People of Gaza face ‘many months and years’ in poverty: UN labour body

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Peter Rademaker, deputy regional director for Arab states at the International Labour Organization (ILO), has told Al Jazeera that Palestinians in Gaza “will be in poverty for many months and years to come” because of Israel’s bombardment on the enclave.

“The labour market was already very depressed in the occupied West Bank and Gaza even before the war. In Gaza, unemployment was sky-high because of years of the blockade. So, we started from a very difficult situation,” he said.

“[As the war goes on,] many people in Gaza and also West Bank will have no income, no wages. Nobody’s going to pay them any money and they will increasingly have to rely on international assistance.

“Unfortunately, the authorities have no public financing to provide social assistance, so it’s going to have to come from the outside … As we all know, many crises are raging globally, and the chances of Palestine receiving the international aid it needs are not necessarily very high.”

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