024 alone, GDP plummeted by 83 per cent, and Gaza’s share of the Palestinian economy, where it constitutes 40 per cent of the population, fell to just 3 per cent.

The per capita GDP is now $161 a year –  $0.44 a day – the lowest in the world, and very far from the extreme poverty line.

The societal impact of this catastrophe is huge. The whole population is in multidimensional poverty which is characterised by the loss of fundamental human rights and not just by financial difficulties: housing, food, education, healthcare, work, and psychological security.

When a whole society experiences the absence of these basic conditions all at once, the problem is no longer that of restoration of the site but that of whether or not the human race can be brought back to life within a generation.

Inflation has risen in every sector. Prices of commodities jumped up by 300 per cent, while prices of food went up by 450 per cent, making it........

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