200 million loss to Palestine due to Israeli seige

The Palestinian ministry of trade and economy said that the full imposed siege on the Palestinian self-rule areas since the beginning of al-Asqa uprising caused tremendous loss in the economic sectors that are estimated at 200 million dollars.

Maher El-Kord, the under secretary of the ministry, said that there are other far ranging direct losses which the Palestinian economy will suffer if the Israelis continued the closure of the Palestinian areas, adding that the Israeli procedures toward blockaded areas of the Palestinian authority for the 15th successive day completely paralyzed the Palestinian economic sectors. He said this includes the industry, agriculture, trade and investment sectors due to which nearly 125000 laborers were deprived from their work.

He added that the Palestinian government's treasury suffers daily losses that are nearly estimated at 2.5 million dollars in sales tax revenues, saying that the siege stopped the commercial relations between the two sides completely starting from the uprising day.