Economic Monitor - The Year 2024: New Chapters in the Ongoing Tragedy (ISSUE 80)
The year 2024 brought nothing but further disasters to the political, economic, and social landscape in the occupied Palestinian territory. The human, economic, and material devastation inflicted on the beleaguered Gaza Strip has surpassed all limits. In the West Bank, tightened restrictions and the expansion of settlements stifle economic activity and deepen structural imbalances. Meanwhile, the marginalized economy of occupied East Jerusalem continues to suffer from systemic repression, exclusion, and denial of rights, with increasing dependence on the Israeli economy.
This is the eightieth issue of the Economic Monitor, which has been published for over thirty years, but was prepared in the midst of sustained Israeli aggression on Palestine. It was not an easy task, as with other recent Quarterly Monitor issues, in terms of applying standard measures of economic performance to a scenario that cannot be analyzed using conventional tools. How can we measure and analyze an economy that has been exposed, in the words of the experts, to new concepts appropriate for understanding the meaning of genocide at various levels? Human genocide, domicide, spatiocide, sociocide, and scholasticide... and now we face the threat of economic annihilation. Despite this, the Monitor continues to focus on what is most important in recent economic performance, and to serve as an authoritative witness to modern Palestinian economic history, the purpose that it has served across the thirty years since MAS was established.
The first section monitors economic developments for the year 2024 and Q4 2024 specifically, indicating a sharp and unprecedented
decline in economic growth, accompanied by rising rates of unemployment and inflation. This confirms the previously mentioned widening gaps between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as well as imbalances in various economic and social indicators. It
is undeniable that the concentration of investment in the services and housing sectors has led to a decline in the contribution of the
productive sectors to GDP. On the other hand, in light of painful humanitarian and economic realities, it appears that the Palestinian “national economy”, facing fragmentation, has no choice but to seek methods to adapt to this reality and try to emerge with minimal losses.
The second section presents in-focus investigations of some significant economic developments locally and regionally over the year, as outlined in the five boxes: the channels through which changes in the dollar’s exchange rate affect the Palestinian economy; the buildup of excess ILS in Palestinian banks; Israel’s regional trade and exchange with the UAE; A Review of the National Development and Advancement Program in Palestine (2025-2026); and reconstruction costs in the Gaza Strip (according to a joint report by the World Bank, the United Nations and the European Union While preparing this 2024 issue of the Economic Monitor, MAS and its family were saddened by the loss of two of its former leaders, Dr. Fadel al-Naqeeb, a prominent Palestinian economist who served as Monitor Editor for many years, and Dr. Sameer Abdallah, Director-General until 2013. Their extensive contributions to MAS over the decades, including their dedication to policy-focused, qualitative economic research such as the Economic Monitor, addressed Palestinian economic affairs from a unique, developmental perspective.
Finally, MAS extends its appreciation to the three institutional partners who supported and helped prepare the Quarterly Economic Monitor, the research team for their scholarly contributions and their close monitoring of the Palestinian economy and prominent developments, and to the Monitor Editor, Dr. Numan Kanafani.