GAZA, (PIC)
The economy of the Gaza Strip is heading towards an unprecedented stage of structural disintegration, with the expansion of what is known by Israel as the “Yellow Line” and its transformation from a military and security measure into a tool to redraw the economic geography within the Strip, by isolating vast areas of agricultural lands and production areas and removing them from the cycle of civil life.
In a reading of the current economic reality, economic analyst Ahmed Abu Qamar said that the Israeli siege is no longer limited to closing crossings or restricting the entry of goods, but has rather developed into a comprehensive re-engineering process of the local economy, based on reducing the vital space for the population and transforming vast areas into isolated zones and areas prohibited from use.
Abu Qamar explained that the “Yellow Line” currently controls about 60% of the area of the Strip, including more than 80% of agricultural lands, which are the areas that represented the backbone of local food production and a main source of livelihood for thousands of Palestinian families.
According to previous economic and agricultural data, Gaza possessed, before the war, about 195,000 dunums of agricultural lands, including approximately 95,000 dunums actually planted with vegetables, grains, and fruitful trees, while the agricultural sector formed one of the most important pillars of the local economy despite the years of the continuous siege.
During the past years, a wide segment of the Strip’s population relied on agriculture as a last economic haven in light of the decline of other productive sectors, and agriculture also played a pivotal role in securing a part of the local food needs and reducing reliance on imports.
Abu Qamar pointed out that the agricultural sector used to contribute more than 11% of Gaza’s gross domestic product, with a productive value that reached hundreds of millions of dollars annually, however, a large part of this system went out of service due to direct destruction or preventing farmers from reaching their lands.
The repercussions are not limited to agriculture only, as the industrial zones located north and east of the Strip, in addition to areas in the south of Gaza, suffered extensive destruction that caused a near-complete halt of industrial activity, and the disruption of thousands of workshops, warehouses, and production facilities.
This comes at a time when the Gazan economy was already suffering from chronic fragility due to the continuous Israeli siege since 2007, which led to a decline in the contribution of industry and agriculture and a rise in the rates of reliance on humanitarian aid and external transfers.
According to Abu Qamar’s estimates, the economy in Gaza recorded, during the year 2025, a contraction that exceeded 87% compared to the pre-war period, while unemployment rates exceeded 80%, to become among the highest globally, coinciding with the rise of poverty rates to more than 90% of the population.
He added that hundreds of thousands of families lost their basic sources of income, while farmers and owners of small projects incurred individual losses that reached hundreds of thousands of shekels, as a result of the destruction of lands, equipment, and productive infrastructure.
Observers believe that the danger of these indicators lies not only in the scale of the current destruction, but in the nature of the economic transformation taking place inside the Strip, where the productive economy is being gradually dismantled, and transforming the society into a model that relies on relief and survival instead of work and production.
Economic experts warn that the continuation of control over agricultural lands and the destruction of the industrial infrastructure will lead to deepening food and economic dependency, and depriving Gaza of any future ability for self-recovery, even in the event that the war stops.