Summer war pushed Palestinian economy into recession

The International Monetary Fund says the Israeli genocidal war on the besieged Gaza in summer has driven the Palestinian economy both in Gaza and the occupied West Bank into its first contraction since 2006, Qods News Agency reports.

The IMF said in a report published on Thursday that while the West Bank managed a 4.5 percent expansion last year, Gaza's economic activity declined by about 15 percent due to Israel's harsh bombing and shelling of the coastal enclave and Israeli-restricted progress on rebuilding.

Overall, the contraction amounted to about one percent of gross domestic product, it said.

"Economic activity contracted in 2014, following the war in Gaza in the summer and mounting political tensions" in the occupied West Bank and the occupied al-Qods ('Jerusalem'), the IMF said.

The IMF said reconstruction in Gaza is moving slowly, adding that real Palestinian GDP in 2015 is set to rise only modestly with a pickup in Gaza from a low base and a drop of nearly two percent in the West Bank.