Israel's war on Gaza has turned the once highly regarded Israeli economy upside down almost a year into the war on Gaza Israel's economy is facing its steepest decline in years with two active fronts military spending is swelling borrowing is skyrocketing and revenues are drying up International trust in the economy is also dwindling and the impact on some sectors is very grave if we talk about tourism tourism was basically devastated um construction was hurt there is a boycott agriculture Hospitality Tech and tourism are also casualties some 200,000 Palestinians who used to commute daily from the occupied
West Bank as well as 18,500 from Gaza are all now locked out of Israel since October the 7th Israel says due to security concerns leaving an economic crunch on both sides of the Border we were directly affected because as you can see this project relied on 35 workers from the West Bank with the official work permits even Jerusalem's iconic American colony hotel has had to lay off workers and are muing pay cuts because of the sluming occupancy that are at one point closing for a few months um because that might have been from a purely
economic way uh a a method of stemming some of the losses tourism a pillar of Israel's economy has ground to a halt now no tourist now no tourist not very much Israel is also borrowing heavily to fund its war on Gaza and Lebanon and Israeli economists fear a wider war in the Middle East could strain the economy even further recently Israel's credit rating was downgraded I think it reflects the the the the low Trust of moodies and other rating agencies uh in the steps of the Israeli government uh to lower inflation uh to to to
deal and to cope with the higher deficit as we see as a negative impact of the ongoing War there is also a belief that Israeli Finance Minister bis morri is working to exate the crisis what he wants he basically wants to keep on pouring money into his priorities which is namely the settlements uh the West Bank Etc and at the same time he expects other arms of the government to to tighten their belt and to stop spending last month Israel's keset approved a massive budget increase of $924 million for 2024 despite warnings from opposition and
Financial experts just like the country itself Israel's economy is at War the remainder of 2024 is going to be a pitched bantle and if the situation doesn't improve in Gaza or Lebanon the financial and economic struggle looks set to continue in 2025 Muhammad kasim trt World West Jerusalem [Music]
