news in brief for this hour, israel carries out another terrorist attack in the syrian capital, damascus, assassinating number of people, including have iranian military advisers. the attack targeted a three-story residential building in the city's mezer neighborhood, which houses several diplomatic missions. iraq's islamic resistance says it has launched a barrage of missiles at the us run anal assad base in western iraq. reports say this is the biggest anti-us operation by the iraqi resistance since october the seventh. there has been no immediate reports of casualties. 106 days into the israeli war

on the gaza strip and the regime continues with this carpet bombing campaign across the besieged palestinian territory. the gaza health ministry says 165 palestinians have been killed in the past 24 hours. the overall death toll from the regime's war has risen to of nearly 25,000. worldwide rallies are held in solidarity with palestinians in gaza as israel protesters call for an end to the regime's genocide in the coastal territory. in the israel city of haifa, the regime forces attacked anti-war demonstrators and sought to confiscate their placards. and israely forces have carried out fresh raids on two refugee camps in the occupied west bank abducting several palestinians. one of the camps is near al-quds and the other one is located in northern west bank. israel has intensified this rates and arrests across much of the occupied territory since october the 7th.

as the us is really genocidal war in gaza has passed 100 days, the israel regime is trying hard to portray an image of success in the battlefield, but it has failed to do so, when it comes to the economy itself, it's also suffering due to the genocidal war, but it is becoming clear. that a shortage of manpower is one of the toughest challenges that it is facing, amongst others, since with employees, or without them, i should say, how can it have economy? hello, welcome to economic divide, these are some of the highlights that we'll be looking at. uh, the settle of violence, when it comes to the occupied west bank economy is a big problem, this has impacted the economy there, canceled work permits top of that, and of course the intensified restrictions, making things very hard. also, the palestinian authority tax revenues again being..." with held by israel,

for example, last month, almost $140 million dollars, as a result, salaries have not been in paid. then moving to another highlight of the economy, we focused on israel in terms of the multi- faceted crisis that uh israel's economy is facing. one of them is uh lack of investment, or i should say low consumer confidence, which uh, then you have lack of investments, these are all plaguing the economy and dragging it down. israel's genocide on the people of palestine in gaza and the occupied west bank has cost thousands of lives. the onslot has also plunged the territories into economic crisis.

since october 7, israel has stepped up military raids in the west bank and violence by israeli settlers has increased sharply. escalating violence by the israeli military and sectors, intensified restrictions on mobility, tens of thousands of cancelled work permits, and the withholding of tax revenues from the palestinian authority are combining to tip the territory into humanitarian crisis. with hundreds of thousands losing their jobs, palestinian families are experiencing poverty in addition to an overall drop and the quality of life, amidst an absence of safety. the international labor organization estimates that israel's revocation of work permits for palestinians has eliminated around 208,00 jobs, about 24% of all employments in the occupied west bank. excess

restrictions to israel's labor market has caused the palestinian economy losses at around $500 million since october the 7th with the unemployment rate to have reached a record 52%. pretends. of thousands of government employees, the situation is also bleak. time not to find out what has been posted online on this topic. first we take a look at the website that stated as the gaza war, we call it an onslot dominates israely actions tipped the west bank into economic and security crisis that said you don't know what new checkpoints will be set up and which group of settlers you will be attacked by. next. a viewer comment called st. thomas said the tourism has come to a virtual standstill and spending has jumped. the hit to tech companies has shaken confidence in a sector that has become a key driver of israel's economy. the call up of 35000 army reservists disrupted operations at many companies. many

customer orders were put on hold or canceled outright. as the crisis in gaza worsens, so does the economic situation in the west bank. as israel withholds 150. million dollars a month to the pa, that's the palestinian authority, that means the pa is unable to pay its security forces a time when the west bank is boiling, and finally another viewer comments by the name of ib nomer, there's nothing, no israely tourists, no non israeli tourist, no weddings, no henna celebrations, before the weddings, no housewarmings, ouch, that hurts, let me introduce our guests for the first section of the q&a, first up we have david hungerford, david hungerford. is author and economist, david hungerford, welcome to economic divide, uh, all lies are on the humanitarian situation in gaza, that's uh given 100 days is past even that, um, this uh genocide is continuing, but the same time you have economic crisis unfolding, you're

looking at uh the way that funds are evaporating, uh, you don't have a budget that can keep up with the war cost, how severely has this genocide or war war impacted west bank's economy, both for the israel and the palestinians for that matter. well, um, the uh, we're talking, i think here primarily about cross-border workers, that is to say, workers who live in the west bank and commute to work in israel, so that has been interrupted, and that's that's quite a large economic volume, particularly locally, around 5 and a half billion usd per year. so that's being badly disrupted and um, certainly it's going to be contributory over the longer run to israel's difficulties in this situation. all right, thank you for that. uh, joe quinn joins us now. joe quinn is an editor at

sat.net. joe quinn, welcome to economic divide. our guest are talked about uh the worker crisis, here we have another crisis that's been ongoing. for quite some time, but it has increased and that's uh these uh vicious settlers who are attacking palestinians. at the same time the prestrictions on mobility has increased multifold, tens of thousands of cancelled work permits, which goes to the palestinian workers, and then the withholding of tax revenues from the palestinian authority, they're all contributing to this economic crisis. um, but all of these problems are originating from israel. uh, why is israel shooting self to the foot this way? yeah, pretty much every problem that the palestinians have originates with israel, um, of course, when when a state like israel with the backing of the west initiates kind of that kind of genocidal policy against an entire people, well yeah, they do across the board, they're not just bombing, they're uh, they're creating, they're trying to create

intolerable living conditions for, they're obviously creating intolerable living conditions for the people of gaza through through bombing them and evicting them from their homes, but they're also focusing very much on the on the west bank and and like i said the're the they've cut off all of the pretty much all of the jobs that the vast majority of jobs that palestines were doing in israel they have been been cut off um and they're also they also have been retaining funds the the palestin authorities uh tax revenue uh that israel has long you had control over and sometimes restricts or sometimes allows them they basically cut that off uh from the beginning of october 7th they cut off that tax revenue so uh that the palestinian authority in the west bank is having a lot of trouble um actually functioning as as a as kind of government for the palestinian people in in the west bank uh and that and that top of a significant reduction in jobs is creating yeah serious economic crisis but it's all by design by

israel it's on purpose it's it's part of a plan obviously. time now for the infinis section of the program, our first item is something we covered in the last week, but there's an update to it in a way, first the topic is: itself is the israeli troop withdraw from the us israel genocidal war. now israel has says that it's going to pull several brigades from the gaza strip, the northern part to be exact, we heard that piece of news before, we covered it here at economic divide last week, but this is where it gets interesting, the military has said a growing tol on the israely economy after nearly three months of wartime mobilization with little end insight to the fighting. okay, aside from that, the fact that it's a growing tol on the israeli economy, that speaks of volumes because many are saying there's a shortage of manpower that's

affecting the economy, but it's a shortage of people contributing to the economy, like the reservis which is said to be around 300, give or take, is the problem with the economy? interesting point there. all right, move up israel's economic crisis, as if we haven't covered that in this program, this particular entry said how the war in gaza is taking toll on the economy there, and it said that uh, the... the israely military is sending these uh soldiers home from gaza and again this is emphasizing what i just said before, in order to reenergize the economy which faces a massive labor shortage because of the war. so here you have it, you have the two different angles when it comes to this. is it a combination of both or is it the fact that there's a shortage of people contributing to the economy? i'll leave the answer to that question up to you. another aspect of the war, the occupied west bank, it's being affected by this uh us-israeli onslot as those war. curbs have ravaged the west bank economy, from stores to startups, restrictions on movement for example, and

also cuts to the palestinian authority, let's not forget that the authority, palestinian authority has to pay their staff, and they're not getting the money for it, that's a repeated move by the is regime, and because of that cash shortage, it has put businesses at risk. now in terms of the way that we looked at this, we also want to add this piece of information since the on slot began, has almost entirely stopped allowing palestinians from the occupied west bank to enter israel for work, so obviously that impacts the economy of the west bank. next up, another impact of the israeli onslot and that's on the prices of energy, the world bank warning of energy prices price surge if the meast war, which we call west asia, spreads, and it's a new economic report which predicted year of weak growth and said that the world faced a decade of wasted opportunity, well based on. that we figured we need to give our two sense as they say here and our analysis is the converging

