标签： Asia

It was a sweltering April day when 70 Palestinian laborers squeezed into the back of a garbage truck, crammed between rotting waste and heavy trash bags, all clutching one desperate hope: to slip undetected across the border into Israel for a day of work that could feed their families. Thirty-seven-year-old Majd, a resident of Beit Furik just south of Nablus who asked to protect his identity, was among them. The unmarked crossing did not go undetected — Israeli forces stopped the truck at a West Bank checkpoint within minutes. For more than two hours, the men were left trapped under piles of refuse in the scorching heat, as soldiers processed their case. “At the beginning when they stopped us, we were afraid to go to jail,” Majd told independent outlet Middle East Eye. “Then when it took longer to get out, we were scared to die.” When they were finally pulled out, all were taken into custody. Majd, who had no prior convictions, was released the next morning and forced to walk home past Israeli settlements.

Majd’s terrifying journey is far from an isolated incident. It is the direct outcome of a cascading economic collapse in the West Bank triggered by Israel’s decision to revoke roughly 150,000 Palestinian work permits in the immediate wake of the October 7, 2023 attacks. As household savings evaporated over months of closures, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian breadwinners have been left with no option but to risk arrest, injury, or death to cross into Israel for informal work.

This current crisis did not emerge overnight. It is the end result of decades of structured economic control that has left the West Bank uniquely vulnerable to collapse, analysts say. When Israel first occupied the West Bank, initial access to Israeli labor markets pushed wages up temporarily, but the decades that followed brought a deliberate process of “de-development” that stunted the growth of local Palestinian agriculture and industry, leaving the territory almost entirely dependent on Israeli labor and revenue streams.

A 1984 United Nations report first documented this structural dependence: restrictions on local production, rigid controls on imports and exports, and the absence of a sovereign financial system eliminated most viable employment opportunities within the West Bank, forcing a growing share of the Palestinian workforce to commute to Israel for jobs. By the 1980s, one-third of all Palestinian workers were employed in Israel. To manage this flow of labor, Israel introduced a general exit permit system in 1972 that allowed relatively free movement for workers without case-by-case approval. That system was scrapped entirely in 1991, replaced by an individualized permit regime that shifted the default from free movement to requiring specific, often denied authorization. The completion of Israel’s separation barrier in the early 2000s further tightened control over movement, labor, and trade, according to Walid Habbas, an analyst with the Palestinian Forum for Israeli Studies.

Israel has long weaponized this permit system as a political tool, freezing thousands of permits after Palestinian attacks and during the 2000–2005 Second Intifada. Economic control was further formalized during the Oslo Accords through the Paris Protocol, which gave Israel the authority to collect tariffs, purchase taxes, and VAT on goods imported to the West Bank on behalf of the Palestinian Authority (PA). These funds, called clearance revenues, make up roughly 70 percent of the PA’s total annual income — and like the permit system, Israel has repeatedly withheld or delayed transfers as political leverage against the Palestinian leadership.

“Treating the Palestinian economy as separate from Israel’s is misleading,” Habbas explained. “We are talking about a system in which Israel is dominating, and imposing severe restrictions in order to control and manage the Palestinians.”

In the months before October 7, one-fifth of the West Bank’s entire labor force crossed into Israel for formal work. After the attacks, Israel pulled both of its core economic levers at once: it revoked all work permits and froze all clearance revenue transfers. The dual shock rippled through every corner of the West Bank economy, even hitting Palestinians who never worked in Israel, according to Misyef Misyef, an economist at the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute. “The private sector is suffering and cannot sell their product because the purchasing power of the family is now very low,” Misyef told Middle East Eye.

Majd knows this collapse firsthand. For six years before the war, he worked construction in the Tel Aviv area, waking at 3 a.m. every day to cross the border and returning home each night. The work was exhausting, but it came with benefits, and he could save roughly half of his 7,000 to 8,000 shekel monthly wage to support his two children. Those savings kept his family afloat for the first year of the permit ban. When the money ran out, Majd had no local work options to fall back on. “I looked for jobs here [in the West Bank], and I couldn’t find anything,” he said. “When there is a pressure on you to provide, you have to think of a way.”

