Unemployment in Gaza soars to 79 percent due to Israel's war

Israel's war on Gaza has ravaged the Palestinian economy, according to new analysis by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.

The war has caused a sharp decline in GDP and mass job losses, according to the analysis.

The unemployment rate in the Gaza Strip has reached 79 percent, while in the occupied West Bank it has reached 32 percent.

That brings the average rate of unemployment to 50.8 percent across the two areas of occupied Palestine. 

Additionally, real GDP has contracted by 83.5 percent in Gaza and by 22.7 percent in the West Bank over the past eight months, according to the report.

Gilbert Houngbo, director-general of the ILO, said: "This has been the hardest year for Palestinian workers since 1967. Never before has the situation been this bleak."

Houngbo said an estimated 200,000 jobs had been lost in Gaza since October: the equivalent of more than two-thirds of total employment in the enclave.