Less than three years ago, Wassif Frahat spent $3 million to open a lavish, two-story restaurant, the Ali Baba. With an impressive, pillared entryway, polished stone floors, glittering chandeliers and colorful frescoes on the high ceilings, the restaurant was his commitment to a better future.
The Ali Baba, in Jenin, is just a few minutes’ drive from the Jalameh checkpoint, which in normal times allows Israeli Arab citizens entry to the West Bank. The atmosphere is Palestinian, and the shops, restaurants and services are significantly cheaper than in Israel. The crossing also allows Palestinians with valid entry permits to go to jobs in Israel.
But after Hamas invaded Israel from Gaza on Oct. 7, the checkpoint was closed. Israel withheld most tax revenue from the authorities in the West Bank, in an effort to weaken them and clamp down more broadly on Palestinians. The economy in the territory’s north collapsed, and the better future that Mr. Frahat expected now seems farther away than ever.
The war that followed the invasion is devastating Gaza, but it is also impoverishing the West Bank, which has become a kind of second front in Israel’s battle against Palestinian militancy.
The Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the West Bank but does not run Gaza, has been paying only about 50 percent of the salaries it owes its estimated 140,000 employees. In the West Bank as a whole, which has a population of about three million, 144,000 jobs have disappeared since October, and 148,000 Palestinians who were working in Israel have lost their jobs, according to the World Bank. Before Oct. 7, unemployment in the West Bank was about 13 percent, compared to 45 percent in Gaza.
Mr. Frahat, 51, once had 53 employees at his restaurant and an older one in the city center. “Now I only have 18 because business is down by 90 percent,” he said.