Israel’s Economy Contracts Nearly 20% After Outbreak of War (3)

Israel’s economy suffered one of its worst-ever slumps, after the Hamas war paralyzed businesses, forced people to evacuate their homes and caused the military to call up hundreds of thousands of reservists.

Gross domestic product shrank an annualized 19.4% in the final three months of last year, in seasonally-adjusted terms, according to preliminary figures released on Monday. That was worse than every estimate in a Bloomberg survey of analysts, whose median forecast was for a decline of 10.5%.

The shekel weakened slightly on the news and was trading 0.4% down at 3.62 per dollar at 3:53 p.m. in Tel Aviv, ...