Israeli attacks erase decades of progress in Gaza, UNCTAD calls it ‘utter ruin’

A new report of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) placed at an ongoing five-day session of The Trade and Development Board in Geneva reveals startling numbers about the scale of unprecedented devastation caused by Israel in Gaza and other occupied territories over the past two years, bringing to the fore the tragedy of economic and humanitarian impacts of Tel Aviv’s reckless military offensive on Palestinians.

According to this latest report about the conditions in Israeli-occupied areas where a fragile ceasefire that is in place constantly gets violated, “The (Israeli) military operations and restrictions have triggered an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in Gaza. As at 15 August 2025, famine (phase 5 of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification), with reasonable evidence, was confirmed in Gaza. After 22 months of conflict, over 0.5 million people in Gaza face catastrophic conditions and another 1.07 million people (54 per cent) are in emergency (phase 4) and 396,000 people (20 percent) are in crisis (phase 3).” According to the UNCTAD website, The Trade and Development Board serves as UNCTAD’s governing body between its quadrennial conferences, overseeing the organisation’s activities and addressing policy, management and institutional matters. “It’s made up of 160 members, elected from UNCTAD’s 195 member states based on nominations from regional groups, ensuring equitable geographic representation and inclusivity in decision-making,” the website said.

The UNCTAD report added that as of 3 September 2025, over 161,245 Palestinians had been injured and over 63,746 killed, including over 18,400 children. “At least 531 aid workers and 1,590 health workers have been killed, alongside 247 journalists. Over 1 million children are in urgent need of mental health and psychosocial support,” the report added, emphasising that infrastructure across Gaza has collapsed.

“Approximately 92 per cent of housing units have been damaged or destroyed, leaving around 1.4 million people each in urgent need of shelter and of household items. Health services are collapsing, with only 50 per cent of hospitals and 40 per cent of primary health centres functional. Hospitals face significant shortages of supplies, health workers and fuel, with services further disrupted by recurring evacuation orders and direct targeting,” the UNCTAD report noted.

Women and girls experience unique, gender-specific threats to health, hygiene, privacy, safety and dignity, it pointed out. “Women bear greater responsibility for providing care for children, the elderly and injured. The situation continues to deteriorate with no foreseeable end to the suffering. A generation now bears the burden of lifelong physical scars and psychological trauma, including widespread anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.”

The education system has similarly collapsed, the report added. “Over 658,000 children and 87,000 university students do not have access to schools and over 88 per cent of schools require full reconstruction,” according to the report, citing various international agencies and based on satellite images.

The UNCTAD report noted that in Gaza in 2007–2022, GDP grew by a mere 1.1 per cent, while the population grew by 61 per cent and real GDP per capita shrank by 37 per cent, from $1,994 in 2006 to $1,253 in 2022. “The share of Gaza in the Palestinian economy contracted from 31 to 17.4 per cent, as growth performance trailed the economy of the occupied West Bank, which also operated at well below potential.”

It added that the post-October 2023 military operations have destroyed the economic foundations of Gaza and propelled it from de-development to utter ruin. “In 2024, GDP contracted by 83 per cent compared with 2023, following an already significant decline in 2023. Cumulatively, over 2023 and 2024, GDP shrank by 87 per cent, dropping to $362 million,” the report said about Gaza. “GDP per capita fell to $161, among the lowest in the world, and at 4.6 percent of the West Bank GDP per capita, marking a significant deterioration from near parity in 1994. The share of Gaza fell from 17.4 percent of Palestinian GDP in 2022 to 3.3 per cent in 2024, yet its share of the population is 40 per cent. This is a steep decline from the share of 37.6 per cent in 1994, at the outset of the Oslo Accords.”

The report added that data from United Nations Satellite Centre assessments show that by April 2025, 174,513 structures, or 70 per cent of the structures in Gaza, had been damaged. 

The report, which details UNCTAD's assistance to the Palestinian people, concludes that the devastation has inflicted deep wounds on human capital. “Lives lost, physical injuries, mass displacement and widespread psychological trauma leave lasting scars. Education has been particularly devastated; the school system in Gaza has entirely collapsed, with nearly all educational facilities damaged or destroyed since October 2023. As of June 2025, students had been deprived of formal schooling for over 21 months. In the West Bank, violence, movement restrictions and financial strains have disrupted learning, with frequent school closures, reducing in-person instruction in many areas to two days per week. Teachers and staff, already receiving partial salaries since 2021, face significant challenges in delivering education. An entire generation’s lost learning will reduce future earnings and enhance societal fragility. Without urgent intervention, the toll on both present and future generations will only grow heavier. By end-2024, the private sector in Gaza had experienced an estimated $5.9 billion in physical damage, with two thirds of businesses eradicated and 22 per cent incurring partial damages.

According to this new report, a joint interim assessment by the European Union, the United Nations and the World Bank estimates that for Gaza alone, recovery and reconstruction needs amount to $53.2 billion, over four times Palestinian GDP.

Just as the news of this report came out, Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on Palestine, posted on X, saying, “A new UN report finds that Israel’s assault on Gaza - with the destruction of health care, education, infrastructure, even the banking system - has erased 69 years of human development, marking the worst economic collapse ever recorded. This is not war: it is genocide.”

According to the UNCTAD report, which covered entire Israeli-occupied territories, of which Gaza bears the brunt, the military operations have had significant macroeconomic repercussions. “By 2024, the Occupied Palestinian Territory’s gross domestic product (GDP) had fallen to 70% of the 2022 level, with output shrinking by 27% compared with 2023,” it said, adding that this decline led to a 33% drop in GDP per capita levels from 2022 levels and a 28% drop in GDP per capita from 2023 levels.

The UNCTAD report noted at the outset, “The scale of destruction has unleashed cascading crises, economic, humanitarian, environmental and social, propelling the Occupied Palestinian Territory from de-development to utter ruin. The military operations have ravaged vital infrastructure, including hospitals, universities, schools, places of worship, cultural heritage sites, water and sanitation systems, agricultural land and telecommunications and energy networks. As highlighted in the note, there has been a significant economic fallout due to the deterioration of the situation in the West Bank, where the escalation of violence has led to mass displacement and an unprecedented number of demolitions of Palestinian public and private assets.

Israel, which has conducted repeated military operations on occupied areas long before the October 7 attack on that country by Hamas, including in 2008–09, in 2012, in 2014, in 2021, in 2022, and 2023–24, has shattered infrastructure in these territories. Israel has often claimed that its offensive was aimed at ensuring the security of its people and for securing its right to exist, an argument contested by a section of historians and analysts who call the country a settler colonial state bent upon pushing its dangerous expansionism on the Middle East.