Statistics

Since the years of Oslo, Israeli closure on Palestinian life has resulted in a severe decline in per capita income in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The figure to the right highlights the relationship between economic growth and closure, beginning in the year 1994 when the closure policy, as we know it, was in its early days, less than one year after the signing of the Oslo Agreements. As the figure also indicates, since the Intifada, Israeli closures on Palestinian towns and villages, which in the year 2001 numbered some 210 days, has resulted in a further, more dramatic level of hardship. According to the World Bank, the number of those living off of less than $US2 per day rose from 600,000 in September 2000, the eve of the Intifada, to between 1.2 and 1.5 million by the end of 2001