WEST BAN (Dispatches) – As the Zionist regime’s genocidal war casts a dark shadow over the region and world, experts warn the billions spent to decimate Gaza and Palestinians could prove a cost too high for its own economy.
There are little to no signs of recovery, according to an Israeli economic researcher, with weak indicators, declining foreign investments and tourism, along with an alarming exodus of citizens, painting a bleak picture for the Zionist regime’s future.
“The economic crisis will only get worse and worse. There is no prospective for recovery,” Israeli political economist Shir Hever warned in an interview with Anadolu.
His words echoed a recent assessment by Yoel Naveh, a former chief economist at the regime’s finance ministry, who said the regime has to act “vigorously and with immediate action to … stave off the risk of a looming financial crisis.”
The current trajectory, he added, could “drag its war-battered economy into a recession and endanger the regime’s security.”
The economic cost of Israel’s deadly assault on Gaza, where it has killed and injured nearly 140,000 Palestinians since last October, is believed to be somewhere over $67 billion, according to an August estimate by Israeli economists.
The Bank of Israel said in May that the war costs would spike to about 250 billion shekels ($66 billion) through the end of next year.
The Israeli economy, on the other hand, grew by just 0.7% in the second quarter of 2024, significantly below the 3% forecast of Tel Aviv Stock Exchange analysts.
By August, the budget deficit to GDP ratio was at minus 8.3%, increasing from minus 7.6% in June, minus 6.2% in March, and minus 4.1% last December.
In August alone, the budget deficit was at 12.1 billion shekels ($3.22 billion).
“Prices are high. Standard of living is going down. There is inflation. There is a decline in the value of the Israeli currency,” said Hever.
Foreign investment has dried up, more than 85,000 people have dropped out from the workforce, and there are “a quarter million people who have been displaced internally and lost both their jobs and their houses,” he added.
“And, of course, the very large number of people who are just leaving … The number of people who are leaving is unprecedented, really, in the history of Israel,” he said.
“You see people just buying a one-way ticket to see what will happen. When you see so many people are doing this just to protect their families, the result is that those who stay are feeling that the regime is in a process of collapse.”
Economic indicators are “not the full story,” he emphasized.
“The full story is what is the perspective of the population regarding the future. People who don’t believe that there is a future. People who don’t believe that Israel will ever be able to recover from this crisis,” he said.
“They don’t invest. They don’t want to raise their children in Israel. They don’t want to look for a job or study. This means that the economic crisis will only get worse and worse. There is no prospective for recovery.”