Published: 4 January 2021
Last updated: 4 March 2024
ABOUT 70,000 PEOPLE - close to ten percent of the West Bank's Palestinian labour force – have officially lost their jobs due to the pandemic but the actual figure may be more than double that, according to a leading Palestinian economist.
Samir Abdullah, who is also a former planning minister for the PA, estimates half of the 160,000-200,000 Palestinians working in Israel have become unemployed. His claim contrasts with the figure of 70,000 in a report issued last week by the Palestinian Monetary Authority and the central bureau of statistics. The report applies to the West Bank but excludes East Jerusalem.
Whatever the true level, economic distress due to the pandemic is causing considerable depression and anxiety among Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, according to the director of the Palestinian Authority's mental health unit in the health ministry.
"People are depressed or anxious mainly. They are in serious distress," says Samah Jabr, a psychiatrist who oversees clinics across the West Bank. "They are grieving for their losses. Some people had to postpone their marriages or going abroad because of the economic situation. They had to give up some of their dreams because of the current situation."
"I know people who started an independent small project and it collapsed completely," Jabr added. "They borrowed from the bank. Now they are compelled to pay the fees and they must ask family members for help. It's extremely distressing."
The authority, itself strapped, has made only a one-off payment of 600 shekels ($A245) to the unemployed, according to Samir Abdullah.
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"We don't have a safety net except for payments to martyrs’ families and prisoners’ families," he said, referring to the PA's controversial practice of what, in Israeli eyes, is subsidising terrorism.
The current crisis, with its closures to slow the spread of the pandemic, hit what was already a weak economy. "The economy has been in bad shape for many years, since 2012. We didn't witness any real growth and unemployment was very high. The business mood was very pessimistic. When corona approached us, it added insult to injury," Abdullah told The Jewish Independent.
According to a report issued last week by the Palestinian Monetary Authority and the central bureau of statistics, Gross Domestic Product per capita declined by 12 percent in 2020 compared to 2019 due to the pandemic.
"Most economic activities experienced setbacks in the value added, leading to a noticeable decrease in GDP per capita and a rise in unemployment rates with new
segments of the population entering the poverty cycle, which led to a decline in the public demand on the consumption and gross investor indicators," the report said.
"During the second half of 2020, most economic activity began to recover gradually due to the policy of balancing between the aspects of economy and health," the report added. "GDP increased but remained at a lower level than its pre-pandemic rates."
Tourism has been particularly hard hit. The hotels are not functioning, 98 percent of the tourism sector is totally paralysed - Samir Hazboun, chairman of the Bethlehem chamber of commerce
Tourism, a key employer in Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Jericho, has been particularly hard hit. "It has totally stopped. The hotels are not functioning, 98 percent of the tourism sector is totally paralysed," said Samir Hazboun, chairman of the Bethlehem chamber of commerce.
In Ramallah, firms are suffering greatly as well. "Our revenues have decreased by 80 per cent," said Ramadan Safi, co-owner of Orbit Electromechanical Consulting Engineers, which normally gets its business from the PA, the municipality and the private sector.
Until now, he has been able to pay his six workers from revenues that came in from work in 2019 but now he is worried he won't be able to finance their salaries. "We have spent all the money in the trust fund," he said.
Safi's wife, a teacher in a private school, is being paid only 60 per cent of her salary, he said, while his son, 28, has been unemployed and getting by on support from his sisters, who have jobs. He had hoped to be an importer of cosmetics from Italy but could not travel there because of the pandemic.
Still, Safi is optimistic that things will improve. "I think it will be better because of the vaccine. If people are vaccinated there is no real need to close the economic sectors."
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Meanwhile, the economic downturn has increased the number of people seeking help in the psychiatric clinics, Jabr says. "We try to support them to get over this distress but if the symptoms are significant enough, we treat them medically and provide psycho-social support and intervene with medications. If people become sleepless, not eating or suicidal of course we intervene heavily."
"Some of the people I met in the clinic will be behind for ten years because of their big loss," she added. "People who started restaurants or coffee shops put down investments of half a million shekels (A$203,000) and borrowed money.
“Because all society is suffering, people who lend won't be patient. They will want their money back."
"People don't have a well-established government or welfare system to back them when they have a major economic crisis like now," Jabr said. "They are left alone to face their fate."
Photo: Palestinian workers bake bread at a bakery in Gaza City March 8 (Mohammed Salam/Reuters)
