About $540 million is needed for humanitarian relief in the Palestinian territories in 2018, according to the United Nations.
The U.N.'s top humanitarian coordinator, Jamie McGoldrick, said Wednesday that 75% of that sum is needed for the Gaza Strip, where "a man-made tragedy is unfolding daily."
Gaza has been under an Israeli and Egyptian blockade since 2007, when Islamic terrorist group Hamas seized control of the coastal enclave in a military coup. The closure, along with Hamas' conflicts with Israel and with arch political rival the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, has devastated Gaza's economy.
Half the sum is needed to support emergency projects by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees, after the U.S. slashed its funding this year. The rest is to fund food, water, health, sanitation, shelter and education projects.
Meanwhile, the World Bank said the economic decline in the Gaza Strip has become too steep to be tackled by international aid, and freer trade needs to be allowed there.
In a 46-page report released Thursday as world powers convened in Rome to discuss the future of UNRWA, the bank said Gaza's economy "cannot survive without being connected to the outside world. Any effort at economic recovery and development must address the impacts of the current closure regime."
Gaza's economic growth plummeted from 8% in 2016 to 0.5% last year, with half the labor force unemployed and public health at risk from the deterioration in basic services such as water and electricity, the report said.
"In the long term, aid will not be able to provide the impetus for growth, nor can it reverse Gaza's de-development," it said. It urged that exports from Gaza be stepped up and restrictions relaxed on "dual-use" imports – materials that might have military applications.
Israel and Egypt did not comment immediately on the report, which came a day after representatives from the two countries and 18 other nations met in Washington to discuss potential remedies for Gaza's humanitarian crisis.
The White House – which, like Israel, classifies Hamas as a terrorist group and accuses the Palestinians of not pursuing peace sufficiently – said it presented "specific project ideas" at the conference, which may be followed up at an international meeting on Gaza in Brussels on March 20.
