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Report: Poverty Rate in Gaza Strip Highest Worldwide

Palestinian children are seen in a poor neighborhood in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on October 24, 2018. AFP
Palestinian children are seen in a poor neighborhood in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on October 24, 2018. AFP
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Report: Poverty Rate in Gaza Strip Highest Worldwide

Palestinian children are seen in a poor neighborhood in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on October 24, 2018. AFP
Palestinian children are seen in a poor neighborhood in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on October 24, 2018. AFP

The Ministry of Social Development in the Gaza Strip said in a report that the 2019 poverty rate in the enclave is the highest in the world.

On the occasion of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, celebrated on Oct. 17, the Ministry’s undersecretary, Ghazi Hamad, said that poverty and unemployment rates have reached nearly 75 percent in 2019.

He said that the Gaza Strip suffers from a dire economic situation as a result of the aggressive Israeli practices that increased since the Second Intifada, which broke out in 2000, depriving thousands of Palestinians of their jobs, and also due to the Israeli blockade on the territory since 2006, restricting the movement of citizens and goods.

The Ministry report said that 70 percent of the population of the Gaza Strip is food insecure, while 33.8 percent are under the extreme poverty line and 65.6 percent of poor families are refugees.

It said that Gaza possesses the highest poverty indicators in the world, adding that efforts by government, international and local institutions are characterized as relief activities meeting only about 50 percent of the basic needs of poor families.

The Ministry documents revealed there are 46,910 refugee families in the Strip, adding that they were forced out of their houses after 1948.

Until July, the ministry said that 70,645 families had benefited from the national social protection program, representing 20 percent of the Strip’s population, which is under the extreme poverty line.

Hamad said that 37 percent of families that benefit from the program are sustained by women, including 15 percent of those families sustained by widows.

Hamad called for “guaranteeing humanitarian work independence away from political tensions and for improving the living standards of the people of the Gaza Strip by opening the border crossings and allowing citizens and goods to move freely.

He also demanded strengthening coordination between social institutions working in the enclave in order to secure decent living conditions for the poor.

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Kurdish Fighters Leave Northern City in Syria as Part of Deal with Central Government

A first contingent of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters leave Aleppo, headed for SDF-controlled northeastern Syria, in Aleppo, Syria, 04 April 2025. (EPA)
A first contingent of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters leave Aleppo, headed for SDF-controlled northeastern Syria, in Aleppo, Syria, 04 April 2025. (EPA)
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Kurdish Fighters Leave Northern City in Syria as Part of Deal with Central Government

A first contingent of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters leave Aleppo, headed for SDF-controlled northeastern Syria, in Aleppo, Syria, 04 April 2025. (EPA)
A first contingent of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters leave Aleppo, headed for SDF-controlled northeastern Syria, in Aleppo, Syria, 04 April 2025. (EPA)

Scores of US-backed Kurdish fighters left two neighborhoods in Syria’s northern city of Aleppo Friday as part of a deal with the central government in Damascus, which is expanding its authority in the country.

The fighters left the predominantly Kurdish northern neighborhoods of Sheikh Maksoud and Achrafieh, which had been under the control of Kurdish fighters in Aleppo over the past decade.

The deal is a boost to an agreement reached last month between Syria’s interim government and the Kurdish-led authority that controls the country’s northeast. The deal could eventually lead to the merger of the main US-backed force in Syria into the Syrian army.

The withdrawal of fighters from the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) came a day after dozens of prisoners from both sides were freed in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.

Syria’s state news agency, SANA, reported that government forces were deployed along the road that SDF fighters will use to move between Aleppo and areas east of the Euphrates River, where the Kurdish-led force controls nearly a quarter of Syria.

Sheikh Maksoud and Achrafieh had been under SDF control since 2015 and remained so even when forces of ousted President Bashar al-Assad captured Aleppo in late 2016. The two neighborhoods remained under SDF control when forces loyal to current interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa captured the city in November, and days later captured the capital, Damascus, removing Assad from power.

After being marginalized for decades under the rule of the Assad family rule, the deal signed last month promises Syria’s Kurds “constitutional rights,” including using and teaching their language, which were banned for decades.

Hundreds of thousands of Kurds, who were displaced during Syria’s nearly 14-year civil war, will return to their homes. Thousands of Kurds living in Syria who have been deprived of nationality for decades under Assad will be given the right of citizenship, according to the agreement.

Kurds made up 10% of the country’s prewar population of 23 million. Kurdish leaders say they don’t want full autonomy with their own government and parliament. They want decentralization and room to run their day-to day-affairs.