RAMALLAH, Palestine

The losses of private sector businesses in Palestine had reached approximately $1.5 billion in the first two months of Israel's devastating onslaught on the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) said on Wednesday.

The PCBS said in a statement that the daily losses of the private sector in Gaza are estimated to be $25 million, "except for direct losses in properties and assets losses."

The number of private sector establishments or facilities in Palestine is 176,000, including 56,000 in Gaza, and 120,000 in the West Bank.

"The primary results indicated that 29% of total establishments in West Bank witnessed decline or stopped in production through the (Israeli) aggression while most of establishments in Gaza strip stopped their production," PCBS added.

And, as a result of Israel's ongoing deadly onslaught on Gaza, "about 89% of the total number of employees in the Gaza Strip has been out of work."

Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7, killing at least 21,110 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 55,243 others, according to local health authorities.

Around 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.

Israeli attacks have left Gaza in ruins, with half of the coastal territory's housing damaged or destroyed and nearly 2 million people displaced within the densely populated enclave amid acute shortages of food and clean water.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar