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“There were some days in specific areas where Israeli products were not purchased. These cases during Operation Protective Edge (Israel’s name for the fighting in Gaza) were caused and motivated by Palestinian business entities that had an economic interest in reducing the volume of the import from Israel,” the official said.

At the same time, Coordination for Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) said that following the Israeli-Hamas conflict, the numbers of trucks carrying Israeli products that entered the West Bank this year, 22,810 were fewer than in 2013 when the total reached 23,945.

This could be the reason why Mr. Bargouti, also the President of the Palestinian National Initiative (Al Mubadara), still classifies the boycott as “successful.”

However, the Israeli government official denied that the Palestinian boycott is having a real effect on the Israeli economy.

“The export of Israeli products to the Palestinian Authority areas continues normally,” he said.

Palestinian economists say it is hard to find accurate statistics on how much Israel has been affected by the Palestinian boycott, but they agree that enthusiasm for boycotting Israeli goods is declining on the Palestinian street.

‘I shouldn’t preach that everyone should boycott but I do admit it’s much harder for people living in the occupied Palestinian territories’

“If the boycott of Israeli goods reached its peak during the war on Gaza, and was 80%, now it is no more than 20-30%,” Birzeit University professor Nasr Abdelkarim said.

He said items such as water, gas, oil, electricity, were impossible to boycott. Total imports from Israel are $4.5 billion annually. He says $3.5 billion are things like electricity and water that the Palestinians do not have the resources to produce themselves, leaving $1 billion of goods that could be boycotted.