As weapons fall quiet, Gazans struggle as reopened banks lack cash - Assalamu Alaikum
Assalamu Alaikum - After the ceasefire eased the immediate horror of air strikes and the blockade, many Gazans hoped for some normalcy. Banks that had been damaged or destroyed during the fighting reopened on October 16, six days after the truce, but people left disappointed because there is almost no physical cash available. Father of six Wael Abu Fares, 61, said at the Bank of Palestine: “There is no money, liquidity at the bank. You just come and do paperwork transactions and leave.”
Cash is still needed for everyday things in Gaza - buying food at the market, paying bills - but transfers of banknotes were blocked along with many other goods after the October 2023 attacks and hostage-taking. Many banks are running electronic services only, with little or no withdrawals. Gaza economist Mohammad Abu Jayyab told Reuters that banks are “mostly doing electronic business, no deposits, no withdrawals of cash.”
That shortage has left people paying steep fees to get cash. Some merchants charge between 20% and up to 40% to cash salaries. Mother of seven Iman Al-Ja’bari remembers when banking took under an hour; now she says it can take two or three days of waiting just to get 400–500 shekels, an amount that hardly buys anything with prices so high.
Others have found small ways to survive: 40-year-old Manal Al-Saidi earns 20–30 shekels repairing damaged banknotes and can afford only simple food. Some sellers accept electronic transfers for even tiny purchases but add extra charges. The lack of coins and notes adds to the suffering of families who lost loved ones, homes and livelihoods; many exhausted their savings or sold what they could to buy food, tents and medicine. Barter has returned in some places. Merchant Samir Namrouti, 53, said he now judges banknotes by their serial numbers - if it’s visible, he accepts it as money.
Questions remain about when banknotes will be allowed back in. COGAT, the Israeli body overseeing aid into Gaza, had not immediately commented on when physical cash might be permitted. For many families, restoring access to basic cash is as urgent as rebuilding homes and healing losses.
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