Three United Nations agencies have warned of a decline in Palestinian living standards as a new report shows that high food prices and falling incomes are forcing Palestinian families to manage with less and lower quality food. The main driver of Palestinian food insecurity is of a political nature, as key elements in vulnerability are rooted in the military and administrative measures imposed by the Israeli occupation. 

This report, which follows an ILO delegation visit to the Middle East, depicts a much degraded employment and labour situation. The plight of the Palestinian people has not improved in any fundamental way. Indeed, in a number of respects it has deteriorated alarmingly. With the near total closure of the Gaza Strip following the break up of the national unity government and the continuing impediments to the movement of persons and goods in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, economic and political life is highly fragmented. 

This document lays out the Palestinian National Authority's vision of an independent Palestinian state. It highlights steps it has already taken to restore good governance and the rule of law to the West Bank - steps it believes demonstrates its commitment to realizing this vision and steps it aspires to replicate in Gaza. 

The West Bank has limited natural resources and its economy depends on trade and remittances from jobs in Israel. Since the majority of the West Bank's trade is with Israel, the current closure regime is forcing many West Bankers into reliance on aid and worsening the already deteriorating socio-economic conditions. UN agencies currently provide food aid to more than 790,650 Palestinians in the West Bank. A dependency, which according to the World Bank, is not temporary. 

In the wake of the June 2007 events and the tightened closure regime imposed on the Gaza Strip, WFP and Al Sahel carried out a survey on the humanitarian situation with a view to assessing the impact of the current crisis on the non refugee population. The overall conclusion of the study is that the restriction on imports and freeze on exports have significantly reduced the livelihood viability of Gazas population, bringing larger segments of the population into the vulnerability circle. 

Following the passage of the 2007 emergency budget, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has initiated a number of fiscal reforms. Despite political uncertainty and a difficult security situation, a prudent fiscal policy is being pursued, including through a strict government employment policy and a tightening of nonwage spending commitments. The medium-term macroeconomic and fiscal framework adopted by the authorities builds on the improved fiscal performance in the second half of 2007. 

The course of the Palestinian economy since the Second Intifadah has left per capita GDP in 2006 ($1,130) at 40% less than in 1999, and has altered an already-fragile economy from one driven by investment and private sector productivity, to one sustained by government and private consumption, and donor aid. Reversing this downward cycle requires parallel actions by the Palestinian Authority (PA), Israel and the donors. 

This report examines the immediate and desperate situation in Gaza through a "human security" lens. Much is known about the parameters of the political endgame of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but little is being done to examine and minimise the current unbearable human suffering in Gaza. This study seeks to redress this balance by offering a new insight and a detailed account of the day to day security breaches and the root causes of violence. 

When this report was commissioned in September 2005, the challenge set was to identify the necessary conditions for economic progress in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs) and determine how the international community should offer support. The underlying rationale was that a viable Palestinian state, living in peace and security with Israel, requires the creation of a sustainable Palestinian economy. 

The vulnerability of the Palestinian economy to the impact of prolonged Israeli occupation and closure policies was heightened by donors and financial restrictions on the Palestinian Authority (PA) in 2006. "Separation" has isolated Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza from Arab regional and world markets, and institutionalized fragmentation inside the occupied Palestinian territories. 

This Report describes the grim plight of people in the occupied Palestinian territories and in the occupied Syrian Golan. Violence has continued to affect both Palestinian and Israeli civilians, but with very different levels of intensity. A situation of prosperity and security, on the one side, and military occupation, poverty and insecurity, on the other, is fraught with dangers for both sides and is not sustainable. 

Beginning in December 2004, when all parties (including the Government of Israel (GOI) and the Palestinian Authority (PA)) agreed that Palestinian economic revival was essential, that it required a major dismantling of today's closure regime and that closure needed to be addressed from several perspectives at once, the World Bank has played a leading role in providing balanced analysis and proposals which draw on the Bank's worldwide experience, but are realistic in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian situation. 

Forty years of occupation in WBG has left a heavily distorted economy in a state of that is almost completely dependent on the Israeli economy. While other countries in the region have grown and industrialized, the Palestinian economy retains the hallmarks of a less developed economy. The size of the average industrial enterprise is about four workers, no larger than it was in 1927. 

This paper is concerned with the impact of the financial siege imposed on the PA by the Government of Israel (GoI) and the international community. It addresses the consequences of the GoI withholding two thirds of the PA's tax revenues as well as the withholding of external budget support to the PA by Western donors. It documents the inability of the PA to pay salaries to its staff or to finance the most basic operational expenditures which triggered a contraction in the Palestinian economy and substantial humanitarian hardship, particularly in the health sector. 

This document is intended to provide more qualitative insights into the humanitarian situation and complement the more detailed field research and quantitative data compiled monthly by humanitarian agencies in the Humanitarian Monitor and macro-economic reports recently released by organisations such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) on the PA's fiscal situation in 2006. 

After a near total ban on fishing since June 2006, fishermen have finally been allowed back into coastal waters off the Gaza Strip for the high season. There needs to be an immediate increase in the current fishing range beyond six nautical miles (nm) for fishermen to enjoy the full economic benefits of the high season which began at the start of April. The fishing industry faces long term decline and even possible extinction if the current restrictions are maintained. 

Al Mezan contends that many of the factors creating the huge obstacles undermining Gaza's economy are related to the continued Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip (and indeed the whole of the OPT), and violations of Palestinian most basic rights. With this case study of the cut-flower sector, this report is concerned to highlight these violations - the routine IOF incursions into Gaza, the destruction of agricultural land, and the siege that hermetically seals the Gaza Strip - and to trace the effects these have on the cut-flower industry as one particular example. 

This paper presents a quantitative and qualitative analysis of past Palestinian-Israeli trade performance and economic cooperation, and its potential for future development. The analysis is based on evaluation of outcomes of private sector cooperation, with the aim of demonstrating the economic benefits of such cooperation and providing policy recommendations to local and international decision makers. 

This note focuses on developments in economic activity and incomes in West Bank and Gaza (WBG) in 2006. It is obvious that 2006 has been a difficult year for the Palestinian economy and the population. The political difficulties, which often resulted in violence, have caused much hardship on the Palestinian people, as has been extensively reported by various UN agencies and NGOs. This note aims to offer a first assessment of how the overall economy fared under these difficult circumstances. 

This note provides an overview of the fiscal outturn in 2006. Fiscal developments in 2006 were largely shaped by the domestic and international political difficulties that followed Hamas' victory in the January 2006 parliamentary elections. After the first quarter of 2006, resources to fund recurrent government expenditures fell sharply. As a result, the Palestinian Authority (PA) government was unable to pay full wages and faced increasing pressures to reduce non-wage expenditures and transfers, while also building up arrears.