Israel's blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip has cost the coastal enclave as much as $16.7 billion in economic losses and sent poverty and unemployment skyrocketing, a UN report said Wednesday, as it called on Israel to lift the closure.
The report by the UN Conference on Trade and Development echoed calls by numerous international bodies over the years criticizing the blockade. But its findings, looking at an 11-year period ending in 2018, marked perhaps the most detailed analysis of the Israeli policy to date.
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Israel imposed the blockade in 2007 after Hamas, an Islamic terrorist group that opposes Israel's existence, seized control of Gaza from the forces of the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority in a military coup. The Israeli measures, along with restrictions by neighboring Egypt, have tightly controlled the movement of people and goods in and out of the territory.
Both Israel and Egypt maintain that the blockade is necessary to prevent Hamas from smuggling terrorists and weapons into Gaza.
The measure's critics, however, say the blockade has amounted to collective punishment, hurting the living conditions of Gaza's 2 million inhabitants while failing to oust Hamas or moderate its behavior.
"The result has been the near-collapse of Gaza's regional economy and its isolation from the Palestinian economy and the rest of the world," the UN agency said in a statement.
The report analyzed both the effects of the closure, which has greatly limited Gaza's ability to export goods, as well as the effects of the three wars, which took place in 2008-2009, 2012 and 2014.
Using two methodologies, the report said that overall economic losses due to the blockade and wars ranged from $7.8 billion to $16.7 billion. It said Gaza's economy grew by a total of just 4.8% during the entire period, even as its population grew over 40%.
These economic losses helped propel unemployment in Gaza from 35% in 2006 to 52% in 2018, one of the highest rates in the world, UNCTAD said.
It said the poverty rate jumped from 39% in 2007 to 55% in 2017. Based on Gaza's economic trends before the closure, the report said the poverty rate could have been just 15% in 2017 if the wars and blockade had not occurred.
"The impact is the impoverishment of the people of Gaza, who are already under blockade," said Mahmoud Elkhafif, the agency's coordinator of assistance to the Palestinian people and author of the report.
Israel has long accused the UN of being biased against it. The report, for instance, included only a brief mention that indiscriminate rocket fire at Israeli civilian areas is prohibited under international law. "Palestinian militants must cease that practice immediately," it said.
Israel's Foreign Ministry accused UNCTAD of failing its mission to assist developing economies and presenting a "one-sided and distorted depiction" that disregards "terrorist organizations' control over the Gaza Strip and their responsibility for what occurs in the Gaza Strip."
"In light of all this, we cannot take the findings of the reports it publishes seriously, and this report is no different," it said.
In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said the report revealed "the level of the crime" committed by Israel.
"This siege has amounted to a real war crime and pushed all services sectors in the Gaza Strip to collapse," he said. "These figures also reveal the international inability to deal with the illegal siege on Gaza."
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The UN agency said it compiled the report at the request of the UN General Assembly and noted that "it did not include other costs of Israeli occupation over the Palestinians."
UNCTAD, a technical agency that seeks to reduce global inequality, recommended that Israel lift the blockade to allow free trade and movement. It also called for the reconstruction of Gaza's infrastructure, addressing Gaza's electricity and water crisis, allowing the Palestinians to develop offshore natural gas fields and for the international community to push Hamas and the Palestinian Authority to reconcile.
