With infrastructure destroyed and productive sectors ground to a halt as a result of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, traditional employment opportunities have all but disappeared, forcing residents to seek alternative, often precarious, ways to survive.
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Hala Mohammed al-Maghrabi, 24, is one of many young professionals whose education no longer offers a path to stability. After graduating as a nurse in 2023, she spent two years volunteering in the healthcare field, hoping the experience would eventually lead to paid employment. That opportunity never came.
“Volunteering doesn’t pay the bills,” Al-Maghrabi said. “With prices constantly rising and no steady income, it has become impossible to rely on this work even to meet our basic needs.”
With limited opportunities in Gaza’s overwhelmed healthcare system, they made the difficult decision to leave their territory entirely.
Al-Maghrabi turned to social media marketing and e-commerce instead of working online to generate a modest income.
As al-Maghrabi reported, she graduated as a nurse and began training at the hospital. During that training, she also took several design courses and tried to find work in that field, but she was unable to reach clients and earn income. She then decided to take a marketing course instead of waiting for someone else to promote her work, allowing her to market herself effectively. After gaining experience in marketing, he started working in e-commerce and digital marketing.
“This is not what I studied for or planned for,” he said. “But even though the income is limited, it helps me cover my daily expenses and survive in these circumstances.”
economic crisis
Al-Maghrabi’s experience reflects a broader phenomenon in Gaza, where years of compounding crisis have pushed unemployment to unprecedented levels. According to 2024 data from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the overall unemployment rate in Gaza is 69 percent, rising to nearly 80 percent among 15 to 29-year-olds.
Nearly 70 percent of Gaza’s residents are under the age of 30, meaning the majority of the community faces serious economic challenges, with a significant portion of the youth holding university degrees but unable to find suitable employment.
Gaza’s GDP has also declined by more than 82 percent due to Israel’s ongoing war and destruction of economic infrastructure, and approximately 80 percent of the population is dependent on international aid due to food insecurity and loss of income sources.
The economic collapse has affected not only employees, but also business owners. Mohammed al-Hajj, who previously worked in general merchandise and food supplies, saw his entire business model disrupted after the war.
“My warehouses and goods were destroyed, and I can no longer afford the import costs or the necessary licenses,” Al-Hajj said. “Everything I had built over so many years was suddenly destroyed.”
Faced with few options, Al-Hajj sought an alternative way to earn income. Because his neighborhood was not heavily damaged, and he still had intermittent Internet access, he converted a portion of his property into a small workplace equipped with an Internet connection.
“I created this space after I ran out of options,” he said. “Students and engineers needed somewhere stable to take exams or work online, and this became a solution for them – and for me.”
innovation to survive
As traditional employment structures collapse, innovation has become less a choice than a necessity. For some Palestinians in Gaza, finding unconventional solutions to personal crises has opened up new avenues not only for survival, but for rebuilding economic activity.
Ahmed Fares Abu Zayd, CEO of Abu Zayd General Trading, described how his company’s operations came to a halt when the war began.
“We started the company before the war as a very small power generation business with limited resources, aiming only to supply specific energy needs,” Abu Zayed said. “But when the war broke out, our operations immediately stopped due to lack of fuel for the generators. The situation was extremely difficult.”
Instead of closing down completely, Abu Zayed started looking for alternatives. The result was an innovative approach to energy production that relied on available materials rather than scarce fuels.
“We thought about how to convert the surrounding waste into energy,” he said. “That’s how we started producing power systems using plastic scrap as fuel. It was a difficult experience, but it was driven by creativity and necessity.”
His story illustrates how innovation in Gaza often emerges directly from the crisis, as individuals attempt to solve immediate problems with limited resources.
Project manager and business management expert Maram al-Qara said such efforts play an important role in Gaza’s labor market.
“The problem in Gaza is not a lack of talent, but the lack of an economic environment capable of absorbing it,” al-Qara said. “Even small projects can stimulate the market by creating direct employment and indirect service and production chains.”
He stressed that innovation is now necessary. “When traditional jobs are absent, innovation becomes a means of creating opportunities rather than waiting for them,” he said.
On the broader labor market, Al-Qara concluded, “The blockade and war destroyed traditional work structures, prompting many youth to seek options outside traditional employment.”
exploitation and opportunity
Throughout Gaza, many educated young people – doctors, engineers, nurses, and graduates – now sell bottled water, vegetables, or second-hand clothes on the streets. These efforts are not entrepreneurial ambitions, but survival strategies in a place where choice has almost disappeared.
As one young resident said, “We don’t have the luxury of choice; we can only try to survive.”
While innovation has opened up new avenues for some, desperation has also created space for exploitation. Mahmoud, a young man from Gaza, described how the lack of jobs and social protection has pushed people into dubious or dangerous professions.
“Without government support and no safety net, it has become almost impossible to achieve a stable income,” Mahmood said. “Some people are turning to illegal or exploitative methods to survive.”
Money lending, currency trading and exploitative financial transfers have become increasingly common, he said.
“Sometimes people are forced to receive their remittances in cash at a discount of more than 50 percent,” he said. “This is clear exploitation of people’s immediate needs, and shows how desperation is being abused.”
Yet even amidst these negative outcomes, examples of innovation benefiting the wider community persist. Abu Zayed said his power project did more than solve his own problem.
“The most important part is that it doesn’t just provide energy,” he said. “It created jobs for dozens of young people in manufacturing, installation and maintenance, and gave them skills they couldn’t acquire in the traditional job market.”
“Even in the most difficult circumstances,” he said, “a small idea can turn into a sustainable project that supports the community and restores a sense of productivity.”
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