RAMALLAH, West Bank, 14 December 2007 — The World Bank yesterday warned that even if the donor countries meet all of the Palestinian Authority’s demands for financial aid, the Palestinian economy will continue to deteriorate if Israel does not alter mobility and trade restrictions in the West Bank.
The dire message comes ahead of the Pledging Conference to the Palestinian Authority (PA) next Monday in Paris. The Palestinian economy deteriorated hit by seven years of Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well as internal Palestinian strife of Fatah and Hamas movements and Israeli restrictions on travel and trade.
About 56 percent of families in the West Bank and three-quarters of families in Gaza live in poverty. The World Bank stated in a report that if the PA implements all of Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s reforms, and if the donor countries transfer all the money to pay for these, the economic deterioration will be slowed, but not reversed.
“In order to reverse this downward cycle, the bank recommends parallel actions by the Palestinian Authority, Israel and the donors,” the report said.
However, the report contends that if Israel cancels its policy of restricting mobility and trade in the West Bank and lifts the siege on the Gaza Strip, the PA “has the potential to yield double-digit growth rates.” In any event, in the short term the Palestinian economy will continue to rely on outside aid.
The PA is asking for $1.9 billion in annual aid for the next three years. Of this, $1.644 billion will go for development and the remainder to pay salaries. Despite repeated Israeli promises to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to reduce the number of roadblocks and checkpoints in the West Bank, Israel forces maintained its presence nearly at the entrances of all Palestinian cities and on the roads leading to the.
According to recent statistics of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Palestinian territories (OCHA), the number of roadblocks in the West Bank has now reached 572. OCHA said that there are 476 unmanned roadblocks in the West Bank, consisting of concrete cubes, earthen embankments and other barricades blocking roads and exits from villages and towns.
The UN organization found that there are 96 roadblocks manned by Israeli soldiers round the clock, but some are manned only a few hours a day. With regard to Gaza Strip, Israel declared the area, homeland for around 1.4 million Palestinians, a “hostile entity” last September following a barrage of Qassam rockets that knocked the Israeli military base of Zikim leaving over 60 Israeli soldiers wounded in the attack.
In accordance with its announcement, the Israel closed its border crossing with Gaza Strip and those between Gaza and Egypt. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said last Monday that the Palestinians, Israel and the donors would have to cooperate closely. The IMF said going forward poses some risks for all three, but that failure to do so would push the Palestinian economy into a further downward spiral.
