Tourism in Israel fell last month by 76% on an annual basis, and the Bank of Israel’s foreign cash reserves declined by $7.3 billion, as a result of Operation… “Al-Aqsa flood“Which was carried out by the Palestinian resistance led by Al-Qassam Brigades On the seventh of last October, and the continued Israeli aggression on… Gaza strip.
Under these circumstances, most flights to and from Tel Aviv were cancelled.
A monthly report issued by the Israeli Bureau of Statistics stated that 89,700 tourists visited Israel during last October, most of whom entered the country before the seventh of the same month.
Foreign tourism to Israel exceeded 370,000 in the corresponding period last year, which shows the extent of the damage to that sector due to the Al-Aqsa flood operation.
Since the end of the Corona pandemic, Israel has implemented promotional campaigns to attract tourists in an attempt to return to 2019 numbers that were not broken until the end of 2022, according to Israeli census data.
For its part, a report by the Secret Flights website, which tracks flights, showed a significant decline in flights to and from Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv, amounting to an average of 80% since the outbreak of the war in Gaza.
The website reported that an average of 100 flights per day landed at Ben Gurion Airport during the war, compared to the usual 500 flights during the pre-war period.
Foreign exchange decline
According to the Bank of Israel (the Central Bank), foreign reserves decreased by $7.3 billion during the past month, at a time when the Central Bank sought to support the shekel after the start of the war on Gaza.
Thus, reserves decreased by 3.7%, to $191.2 billion, which is their lowest level in a year.
The Bank of Israel said that it sold $8.2 billion in foreign exchange last October.
The bank had launched a program worth $30 billion to sell foreign exchange with the beginning of the aggression on Gaza a month ago, to prevent a sharp deterioration in the shekel exchange rate. This is the first time ever that foreign exchange has been sold.
It is worth noting that foreign exchange reserves amounted to about $198.6 billion last September.
Preliminary Israeli estimates indicated that the war waged by the occupation on the Gaza Strip a month ago could cost Israel’s budget more than 200 billion shekels ($51 billion).
In the last quarter of 2023, the Israeli economy is heading to cancel all the gains it achieved during the current year, due to the war.
A few days ago, a bank report stated:JP Morgan ChaseThe American newspaper said that the Israeli economy may contract by 11% on an annual basis, in the last three months of this year, with the escalation of the aggression against Gaza.
For 32 days, the Israeli army has been waging a devastating war on Gaza, in which more than 10,000 Palestinians were martyred, including 4,104 children and 2,641 women, while more than 25,000 others were injured. 160 Palestinians were martyred, and 2,150 others were arrested in the West Bank, according to official sources.
