Across Israel, building sites are idle, adding up to an estimated $1.2billion loss in output to each month.
For Fadi Sajdia, a construction labourer from the West Bank city of Ramallah, the Muslim holy month of Ramadan should be a time of daily fasting and nightly feasting. But like 150,000 other Palestinians who worked in Israel until the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, he’s out of a job.Across Israel, building sites are idle as a ban on Palestinian workers continues with no end in sight.
The shock of the October assault by Hamas, during which 1200 people were killed and 250 abducted, has created suspicion among some Israeli Jews that other Palestinians might be preparing attacks of their own. Israel’s retaliatory air and ground attacks in Gaza have killed more than 31,000 people, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.
That isn’t the view of Israel’s security establishment, which until the current war was careful to argue in favour of preserving Palestinian employment even in times of heightened tensions. “It’s like a millstone on the economy that can cost Israel some 1.5 to 2 per cent of its GDP in the coming year or longer,” said Adi Brender, the central bank’s head of research. A construction downturn is among a handful of factors that can hold back a broader recovery, he said.Israel’s high-flying economy of the past two decades – with GDP per capita passing those of the UK and France, thanks in large part to a booming high-tech sector – has involved rapid expansion of roads and housing.
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