Gaza\u2019s unemployment rate has reached 80 percent, among the highest in the world, according to the United Nations.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n After more than two years of Israel\u2019s genocidal war on Gaza, the daily unbearable churn of mass death and mourning, with homes, hospitals and schools destroyed, the besieged Palestinian territory also faces the fastest and most damaging economic collapse on record.<\/p>\n That is according to the United Nations, which says Gaza\u2019s unemployment rate has reached 80 percent.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n Yet despite Israel\u2019s suffocating blockade on the Strip, Palestinians are improvising businesses to survive.<\/p>\n For many people, survival now depends on skills and small initiatives, rather than formal jobs.<\/p>\n Widowed and responsible for a household of five, Um Mohammed al-Jarjawi relies on knitting to provide for her family \u2013 and sometimes passes on her skills to the next generation.<\/p>\n Every day inside her home, al-Jarjawi prepares food for her grandchildren. Moments later, she heads out to work.<\/p>\n \u201cI started learning knitting when I was 10 years old,\u201d she told Al Jazeera. \u201cLater, I attended courses at specialised centres. I discovered that I was skilled at the craft and began training others.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter my husband passed away, I needed to support my household. I focused on working to provide for my family while improving my skills.\u201d<\/p>\n Small-scale businesses have expanded, ranging from solar-powered phone-charging stations to women knitting baby clothes. They provide households with short-term means of survival, but it is not enough to restore economic stability or generate sustainable, protected employment.<\/p>\n With 70 percent of electricity networks destroyed, Gaza\u2019s power system has collapsed, forcing people to improvise.<\/p>\n For Wasim al-Yazji, a makeshift solar-powered charging station is a fragile lifeline that provides some income \u2013 but cannot solve the power crisis.<\/p>\n \u201cI opened this charging station to help my family with basic needs, some food and small expenses. I try to support my household through it,\u201d al-Yazji told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n His home used to have a supermarket beneath it, but it was destroyed.<\/p>\n \u201cMy charging station depends on solar panels, so if the sun doesn\u2019t shine, the charging power is weak and I can\u2019t work for days. Sometimes a whole week passes under clouds without any income,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Gaza\u2019s labour market has virtually collapsed, with the UN reporting that the enclave now faces one of the highest unemployment rates in the world.<\/p>\n For many young men and women, jobs are nowhere to be found, forcing them to pace the streets or wait endlessly for a chance to work.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been looking for a job for months,\u201d Mohammed Shatat told Al Jazeera. \u201cEven temporary work is hard to find. Every day feels the same\u2026 I go from place to place, asking, hoping, but there\u2019s nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n Families are finding ways to survive amid the devastation and destruction, but these informal ventures are no solution to the economic crisis: With hundreds of thousands of people still out of work, unemployment remains a tremendous challenge across the Strip.<\/p>\n Gaza\u2019s unemployment rate has reached 80 percent, among the highest in the world, according to the United Nations. After more than two years of Israel\u2019s genocidal war on Gaza, the daily unbearable churn of mass death and mourning, with homes, hospitals and schools destroyed, the besieged Palestinian territory also faces the fastest and most damaging […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7696,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
![\"Economic](\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/ddjed8-1767685291.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C514&quality=80\")
![\"Economic](\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/sw2-1767685315.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513&quality=80\")
![\"Economic](\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/s1-1767685297.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513&quality=80\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"