Conflict Leaves Industry in Ashes and Gaza Reeling From Economic Toll

photo: nytimes.com

World - Prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu said most deaths could have been avoided had Hamas accepted an earlier-cease-fire. Israeli Premier Voices Regret for Civilian Casualties, but HamasAUG, 6, 2014 The body of a child in the morgue at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, six infants under age 1 were killed during israeli  military operations, cilivian or not? New Fight in Tallying the Dead From the Gaza ConflictAUG. 5, 2014 soldiers rested on Tuesday after israel withdrew all of its forces from the Gaza strip and a 72-hours cease-fire went to effect.

Israel exits Gaza as Truce BeginsAUG. 5, 2014 drung israel's month long air and ground assault on the Gaza Strip, the world's attention has focused on the more than 1,800 Palestinians killed and the more than 30,000 homes destroyed or damaged. But as a temporary truce held and talks toward a longer-term cease-fire began Wednesday, business leaders said that 175 of Gaza most successful industrial plants had also taken devastating hits, plunging an already despairing economy into a deeper abyss.

Ali Hayek, head of Gaza's federation of industries, said these factories directly provided perhaps 5,000 of the most stable jobs in this impoverished Palestinians sliver, where the latest estimates of unemployment are as high as 47 percent. The collateral damage is exponential: Sabha, Gaza's only producer of tomato paste, has contract with 5,000 farmers, Mr. Hayek said. Legions of drivers will be without cargo. Rebuilding anything is that much harder with 63 construction companies offline, including several cement makers.

The destruction of Al-Awda alone threatens its suppliers of milk, plastic wrapping, flour and cardboard boxes. Then again, Hamada a huge flour mill in Gaza City, and Khozendar, Gaza's only carton-marker, are also gone, Mr. Hayek said, along with 21 food companies, 10 clothing manufactures and the entire industrial zone in the northern town of Beit  Hanoun.

"After 30 days of war, the economic situation has become, like, dead," said Mr Hayek, whose group represents 3,900 businesses employing 35,000 people. "It seems the occupation intentionally destroyed these vital factories that constitute the backbone of the society."

Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a spokesman for the Israeli military, said Wednesday that he didn't have a specific explanation for the attack on Al-Awda, but that "categorically, we do not target factories."

"We target facilities that have been involved in rocket manufacturing," he said, "or locations that rockets have been launched from."

Palestinian officials plan to ask international donors for $6 billion to rebuild Gaza this fall. But, after Israel's 2008-9 Operation Cast Lead, in which more than 1,000 small businesses and workshops were wiped out, a promised $4.7 billion never materialized, people in Gaza say.