Israel’s ‘financial stranglehold’ on Palestinian land must end: UN experts

United Nations experts have warned of catastrophic economic damage as a result of Israel’s relentless attacks on Gaza and its “wider financial stranglehold” across occupied Palestinian territory.

“Economic life in Gaza has been decimated by sheer physical destruction, blockade and siege, and repeated forced displacement,” the experts, including a special rapporteur and three UN-backed independent experts, said in a statement.

They said that in the starved and besieged enclave, most commercial, agricultural and industrial assets have been damaged or destroyed, while unemployment has surged to over 80 percent, gross domestic product (GDP) has dramatically shrunk, and trade has stalled.

“Poverty is endemic. Famine has been declared,” wrote the experts, in reference to the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report last month that officially declared famine in parts of Gaza.

They pointed out that there is a liquidity crisis in Gaza as most banks and ATMs have been destroyed, Israel has blocked the inflow of new currency, and wages are paling in comparison to stratospheric inflation caused by a total siege.

After the war, cooking oil prices rose by 1,200 percent and flour by 5,000 percent by mid-2025, they said, adding that humanitarian workers are reportedly losing nearly 40 percent of their salaries just to access their wages, and digital payments are impeded by electricity and telecommunications outages.

The four experts noted that the occupied West Bank is also under increasing financial strain as Israel has arbitrarily diverted or withheld tax revenues owed to the Palestinian Authority in violation of the Oslo Accords.

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich wants to cancel annual waivers that allow Israeli banks to process transactions with Palestinian banks, something the experts said “would cut Palestinians off from the global financial system”.

Meanwhile, work permits have been suspended for 100,000 Palestinian workers, slashing cash inflows that previously represented a quarter of all gross national income.

“These measures exacerbate heavy economic losses from the illegal taking of land and the illegal exploitation of natural resources by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank,” the experts said.

They emphasised that Israel is violating its human rights obligations and its legal requirements as an occupying power, and is impeding the collective rights of the Palestinian people to economic self-determination and control over natural wealth and resources.

In July, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory released a report mapping the corporations aiding Israel in the displacement of Palestinians and its genocidal war on Gaza, in breach of international law.