[News] ‘Israel’ deliberately targeted productive sector in Gaza to cause severe, long-term damage

[Anti-Imperialist News]

  ‘Israel’ deliberately targeted productive sector in Gaza to cause
  severe, long-term damage

September 21, 2021 - https://qudsnen.co/?p=29544

Besieged Gaza Strip (QNN)- The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor 
said that following Israel’s latest aggression on the Gaza Strip, the 
Gaza’s productive
sectors and economic structures, which were already fragile due to years 
of siege and the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic, directly and 
indirectly affected.

In its report released in September and examined the “Israeli attack’s 
impact on the economic sectors of the Gaza Strip, Euro-Med revealed that 
the Israeli forces during the 11-day aggression last May carried out 
“precision and focused air or artillery attacks on economic facilities 
containing factories and production and service units, specifically 
factories that produce plastic, nylon, and food products, in addition to 
renewable energy projects.”

In addition to targeting production facilities in different areas in 
Gaza, Euro-Med said the Israeli forces “deliberately targeted the Gaza 
Industrial Estate (GIE)” which is one of the largest production 
complexes in Gaza, “where a considerable amount of Gaza’s production 
operations take place, as it contains dozens of
factories and companies that employ hundreds of workers.”

“The Israeli army artillery targeted GIE for days with dozens of shells, 
which caused massive fires in the production facilities. To make matters 
worse, the fires continued for days,” it said.

The human rights group said by “examining the Israeli army’s behavior 
and the nature of the precise munitions it used to target economic 
facilities, it becomes obvious that Israel may have deliberately 
targeted the productive sector in Gaza to cause severe, long-term damage 
to its productive capacities and to stifle
any efforts to achieve economic development in the beleaguered sector of 
more than 15 years.”

The direct Israeli attacks caused widespread damage and destruction to 
more than 100 factories, residential buildings, towers that contained 
multi-service shops, industrial workshops, educational institutions, 
training centers, and agricultural areas, some of which contained 
livestock and poultry farms, Euro-Med added.

It added that the fishing sector also received a major blow after Israel 
closed the sea, prevented fishing throughout the aggression and its 
aftermath, and repeatedly reduced the fishing area as a form of 
collective punishment.

The head of the Fishermen’s Syndicate in Gaza, Nizar Ayyash, told 
Euro-Med Monitor that the closure of the sea during the Israeli attack 
caused the disruption of more than 4,000 fishermen, who support about 
50,000 people. He said that the closure caused indirect damages 
estimated at $2 million,
in addition to losses estimated at $170,000 due to the direct 
bombardment that targeted several docks in the governorates of the Gaza 
Strip.

According to a report issued by the Higher Governmental Committee for 
the Reconstruction of Gaza, the total direct losses and damages in the 
economic sector from the Israeli military attack on Gaza amounted to 
$479 million distributed on the housing, infrastructure, economic 
development, and social development sectors.

A Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment (RDNA) in the Gaza Strip between May 
25 and June 25, 2021, conducted by the World Bank, the United Nations, 
and the European Union revealed material damage of $380 million and
economic losses of $190 million.

As for stopping economic flows, production, and services, the Israeli 
attack caused losses ranging from 105 to 190 million dollars.

Israeli bombing apparently deliberately destroyed about 300 economic 
facilities in the industrial sector that employed about 4,000 workers 
and disrupted the work of all factories during the attack, the group 
said, adding this disruption continued in many factories after the 
attack, while other factories reduced their production capacity and 
stopped some production lines as a result of closing the crossings and 
preventing the import of raw materials.

“The targeting included factories with various fields of work with a 
seemingly deliberate approach to destroying the economic pillars in the 
Gaza Strip. These factories continued to operate despite the losses they 
had sustained
in three previous military attacks, a tight siege since 2006,” the 
Euro-Med Monitor noted.

It also pointed out that the destruction and disruption of factories led 
to a record-high increase in the unemployment rate, surging to over 60% 
among workers. The number of unemployed people increased to about 
270,000 workers and the poverty rate among workers increased to more 
than 80%,according to the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions.

The Euro-Med Monitor also said the Israeli attacks caused a large number 
of workers to stop working. In total, the value of losses in the 
agricultural sector is estimated at more than $200 million.
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