Ever since the coronavirus outbreak in late February in both the Palestinian territories and Israel, several sectors have been successively affected, most notably the Palestinian economy, which the virus revealed to be fully dependent on Israel and its decisions. This is especially true with regard to Palestinian workers in Israel and the sources of income of tens of thousands of families in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, which showed the Palestinian Authority's (PA) clear failure to provide local economic alternatives.

Ghassan al-Khatib, former Palestinian minister of labor and planning in Ramallah, told Al-Monitor, “Both before and after the coronavirus outbreak, Palestinians have been under the control of Israel, and they are completely dependent on its economy despite attempts to disengage from it. However, a large number of Palestinians work in Israel, which also controls our crossings, hence the negative consequences on our economy. Add to this the political consequences of such dependence.”

The most important indicator of the Palestinian economic dependence on Israel is the number of Palestinians who work in Israel. More than 150,000 Palestinians work in Israel with official permits, while 60,000 work illegally. Each Palestinian gets an average daily income of 250 Israeli shekels ($70.50), which means hundreds of millions of dollars flowing into the Palestinian market every month. The suspension from work in Israel in the wake of the coronavirus crisis has deprived tens of thousands of families of cash.

Unlike the West Bank, the number of Gazan workers and merchants working in Israel only amounts to 5,000 people, hence their limited contribution to the local economy.