The Cost of Israeli Settler-Colonial Occupation on the Palestinian People

 

Toward a new scientific framework for estimating losses and claiming compensation, I read a study prepared by the researchers: Mahmoud Al-Khafif, Raja Al-Khalidi, and Tareq Sadiq, entitled:

" The Cost of Israeli Settler-Colonial Occupation on the Palestinian People"

published in the first issue of the journal "AL- MUNTAQA" for the months of January – February at the beginning of this year 2026. It is one of the most important Palestinian economic studies in recent years because it does not confine itself to updating estimates of the economic losses resulting from the Israeli occupation, but rather presents a new and more comprehensive methodological framework for measuring the economic cost of occupation and settlement, moving from measuring what the Palestinians lost to measuring what Israel achieved in economic gains as a result of its control over Palestinian land and resources. The study is based on a wide review of economic literature since the Nakba of 1948 up to 2022, benefiting from the latest studies issued by international institutions, foremost of which is UNCTAD.

The study affirms from its outset that the real cost of the occupation cannot be reduced to monetary values, because there are human, political, cultural, and psychological damages that cannot be measured in money; nevertheless, documenting the economic losses remains necessary to estimate the extent of the harm, to establish legal bases for claims for compensation, and to determine requirements for future reconstruction and development. From this standpoint, the study views the economic calculations not as a price of the occupation, but as a scientific documentation of the damages that have befallen the Palestinian people as a result of the settler-colonial project.

The study reviews three main methodologies for estimating the cost of the occupation. The first is the aggregation methodology, which is based on inventorying confiscated properties, lands and resources and estimating their monetary value. The second is the counterfactual methodology, which compares the actual economic performance of the Palestinian economy with a hypothetical scenario assuming the absence of occupation, and then considers the gap as an economic loss. The third is the methodology of measuring the occupation's gains, which estimates what the Israeli economy reaped in profits as a result of exploiting Palestinian lands and resources — a recent research direction the study regards as more expressive of the economic nature of the settler-colonial project. The study stresses that the choice of methodology should be linked to the nature of the economic variable to be measured, while avoiding double counting of losses.

In its historical review, the study surveys the most prominent attempts that estimated the losses of the Nakba of 1948, beginning with United Nations estimates, passing through the League of Arab States, and Yusuf Sayigh, up to the study by Atef Qabrousi which it considers the most methodologically complete. The study shows that differences in estimates were not due to contradictions in the facts, but to differences in the scope of assets included in each study, their valuation methods, and the calculation of their economic value over time. It also notes that most older studies focused on the value of confiscated properties, while often overlooking the economic returns that Palestinians were deprived of as a result of losing those assets.

The study relies on Qabrousi's estimates as a basis for recalculating the Nakba losses up to 2022, using two main factors: preserving the purchasing power of money through inflation, and calculating the lost return on capital assuming a conservative annual growth rate of 4%. It concludes that the material losses that amounted to about 2.99 billion dollars at 1948 prices rose to about 718.9 billion dollars at 2022 prices, while the total value of losses, including human capital and psychological damages, rose to about 752.7 billion dollars. The study explains that this increase is not due only to inflation, but to the economic opportunity lost as a result of depriving Palestinians of investing their assets over more than seven decades.

As for the period after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, the study indicates that international institutions, led by UNCTAD, developed more precise tools to measure the cost of the occupation, relying on constructing counterfactual economic scenarios and modern techniques such as analyzing nighttime satellite lighting images to measure economic activity in Area (C) and the settlements. Through these methodologies, the study estimates that the cumulative economic losses resulting from the blockade of Gaza, the restrictions imposed on the West Bank, and the denial of Palestinian exploitation of Area (C) exceeded 176 billion dollars up to 2022, which is equivalent to more than eleven times the Palestinian GDP in that year. It also notes that other estimates addressed losses from the absence of economic sovereignty and the leakage of public revenues, but they were not added to this figure to avoid double counting.

The study highlights in particular the economic impact of settlement on Palestinian natural resources, indicating that the occupation prevented the exploitation of large reserves of natural gas off the coast of Gaza, in addition to oil reserves in the West Bank, which deprived the Palestinian economy of strategic resources that could have contributed to boosting investment, creating jobs, improving living standards, and reducing dependence on external aid. It also affirms that Israeli control over Area (C) not only led to land confiscations, but to the disruption of Palestinian development potential for long decades.

The study's most important scientific addition lies in its move to estimate the economic gains Israel achieved as a result of the occupation and settlement. Instead of limiting itself to calculating Palestinian losses, the study uses economic activity data in the settlements to estimate the value the settler-colonial project added to the Israeli economy. It concludes that these gains ranged, according to the assumptions used, between 955 billion dollars in the conservative estimate and 1.707 trillion dollars in the expanded estimate during the period 2000–2022. The study views these results as confirmation that the occupation was not an economic burden on Israel, but rather served as an important source of economic growth through the exploitation of Palestinian land and resources.

The study concludes by calling for the construction of a unified Palestinian national framework to estimate the economic cost of the occupation, integrating the value of confiscated assets, developmental losses, and the economic gains reaped by the occupation, with a commitment to a methodology that prevents repeated counting of losses. It holds that this framework is not only intended to produce more accurate economic estimates, but to provide a scientific and legal basis that supports Palestinian claims for compensation and reparation in international forums.

The importance of this study lies in that it shifts the debate from the stage of describing the effects of the occupation to the stage of measuring its economic cost with a methodology usable in legal and international contexts. It also breaks the traditional image that focuses solely on Palestinian losses, to highlight that the settler-colonial project constituted, according to the adopted methodology, an economic lever for the Israeli economy.

At the same time, the study affirms that the figures, no matter how large, represent only part of the real cost of the occupation, because losses of national identity, social disintegration, forced displacement, and deprivation of self-determination remain outside the scope of economic measurement.

Therefore, the true value of the study lies not only in estimating hundreds of billions of dollars, but in presenting a Palestinian scientific reference on which to build to unify the efforts of official and academic institutions, and to strengthen the Palestinian discourse in files of accountability, compensation, and reparation, given that sustainable development cannot be achieved in the continued presence of occupation and settlement.