crises in recent years have put the world economy on track for the weakest half decade in 30 years okay that based on the research we did without a major course correction the 2020s will go down as a decade of wasted opportunity those were the items that we picked for you hope you liked it if not tell us what you think uh in terms of news that is in your part of the world contact information is coming up. in this week's show we'll be looking at south africa's momentous application to the international court of justice. in its comprehensive 84 page submission, south africa sets out the legal basis for its contention that israel is perpetrating genocide in gaza. you you have this pattern of the the west uh uh... "obviously not just germany, but you fully expect that the british government, the us government of course has been completely

dismissive of what south africa has done uh that continue this uh imperialist posture, and of course it was south africa at first, and it was only that for quite a while, and then all of sudden a trickle other countries joined bolivia amongst them, and then of course laterally bangladesh joins, you've got a whole list of countries, i think around about 20, possibly more. section of the program. israel's labor shortage has created a big headache for the economy. it's not easy to fix the manpower shortage like a shortage for example of cash. although israel has brought in foreign workers, unfortunately for them the problem still process. let's take a look at some of the costs that are involved. will the costs attributed to the absence of workers uh and a decline in productivity as you see. here in this flowchart of some sorts uh due to the complete closure for example of

uh schools or educational institutions, that cost is quite high, we're looking a cost of uh roughly about $325 million. now consider that based on what i just mentioned, $325 million dollars. okay uh let's take a look now at the other aspect of this where there's costs involved and uh what we're looking at over here is the absence of work, the previous one was workers. this is the absence of work: 144,00 evacuated residents from war affected areas, the total cost that is incurred because of that is $154 million dollars. all right. and then finally we want to take a look at the cost that results in this case in points, again we're looking at the cost of cumulatively uh, this would be based on the reservis recruitment, we have mentioned this quite a bit, but we're looking at this is an updated number of about 36000 reserve soldiers, the cost that is incurred on that um is uh roughly the figure that we have here 130 million dollars, that's the

total tally there, so uh that's what we're looking at now uh what's want to do so you can get an idea before we move to our guests is to get an idea about the all the costs that we mentioned in terms of the total, so you have the absence of work, that's $325 million, you have the absence of workers which incurs a cost of $154 million, and finally the reservist recruitment that cost is $130 million for total of what we see here, 609 million, obviously that's a lot of money, especially given the fact that you're looking a economy of some uh sorts. all right, let's bring in our guests and see what they think. david hungerford rejoins us, he's an author and economist. david hungerford, welcome back to economic divide. we're looking at israel's economy and how it's bleeding in so many different ways, but one the major ones is a shortage of workers. we're also looking at the to compound the the crisis there, the restriction that it has

placed on palis tining workers from the west bank. they're not allowed to uh work uh as part of their staff. there uh tell us what you see uh israel's economy and how it's going to move from this point on exactly, mean and that's very badly disrupting israel's the economy, mean in terms of west bank it's hurting things in terms of take home pay, that's certainly very important aspect of any economy, but you just going to be mean all kinds of economic activity in israel, grinding to a halt and this this war, it's uh, you know, israel cannot uh afford a long war, it needs a quick decision, and things aren't heading in that direction at all, and i think this is indicative of the overall trend, yeah, indeed, it doesn't look like this going to uh end anytime soon,

however, some may disagree, but joe quinn, editor at sot.net joins us, let's see what he thinks. joe quinn, come back, i'm taking a look at israel's economy in this question for you, and i'm not too sure what to um ask you, but what's standing out week after week is the major problem with the shortage of workers, aside from that, obviously the palestinian restrictions since the work permits have been taken away has added fuel to the fire, but overall israel's economy is not doing well uh and given the fact that this uh onslot genocidal war is going to continue, how do you see israel's economy and also the one in the west bank? occupied west bank uh, i think they they're willing to take a temporary, they see a temporary hit uh to their economy, in that respect, in terms of the the palestinians are doing minial jobs in israel, the job that israels didn't want to do, they're willing to uh suffer that the consequence of that for a in a short term, i think they do have a plan to um as as part of

their genocidal campaign against - the gazans, they have a... and to deal um definitively with the quote on code palestinian problem, so israel see these uh this shortage of workers uh that they've created, shortage of palestinian workers is only a temporary measure until they deal with all as they forsee it uh and then afterwards they'll be able to restart, i don't think it'll work out that way for them uh because generally speaking most of what israel plans to do doesn't work out for well for it uh so i'll have to see, but i think it's only a temporary measure in their minds, but yeah, i think ultimately israel is going israel economically and militarily and um, otherwise is uh, is is not going to be the israel that we have known until now for much longer.