He twice crossed the separation wall illegally to work in Israel for weeks at a time, but unpermitted crossings have grown far deadlier since the ban. Even before the war, an estimated 50,000 Palestinians worked in Israel without permits, but current far-right Israeli policies have encouraged deadly force against undocumented laborers. Around 50 Palestinian workers have been shot and killed during attempted crossings, and Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has publicly stated that the shootings are “starting to bring the numbers down.” For his third attempt to cross, Majd opted for the garbage truck, after being told hiding in the trash would keep him out of sight of snipers. “No one sees you, so at least you don’t get shot,” he explained.

Nearly three years after the permit ban was implemented, there is little sign of a full reversal. Israel has restored just 7,000 permits for workers in industries it deems critical, leaving more than 140,000 formal laborers unemployed. The unemployment rate in the West Bank has skyrocketed from 15 percent pre-crisis to 30 percent today — a level Misyef says is unprecedented in modern global economies. Widespread joblessness has pushed the poverty rate to more than double its pre-war level, jumping from 12 percent to 28 percent.

Today, Majd and his family survive on the small income his father earns from a tiny herd of sheep, a far cry from the financially stable life they once had. Unsure if he will risk another crossing, Majd spends his days worrying about his children’s future. “What’s going to happen to them in the future? I am worried I am not able to provide what they need,” he said. “I am depressed from everything that happened. I have become like a dead body.”

In a calculated strategic move aimed at positioning itself as a cooperative partner in long-stalled Middle East peace efforts, Hamas has announced the dissolution of the Gaza Strip administration it has led for nearly 20 years, with regional experts framing the step as a deliberate signal to U.S. President Donald Trump that the group does not intend to block his flagging Gaza peace initiative.

The official announcement came Monday, confirmed by Ismail al-Thawabta, head of Hamas’s government media office, in statements to Agence France-Presse. According to al-Thawabta, Mohammed al-Farra, leader of Hamas’s emergency governing committee, formally submitted his resignation and issued an order to dissolve the entire body to clear the way for an administrative handover to the newly established National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG).

Hamas first seized governing control of Gaza in 2006, when the group won a majority of seats in Palestinian legislative elections and formed its own cabinet. The electoral victory quickly sparked open conflict between Hamas and its long-standing secular rival Fatah, leading to a bitter split of Palestinian territories: Hamas consolidated full control over Gaza, while Fatah retained authority through the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Regional policy experts explain that this latest administrative shakeup is rooted in the terms of the 2025 ceasefire and peace framework brokered for Gaza by the United States, Qatar, and Egypt, which was reached to end Israel’s ongoing military campaign in the enclave that has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians to date. The NCAG was created under that agreement as a body of independent Palestinian technocrats tasked with overseeing day-to-day civilian governance of Gaza in the post-conflict period. To date, the committee has operated out of Cairo, Egypt, having been blocked from entering the territory.

Khaled Elgindy, a senior research fellow in the Middle East program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, told Middle East Eye that Hamas’s decision is a clear message to the Trump administration that the group is not the barrier to progress on the peace plan — that title, he argues, belongs to Israel, which has continued lethal strikes and expansion in Gaza despite the signed ceasefire.

“Instead of the Palestinian Authority, which has been far less willing to cede authority, Hamas has actually been more open to stepping away from civilian rule in Gaza to make way for the NCAG,” Elgindy noted, adding that while the move was widely expected among regional analysts, its strategic implications make it a notable development.

Since the ceasefire agreement was signed, Israel has violated the terms repeatedly: more than 1,000 additional Palestinians have been killed in ongoing Israeli attacks, the Israeli government has severely restricted the entry of life-saving humanitarian aid into the blockaded enclave, and Israeli military forces have expanded their ground presence to occupy nearly 70 percent of Gaza’s total territory. The core agreement requires Israel to withdraw its forces from Gaza in exchange for Hamas decommissioning its armed arsenal, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly stated his intent to maintain permanent Israeli control over large swathes of the territory.

Elgindo summarized Hamas’s core motivation for dissolving its administration simply: “Hamas wants to remove a pretext for Israel to continue attacking Gaza.”

Trump’s U.S.-led “Board of Peace,” tasked with overseeing implementation of the peace plan, has so far refused to condemn Israel’s ongoing attacks and territorial seizures in Gaza. Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom has reported that the body is advancing a controversial plan to relocate Palestinians into tightly controlled “Hamas-free humanitarian zones” inside the enclave. Following Hamas’s announcement, the Board said it “took note” of the decision and called for all weapons in Gaza to be consolidated under NCAG control.

