WASHINGTON, April 2. /TASS/. The World Bank and the United Nations estimated the damage caused to the infrastructure of the Gaza Strip from October 2023 to January 2024 at $18.5 bln, according to a joint report of the two organizations.

According to the report, the damage caused in four months is equivalent to 97% of Palestine's GDP for 2022. The housing sector has been hit the hardest. Around 80% of the total damage occurred in the provinces of Gaza, North Gaza, and Khan Yunis.

According to the World Bank and the UN, the damage to Gaza's economy in the ongoing conflict is one of the largest in recent economic history, with 74% of Gazans being unemployed and the Palestinian enclave's GDP falling by 86% in the Q4 of 2023 or 24% year-on-year.

The situation in the Middle East sharply escalated following an incursion of Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip into Israel on October 7, 2023, accompanied by mass killings of residents of Israeli settlements near the border and the taking of 240 hostages, including children, women and elderly people. Hamas regards the attack as a response to Israeli actions against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Jerusalem's Temple Mount. Israel has declared a complete siege of the Gaza Strip and started delivering strikes on that area and parts of Lebanon and Syria. A ground operation followed.