israel collects taxes on palestinian imports and exports to both the west bank and gaza. it transfers the revenue after taking a 3% commission to the palestinian authority, but frequently it uses it to exert pressure on the palestinian leadership. the pa has been left without enough funds to pay public employees. an estimated 900 thousand people in the occupied west bank are in need of humanitarian assistance. furthermore, around 95% of the donations made to the palestinian red crecents are being directed to gaza. that is: left the west bank in a desperate situation. apart from that, israely settlements, military checkpoints and roads designated for

use by israelis only, already made traveling between areas of the west bank difficult and time consuming. israely authorities have further divided the west bank into isolated areas over the past three months, disconnecting provinces and towns by installing dozens of new checkpoints. the tents atmosphere and closure in the occupied west bank have... affected almost all sectors of society. the un estimated in 2019 that the israeli occupation caused the palestinian economy some $47.7 billion dollars in fiscal revenues between the years 2000 and 2017. hello and welcome to the quicktake section. i'm matian in this section will cover two important sectors, the auto sector in israel and the construction sector. in terms of this stats, the industry is only working at 30%

capacity. some 50% of construction sites are closed. the economic damage is $830 million a month. keep in mind that the building and real estate sectors, o-banks and non-banking institutions a little over 107. billion dollars even if a small part of the debt is not repaid, it will be huge hit for the whole economy. many are not aware of the important role that the auto sector plays in israel's economy and how much it contributes to israel's gdp and more importantly the relation to the yemeni army's targeting of israeli linked vessels. this was first revealed by c.tech under its title the israeli. economy's greatest growth generator is also its biggest enemy, where it said that the biggest boost to israel's economy in 2019 came from new car purchases. that year,

economic data revealed that the gross domestic product increased at annual rate of 4.1% after a growth rate of only 0.8% in the second quarter of the year, and this is where the yemani army, targeting of israeli-bound vessels... comes in, the attacks have impacted the port of elot to the point that it is close to not functioning at all. the port of elot is the port that israel received most, if not all of its car imports. any rerooting of vessels with cars impacts the final price tag of the cars, and that is not something that israel is can afford, and this is what israel is facing. vehicle market collapses at 41.8% in november. is really? vehicles market in november 2023 following the hamas attack, fell for the second month a row, and that does it for this quick take section of the program. if you have any

comments or questions, please get in touch with us. contact info is on your screens now. i'm mattia posan, and i'll see you next week. israel's cash strapped and employee strapped economy is suffering in such a way that it's hemoraging, it can't stimulate economy that is part of one of the worst genocidal campaigns in history, a war that's not known when it's going to end, this onslot that is ongoing daily, then there are product shortages, in part due to yemen's targeting of israeli linked uh vessels and on and on and on, so what kind of economic future can there be or recuperation or whether this actually even going to... be one, that's anybody's guess, can you take a guess as to how this is going to go? write to us, let us know, contact information is behind me, from entire team here at economic

divide, it's goodbye, until the next program.

attempt to weaponize the term genocide against israel in the present context does more than tell the court a grossly distorted story. in urban warfare, civilian casualties may be the unintended but lawful result of attacks on lawfully military objectives. these do not constitute genocidal acts. the rules and

principles of international. humanitarian law under the hag regulations, the geneva conventions of 1949 and customerly international law. these are well developed and applicable and are fully respected by israel. south africa also allegges that israel has waged assault on gaza's health system. hospitals have not been bombed, rather, the idf sent soldiers to search and dismantle military infrastructure.

your headlines on press tv's islamic revolution gars course says five of his military advisers have been assassinated in an israeli terror attack. in the syrian capital, damascus. a new report says israel has killed hundreds of university professors and teachers in gaza as death toll from the regime's genocide nears 25,000. worldwide values are held in solidarity with palestinians in gaza as the israeli protesters call for an end to the regime's genocide in the coastal territory.