For its part, the NCAG has confirmed it is fully prepared to assume civilian governance responsibilities as soon as the necessary conditions are met. “We affirm that the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza is fully prepared to assume its national responsibilities as soon as the necessary resources and capabilities are available,” Ali Shaath, the committee’s leader, wrote in a post on X. Shaath added that the foundational requirements for the committee to succeed are a single unified governing authority, a single legal framework with a clear mandate, and a single armed force under the control of that unified entity.

Israeli officials responded to Hamas’s announcement by doubling down on their demand for the “complete demilitarisation of the Gaza Strip” — a demand that goes beyond the terms of the 2025 framework agreed by all parties. Elgindy pointed out that Hamas’s move allows the group to signal good faith participation in the peace process while putting off the most contentious issue of weapons decommissioning for later phases of negotiations. He added that Netanyahu has little incentive to end the conflict, regardless of Hamas’s concessions: “Netanyahu wants a permanent war, and the issue of Hamas’s weapons is the trickiest topic to resolve.”

In a development that has cast new light on systemic illicit trafficking into the blockaded Gaza Strip, Israel’s internal security service Shin Bet has taken into custody Jamal al-Sheikh, the nephew of newly appointed Palestinian Authority Vice President Hussein al-Sheikh, according to an exclusive report from Israeli outlet i24News published Monday.

The arrest, which occurred in February of this year, stems from allegations that Jamal al-Sheikh, a West Bank resident, orchestrated a cross-border smuggling ring between February 2025 and February 2026, with direct assistance from active-duty Israeli soldiers, a Egyptian national, and Gaza-based merchant partners. Over the course of 12 months, the network successfully moved five separate shipments of contraband into the Palestinian enclave, before a failed sixth attempt in February led to the operation being unraveled and Jamal’s detention.

Court documents and security briefings cited in the report outline that the first shipment consisted of 10 pallets of confectionery, but subsequent shipments included items classified by Israel as “dual-use” goods—materials that can serve both civilian and military purposes, which are subject to a total ban on entry into Gaza. Other illicit goods trafficked included solar panels, vehicle batteries, tobacco products, electric bicycles, and mobile phones, all of which command exorbitant black market premiums in Gaza amid the long-standing Israeli blockade that has restricted the flow of most basic and commercial goods.

The final intercepted shipment, which was seized by Shin Bet before it could cross into Gaza, was the network’s largest to date: a single truck carrying more than 500 pallets of cigarettes and 500 iPhone devices, with a total estimated black market value of 200 million Israeli shekels, or roughly $66 million. The report notes that Jamal al-Sheikh expressed hesitation about moving the high-value final shipment over fears of being caught, but a Gaza-based partner in the ring reassured him that Israeli military connections would guarantee safe passage. The merchant claimed his own son, an active Israeli soldier, would facilitate the smuggling. The identities of all Israeli soldiers implicated in the ring remain sealed under a court gag order, per i24News.

This arrest is far from an isolated incident. It is the latest in a string of high-profile revelations over recent months exposing widespread complicity by Israeli security and commercial actors in illicit profiteering from Gaza’s restricted economy. Just one month prior to Jamal al-Sheikh’s arrest, Bezalel Zini, brother of current Shin Bet chief David Zini, was formally indicted on charges of aiding unauthorized smuggling after being accused of moving millions of shekels worth of contraband cigarettes and other goods into the enclave.

Beyond shadowy smuggling rings, official commercial activity has also drawn scrutiny for exploiting Israel’s monopoly on entry into Gaza. In June, Israeli news outlet Ynet reported that one major Israeli supermarket chain saw a more than 25% jump in first-quarter 2026 sales, driven almost entirely by sales of goods to Gaza. The chain recorded 152 million shekels ($50 million) in additional profits over the period, 99 million shekels ($33 million) of which came directly from Gaza sales. Israel currently grants exclusive commercial entry approval to just a small handful of Israeli companies, creating a state-sanctioned monopoly that allows for inflated pricing.

Israel’s strict control over all goods entering and exiting Gaza forms the core of its decades-long siege campaign, a policy that humanitarian organizations worldwide have repeatedly condemned as using mass starvation as a weapon of war against the enclave’s 2.2 million residents. While a ceasefire agreement reached last October allowed for a temporary increase in humanitarian aid entering the territory, new UN data shows that aid flows have actually declined sharply in recent months. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that just 41,800 pallets of aid were delivered across Gaza last month, down from 58,600 pallets delivered in January 2026.

