Israel, Economy in Crisis After Houthi Attacks. What the Press Doesn’t Say
Together with the condemnation expressed by the International Court of Justice which has declared the occupation of the Palestinian Territories illegal and ordered the evacuation of Jewish settlers from the West Bank, yesterday the news of the day on the Israeli front was that of a drone attack that hit a building in Tel Aviv, killing a 50-year-old man in his bed and wounding at least 10 other people hit by shrapnel. Claimed by the Shiite rebels of Yemen, through the spokesman of the Houthi Yahya Sareethe news went around the world and there was no press organ that did not repeat it.
The Yemeni group warned that it “will persist in targeting Israel as long as the latter continues its massacre of civilians in Gazaor at least until it allows sufficient humanitarian aid to arrive.” There are few details about the attack, which took place around 3 a.m. (2 a.m. Italian time). The Israeli military said the drone was identified but not intercepted, adding that the sirens were not activated due to human error.
How that drone managed to break through the “Iron Dome”, otherwise known as the “Iron-dome”, will be up to the intelligence and military to find out. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, instead of making the beau geste of resigning, thundered “We will settle the score”. For his part Netanyahuat the end of the reading of the ruling of the Court of Justice of The Hague, indignantly and lapidarily declared: “The Jewish people do not occupy their own land, nor our eternal capital Jerusalem”.
Beyond the petulant arrogance, a question arises spontaneously: if Israeli citizens are mostly of Russian, Polish, Ukrainian origins, with centuries-old roots in Eastern Europe rather than in the Land of Overseas, how can they claim biblical and ancestral ties with Palestine and Jerusalem? Mystery of faith.
One thing is certain: yet another flaw, coincidentally in favor of cameras, raises many more questions, both on the nature of the attack and on the reason why the defenses were unable to intercept the “aerial target”. According to HareetzIsrael’s war has just “morphed into a regional, multi-front conflict.” In truth, to many, the conflict seems to have been widening for some time, also because of the questionable actions of Israel and its extremist government, led by a Prime Minister for whom “as long as there is war, there is hope.”
For over nine months, for example, the Houthi express solidarity with the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank by carrying on a battle that is putting a crucial segment of Israeli trade and logistics to the test and beyond. Despite their inferiority in numbers, weapons and firepower, they have given a lot of trouble to Israel and its American and European allies. In fact, even before breaking through the Israeli air defense, the Houthis had achieved a series of victories on the port front. Almost no one talks about it, and yet, thanks to their harassing actions on the Red Sea, the Houthis have brought about the collapse of the port of Eilat. As someone wrote, they failed to stop the genocide of the Palestinians, but they exposed the moral bankruptcy of the West and brought an entire commercial sector to a standstill.
In fact, the repeated attacks launched from the Strait of Bab al-Mandeb against southern Israel and merchant ships headed to Eilat, which began last October 19, despite Europe having launched a military mission, Eunavfor Aspedis, which supports the US mission, Prosperity Guardian, have reduced both commercial activities and revenues by 85%. Port of Eilat.
In particular, they have affected its trade with China, India, South Korea, Singapore and other Asian and Gulf countries. The junction and passage between the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, the strait is a crucial maritime hub. It has been estimated that more than 12% of global trade, including the majority of oil and natural gas exports from the Gulf, passes through it, for a total of $1 trillion in annual trade.
Before October 7, it was Israel’s third largest maritime hub after Haifa e Ashdodtoday is a wasteland. If it were not for the logistical and commercial support received from some countries in the region that through the Gulf ports of Dubai and Bahrain have continued to supply Israel, the impact would have been even more devastating, and the collapse of vital activities would have been inevitable, with unprecedented jumps in the cost of living and basic necessities.
The news of the bankruptcy of the Port of Eilat It was given last July 7th by the CEO Gideon Golbert who, during the session of the Knesset Committee on Economic Affairs, announced that commercial activities at the port had “come to a complete halt.”
News that has been caught in the strong mesh of censorship and that none of the mainstream media outlets has been careful to report. According to Mustafa Abdulsalam, of the Middle East Monitor, in the coming months other ports and economic and financial facilities are at risk of going bankrupt, and this is because the war and the attacks from the Red Sea have caused “the almost complete paralysis of Israeli economic activities, including vital sectors such as technology, information technology, direct investment, building and construction, real estate, industries, agriculture, domestic tourism and aviation”.
Abdulsalam also adds that “The failure could also extend to the financial and banking sector in light of the wave of flight of money and large deposits from the markets and banks of the occupying state, the flight of foreign investors, the increase in the rates of bad loans and unlikely-to-repay loans, and the decline of the shekel, foreign reserves and public revenues of the state, especially tax revenues.” And this despite the mammoth flow of aid guaranteed by both the American government and by Jewish communities, not only in the United States.
The ongoing Israeli counteroffensive in Gaza without ethical and temporal limits is clearly a huge damage to the Israeli economy. According to data from the Bank of Israel and the Ministry of Finance, from October 7 until the end of March 2024 the cost of the war exceeded 70 billion shekels (73 billion dollars). The failure of the Port of Eilat It is not a detail: it is the only Israeli port facing the Red Sea, the gateway through which Israel trades with Asia, Africa and some Gulf countries. Its paralysis and closure, even if temporary, represents considerable damage. Someone could object that “this is war”: just as there are deaths and injuries on the field, there are losses on the ports, economy and finance front.
But if you add to this already huge damage the costs of evacuating over 250,000 Israelis from the settlements in the area called “Gaza Envelope” – that within 7 kilometers of the border with the Gaza Strip; of the families evacuated from the desert of Negev and those of the Galilee belt bordering Lebanon; all this combined with the payment of salaries to the approximately 360,000 reservists who have left their civilian jobs, the collateral damage for Israel is starting to get heavier and heavier. What about the cost of losses suffered by economic structures, commercial interests and small and medium-sized businesses that are experiencing a severe recession due to the fact that all government resources and budgets have been allocated and used only for war?
For months, tens of thousands of Israeli citizens have taken to the streets and demanded Netanyahu’s resignation and his most loyal followers. But they are few, too few compared to the majority of the population firmly aligned with the Government. In Gaza, Israel has sterilized every form of life, exterminated tens of thousands of innocents and made the Strip uninhabitable for the next hundred years. However, as in the biblical legend of Samson, in its blind fury it is also killing itself: schools, universities, economic structures, tourism, restaurants, bars and entertainment venues are overwhelmed by the war. They are not physically destroyed like those in Palestine, but they are deserted, many closed, others bankrupt. And if the conflict spreads and the occupation continues, for Israel it can only go from bad to worse.
All the updates and articles by M. Alessandra Filippi on her Telegram channel: https://t.me/boost/mafodyssey
