OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: Poverty in the occupied West Bank may double as Palestinians are slammed by the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, the World Bank warned on Monday. The Palestinian territories have seen low infection rates after acting quickly to curtail the spread of COVID-19, with three deaths out of 450 cases registered among some five million residents in Gaza and the West Bank.
But the Palestinian Authority's financial situation is "expected to become increasingly difficult" due to loss of income and increased spending on healthcare and other areas, the World Bank said in a report.
The fallout is expected to see the number of households living below the poverty line increase this year from 14 to 30 percent in the West Bank, largely due to Palestinians being unable to cross into Israel for work.
The PA last week announced an end to the lockdown it had imposed in early March across the West Bank after an outbreak of the Covid-19 illness in the biblical city of Bethlehem.
The easing allowed more than 63,000 Palestinians to pass through checkpoints for work on Sunday, according to the Israeli military branch handling civilian affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories. The borders of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, which has been under a crippling Israeli blockade since 2007, remain closed to all but a few returning Gazans, who are quarantined on arrival.
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