The ongoing restrictions have pushed Gaza’s population into an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe. OCHA data confirms that the vast majority of Gaza residents now survive on just two meals per day, with 70% of infants and young children suffering from moderate to severe food insecurity. Projections from UN agencies estimate that roughly 246,000 children under the age of 17 will suffer from acute malnutrition in 2026, with more than 31,000 of those children facing life-threatening severe acute malnutrition.

For context, Hussein al-Sheikh, Jamal’s uncle and the PA’s recently appointed vice president, has been a leading figure in Palestinian politics for more than 20 years, and is widely tipped as the leading candidate to succeed 90-year-old PA President Mahmoud Abbas when he steps down. For decades, al-Sheikh led the PA’s Civil Affairs Commission, the body tasked with coordinating all civilian administrative matters with COGAT, the Israeli military unit that manages all Israeli government policy in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Amid growing global outcry over Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, widely condemned by critics as genocide, most Western governments in Europe and the Americas have remained conspicuously silent on the issue. Spain has emerged as a rare exception, positioning itself as one of the most outspoken Western critics of Israel’s actions, positioning itself as an outlier among Western nations.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has pushed for multilateral action to halt global arms trade with Israel, including a high-profile campaign to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement. Spain was also the first and only European Union member state to formally recall its ambassador to Israel, and announced a halt to new arms sales to Israel as early as October 2023.

However, a 2025 investigation from Barcelona’s Delas Centre for Peace Studies reveals a stark gap between this rhetoric and actual trade data. The report finds that military imports from Israel actually increased dramatically after October 2023, totaling €36.7 million ($41.9 million) by February 2025 alone. This included arms, ammunition, tanks, and armored fighting vehicles categorized under standard international trade codes. The report explicitly notes that Spain never imported more Israeli military equipment than it did in the 16 months following the 7 October 2023 attacks.

This pattern shifted only in September 2025, when Sanchez signed into law a formal full arms embargo against Israel, alongside a ban on imports of goods from Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories. Unlike the earlier partial pause on new sales licenses, this legislation establishes a formal, blanket legal prohibition on arms trade with Israel.

Eirene de Prada, an international law professor and member of Juristas por Palestina (Lawyers for Palestine), explained that the new legislation marks a formal shift from administrative restraint to binding legal rule. But she warns that broad loopholes, exceptions for pre-existing contracts, and ambiguous regulatory gaps leave the embargo far weaker than its public framing suggests. In comments to Middle East Eye, De Prada accused the Spanish government of deliberate doublespeak: while the embargo sends a strong symbolic statement condemning Israeli actions, regulatory loopholes embedded in the Royal Decree-Law allow trade with Israeli defense firms to continue largely uninterrupted.

Under Spanish legislative rules, a Royal Decree-Law is classified as an emergency measure for extraordinary and urgent need, requiring parliamentary approval within 30 days of enactment. Royal Decree-Law 10/2025, passed in October 2025, justifies the embargo by noting that the extreme humanitarian crisis in Gaza creates an urgent need to block the transfer of defense and dual-use materials that Israel uses against civilian populations.

Alejandro Pozo, an investigator at the Delas Centre, argues that even with its flaws, the legislation represents a meaningful step forward. He notes that the embargo sets a critical global precedent, proving that a full arms embargo on Israel is a politically feasible policy for Western nations. Even so, Pozo confirms that the law leaves all pre-existing military contracts intact and grants Spanish authorities broad discretion to approve exceptions when deemed justified.

Just three months after the law’s passage, the Spanish government exercised one of these exceptions to authorize transfers of defense and dual-use materials for four Airbus-led aeronautical projects, citing the projects’ significant industrial and export potential. The approved transfer included an anti-missile defense system produced by Elbit Systems, an Israeli defense manufacturer widely documented as complicit in Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

Pozo explains that Israel’s core interest in trade with Spain is not selling finished weapons to Spanish buyers, but gaining access to Western markets that lower the cost of Israel’s domestic military production and sustain its long-term occupation of Palestinian territories. He added that Israeli defense firms also exploit loopholes in EU trade rules, which allow Spain to trade defense equipment via other EU member states and purchase Israeli weapons manufactured by EU-based Israeli subsidiaries. These transactions are not covered by the current embargo, and account for a large share of Israeli military-related activity in Spain. Many Israeli-designed weapons are produced in Spain by local subsidiaries of Israeli firms or by domestic Spanish manufacturers operating under Israeli production licenses.

