Life began to look up for Gaza's Palestinians in October when reconciliation between its Hamas Islamist rulers and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority brought a drop in the prohibitive cost of living. Three months on, discount stickers still adorn goods from clothes to cars but few of the two million people in the enclave, blockaded by Egypt and Israel, are buying.
While Hamas handed administrative control to the Western-backed PA, resulting in the lifting of Hamas business surcharges and making room for price cuts, the rival leaderships are still at loggerheads.
The result is that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who heads the PA, has yet to reverse the 30% wage cut he imposed in April on 60,000 civil servants who stayed on the PA's payroll when the authority lost control of Gaza to Hamas in 2007.
Many of those employees are now mired in debt to banks for loans they took just to keep their heads above water.
The salary reductions "deprived the Gaza market of $160 million in the past eight months," said Maher al-Tabbaa, an official with the Chamber of Commerce.
For individuals, the consequences are stark. In a Gaza pharmacy this week, Umm Ahmed considered which medicines on the prescription she had been given for her son she could afford.
"Even in my dreams, I never thought we would live through such misery," she said as she chose two painkillers and left the more expensive antibiotics on the shelf.
Tabbaa said any economic improvement in Gaza was largely dependent on Israel lifting the border restrictions it imposed after Hamas took power.
Israel cites security concerns for the measures, which include a naval blockade, an almost blanket ban on exports from the territory and restrictions on the import of items such as steel, which terrorists have in many cases used to make weapons.
Battling an Islamist insurgency in the Sinai Desert that borders Gaza, Egypt, the main mediator of inter-Palestinian reconciliation, also invokes security considerations in keeping its border with the enclave largely closed.
Many countries, concerned over deepening economic hardship in Gaza, have urged more open borders.
Some 550 Gaza traders have permission to enter Israel as of December 2017, a drop of 85% since late 2015, according to a Palestinian committee that submits entry requests to Israeli authorities.
Israel argues that in the past, permits have been used to smuggle materials, weapons or money to terrorists.
In Gaza's once bustling Old Market, spice store owner Mamdouh Zeineldeen said he might have to close his business.
"Markets are collapsing, just like reconciliation," he said.
The effects of armed conflict and economic woes in Gaza are also evident at Kerem Shalom, the only commercial crossing between Israel and the territory.
Some 800 to 1,000 truckloads of goods for Gaza pass through Kerem Shalom every day, but Tabbaa said that number dropped to 400 in recent weeks after merchants cut imports due to weak consumer demand.
Israel closed Kerem Shalom on Saturday, a day before it destroyed a Hamas attack tunnel running underneath the facility. The crossing reopened on Tuesday, but further easing appears unlikely.
Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are still divided over the fate of 40,000 to 50,000 employees hired by Hamas since its 2007 takeover of Gaza. Security is another key sticking point in reconciliation efforts, with Hamas still running the police and internal security in Gaza after handing administrative control to the PA.
Peace talks between Israel and Abbas' Palestinian Authority collapsed in 2014 and Palestinian unity was supposed to strengthen Abbas' hand in his bid to establish a state in the West Bank and Gaza.
Israel has balked at the reconciliation efforts, saying it would not negotiate with a Palestinian government dependent on support by Hamas, a group that openly advocates Israel's destruction.
