Israel's government is rapidly dismantling the separation of powers and expanding its control over the state apparatus. The military response to the attack by Hamas and other armed groups on 7 October 2023 appears to be leading to a permanent reoccupation of the Gaza Strip. The "voluntary"...

Russia pushes for the "Russification" of the territories it occupies in Ukraine. Its policy is aimed at turning them into a military fortress against Ukraine. The declared aim of the economic restoration measures is to make the territories self-sufficient "parts of the Russian Federation". Their...

This study quantitatively evaluates conclusions of NGOs, UN agencies, and the International Court of Justice denouncing the purported practices of apartheid by Israel. We gauge the impact of Israeli policies on Palestinian basic needs using a bespoke index and a novel instrumental variable...

This report analyzes the distributional impacts of the main taxes and transfers on households' welfare in the West Bank and Gaza. The analysis uses the Commitment to Equity methodology, enabling comparison of the results to other countries where this framework has been applied. The report...

Organic farming is one of the methods that increases the value added of agricultural products in a sustainable way. This paper examines how the adoption of organic farming has impacted the technical efficiency of Palestinian olive-growing farms in the West Bank. Using cross-sectional data of...

The research leverages yearly variations in climate variables, such as rainfall and temperature, across the West Bank from 1999 to 2018 to assess their influence on individuals' decisions to stay in the agricultural sector. The main findings suggest that an increase in rainfall in the previous...

Years of isolation and continuous conflicts have left Gaza's economic development far behind that of the West Bank. In 2022, per capita income in Gaza was only a quarter of that in the West Bank, and unemployment and poverty rates were much higher. This reflects much lower employment and...

The outlook for the Palestinian economy remains dire, with risks tilted to the downside. Amid a deteriorating security, political and social situation, the recovery is losing momentum and per capita income is projected to decline over the medium term. The fiscal crisis remains unresolved, amid...

This Selected Issues paper explores Palestinian labor market outcomes, dynamics, and policies. The Palestinian economy did not create enough jobs to absorb new labor market entrants. This even as labor force participation rates remained stubbornly low and among the lowest in the world for...

This paper presents a report on West Bank and Gaza to the ad hoc liaison committee. This IMF report puts fiscal and structural reforms into a broader context. It discusses key elements of the Paris Protocol on Economic Relations and their implications for Palestinian growth and income...

The new government in Israel is politically further to the right than any other before it. The success of the radical right parties and their inclusion in the government are the results of a long-term transformation of Israel’s political landscape. One characteristic of this development is the...

Data serves many purposes in the public sector: first as infrastructure that supports services and enables transactions between diverse stakeholders in a network, from government to businesses and to citizens; and second as an evidence base for governance and decision-making. Most recently, the...

This work builds on the Public Expenditure Review (PER) analysis of the pension system conducted in 2016 but also brings important innovations. It updates the financial analysis conducted then and offers new policy recommendations, with the key objective of improving the affordability of the...

This Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) for the West Bank and Gaza examines the social and macroeconomic impacts of climate change under three alternative scenarios that reflect different levels of climate action and divergent economic growth trajectories. The scenario analysis builds...

This paper studies the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on men's labor market outcomes in the West Bank and Gaza, examining adjustments at the extensive (participation) and intensive (hours of work) margins of the labor supply. Quarterly panel data from national labor force surveys allow...

For more than a decade, commercial banks in West Bank and Gaza (WBG) have struggled to manage buildups of excess physical Israeli shekel cash. Banks elsewhere typically manage the amount and currency composition of physical cash they hold in their vaults through transactions with other...

The Palestinian economy is facing formidable challenges. The fiscal situation, high political, security and social tensions, rising inflation, movement and access restrictions and an unfinished structural agenda all weigh on the medium-term outlook. Under unchanged policies, debt is...

This IMF report to the AHLC is the first since September 2018. Following limited engagement over the past three years, policy discussions have intensified in recent months. These discussions have focused mainly on establishing a medium term macro-fiscal framework, including the broad outlines of...

The current study aims to investigate the impact of academic achievement on child labor. The study utilizes survey data collected from Palestinian children in West Bank schools who are in the primary grades (5th-9th). The results show that increasing a child's academic achievement is...

According to the information available and the thresholds established by World Health Organization (WHO)E, anemia is a public health problem among the most vulnerable groups in the Palestinian Territory, namely pregnant and postpartum women, children aged between 6-59 months, and adolescents...

This article seeks to assess the role of the human right to water in realising water rights in the scenario of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). In particular, it seeks to answer the question of the extent to which the human right to water protects Palestinians’ water rights in the...

This essay sketches my personal impressions of the changes that have occurred over the last decade in Israeli checkpoints in and around Jerusalem. These changes are both in the physical design of the checkpoints as well as in their human management. My particular focus is on the women’s human...

This study assesses how horizontal inequalities between Israeli settlers and Palestinians living in the West Bank cause grievances among Palestinians transforming to violence towards the Israeli citizens. A scoring model tailored to Hebron's case is introduced to evaluate the line of...

In this paper we study how radical political factions secure support. In order to achieve their objective of gaining support, radical political factions can choose from a number of specific strategies. They can provide financial assistance and generate a reciprocal relationship with their...

This paper considers the policy options of the West Bank and Gaza (WBG) with respect to trade and the exports of labor services. It concludes that i) a non-discriminatory trade policy (NDTP) is unambiguously superior to an FTA with Israel; ii) the WBG should pursue a NDTP with all its neighbors,...

The Palestinian health system suffers from chronic challenges related to protracted conflict and limited health system inputs, coupled with a high burden of non-communicable diseases (NCD). Over 75 percent of the disease burden is attributable to NCD, particularly cancers, diabetes,...

This paper measures the wage differential between Palestinian non-refugees and Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza over the years 1999–2012. First, the main individual and occupational differences between the two groups in the two regions are presented. Then, the wage differential...

This paper examines the impact of mobility restrictions on educational performance in the West Bank over 2000–2006 during the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This conflict is characterized by a system of mobility restrictions enforced through physical barriers such as checkpoints. Using novel...

Legal discourse on the status of Israeli settlers in the West Bank revolves almost exclusively on the (il)legality of the Israeli government's settlements project and its consequences as a matter of state responsibility. It often concludes that Israel must dismantle the settlements. The present...