To close these gaps, Pozo argues that policymakers must target the financial flows that directly or indirectly fund Israel’s war machine, rather than only regulating direct arms transfers. He calls for sanctions modeled after the sweeping comprehensive sanctions the EU imposed on Russia, which target all core Israeli economic and political interests.

Spain is far from alone in facing this contradiction between anti-Israel rhetoric and continued complicity in what UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese has termed the “economy of genocide.” Colombia, another leading critic of Israel’s actions, implemented a national ban on coal exports to Israel that took effect in August 2025. But after the ban went into effect, South Africa – which brought Israel’s case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and co-founded the Hague Group supporting Palestinian legal claims – stepped in to become Israel’s largest coal supplier.

South African Trade Minister Parks Tau has argued that imposing unilateral sanctions on Israel without formal multilateral UN backing violates World Trade Organization non-discrimination rules and exposes South Africa to costly international legal challenges. But Patrick Bond, director of the Centre for Social Change at the University of Johannesburg, rejects this claim. He points to a July 2024 ICJ ruling, later upheld by the UN General Assembly, that explicitly requires all nations to end any form of complicity with Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territories. Bond argues this ruling creates a binding international legal obligation to restrict trade with Israel, and that South African authorities already have the legal authority to ban such exports under existing “dangerous exports” regulations – no new legislation is required. “The coal export ban could be implemented immediately,” Bond confirmed.

Even in Colombia, where President Gustavo Petro has spearheaded a regional push for sanctions against Israel, untangling long-standing military ties has proven far more complex than banning coal exports. In February 2024, Petro announced his government would end all new arms purchases from Israel and reduce bilateral military cooperation, but Colombian Defence Minister Ivan Velasquez later confirmed that all existing contracts would be honored, including maintenance for Colombia’s fleet of Israeli-built Kfir fighter jets. The Colombian Armed Forces also still rely heavily on the Israeli-made Galil rifle, which was used extensively by Israeli forces in Palestine and Lebanon, and was deployed to suppress left-wing insurgent groups during Colombia’s decades-long civil war.

To break these long-standing ties, Colombia signed a €3.1 billion contract with Swedish defense firm Saab in November 2025 to purchase 17 Gripen E/F fighter jets, which will replace the aging Kfir fleet by 2032. In May 2026, Petro also unveiled a domestically produced rifle to gradually replace the Galil, but the transition is expected to take five years to complete.

A shared vulnerability of both Spain and Colombia’s embargo policies is their vulnerability to reversal by future administrations. In Colombia, President-Elect Abelardo de la Espriella, who takes office in August 2026, has already publicly proposed expanding collaboration with Israeli defense industries. His commitment to expanding extractive mining also threatens to roll back Petro’s coal export ban, which was implemented via presidential decree and has not been enshrined in permanent national legislation.

In Spain, the embargo has greater formal legal standing as a properly enacted law, but it is still not immune to rollback. De Prada explains that a future administration with a parliamentary majority could substantially amend or fully repeal the embargo. It could also weaken the embargo in practice through broad interpretation of the “general national interests” clause that allows for frequent exceptions, or by simply reducing the rigor of regulatory enforcement.

Pozo confirms that if the center-right Partido Popular or far-right Vox win the 2027 national elections, they could easily eliminate the embargo entirely. This would likely be a symbolic political act rather than a response to domestic defense needs, as both parties have openly condemned Sanchez’s Gaza policy. Both parties voted against the embargo in October 2025, with Vox reiterating Israel’s claimed right to self-defense and accusing the Sanchez government of using the embargo as a smokescreen to distract from domestic corruption allegations.

Experts say Colombia’s incoming right-wing administration’s plan to rapidly reset ties with Israel serves as a clear warning to Spain’s current government. De Prada argues that sustained, long-term policy of holding Israel accountable requires far more robust regulatory measures than the current limited embargo. She told Middle East Eye: “Ultimately, the next step must be moving from a limited, reversible embargo to a comprehensive, permanent policy of non-cooperation, non-assistance, and non-recognition, supported by effective parliamentary oversight, administrative transparency, and full supply chain traceability.”

Until that shift occurs, the gap between symbolic political gestures and concrete action, and between public rhetoric and policy practice, remains unmistakeable.