UNITED NATIONS: Even before the latest crisis in the Gaza Strip, the tiny enclave’s local economy was in a state of total collapse, chiefly due to the accumulated impact of a crushing Israel’s seven-year blockade and two devastating Israeli military operations in November 2012 and December 2008, according to a new United Nations report released here on Thursday.

The report on Assistance to the Palestinian People, compiled by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), details how Palestinian economic deterioration, which is largely rooted in the territory’s occupied status, has resulted in weak growth, a precarious fiscal position, forced dependence on the Israeli economy, mass unemployment, wider and deeper poverty, and greater food insecurity.

While the report’s findings do not cover fallout from the current Gaza crisis, which has left more than 2,000 Palestinians dead, injured more than 10,000 and driven nearly 500,000 people from their homes, UNCTAD’s Mahmoud Elkhafif said the situation today is emblematic of the ongoing erosion of Palestinian economic growth and development.

“All of this has created a kind of forced dependence of the Palestinian economy on Israel,” Mr. Elkhafif, Special Coordinator, Assistance to the Palestinian People, Division on Globalisation and Development Strategies, said during a press conference in Geneva to launch the report.

Published in Dawn, September 5th, 2014