This Wednesday, the body will hear humanitarian representatives shortly after the authorities confirmed that the death toll exceeded 45 thousand Palestinians in more than 14 months of the Israeli offensive.

While negotiations for a ceasefire are being revived, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs confirmed that, for the most part, aid missions led by the United Nations to the northern Gaza province have been rejected.

The day before, Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, said that the situation regarding the deployment of missions in the north remains extremely complicated, and stressed: “The civilians who remain there must be protected and their essential needs must be met”.

The call also urged to allow the work of the United Nations and humanitarian partners, who strive to deliver food, water, health care, and other critical assistance, only to see their missions denied or impeded.

According to World Bank statistics, among other grim consequences, the war has caused the loss of a quarter of the Palestinian economy this year after a major contraction in 2023 and amid an unprecedented slowdown in recent history. In a report on the subject, the entity warned that the ongoing conflict had “catastrophic effects on the Palestinian economy and pushes the Palestinian territories into an unprecedented crisis.”

Israel’s offensive, which broke out on October 7th, 2023 in response to Hamas’s incursion into its territory, caused a sharp drop in production and the collapse of basic services in the Gaza Strip. As a result, the West Bank’s gross domestic product fell by 23 percent in the first half of the year, and in the Strip by 86 percent.

The World Bank said that the slowdown resulting from the conflict is unparalleled in recent history, with the impact of the war surpassing previous economic crises, including the Second Intifada (“uprising”, in Arabic), the 2014 conflagration, and the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

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