JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Gaza's population has fallen 6% since the war with Israel began almost 15 months ago, when some 100,000 Palestinians fled the enclave while more than 55,000 are presumed dead, according to the Palestinian Central Office. Statistics (PCBS).
About 45,500 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, have died since the war began, but another 11,000 are missing, the office said, citing figures from the Palestinian Health Ministry.
As such, Gaza's population has decreased by approximately 160,000 people over the course of the war to 2.1 million, with more than one million or 47% of the total being children under the age of 18, the PCBS said.
He added that Israel has “carried out a brutal aggression against Gaza targeting all types of life there: humans, buildings and vital infrastructure… entire families were erased from the civil registry. There are catastrophic human and material losses.”
Israel's Foreign Ministry said the PCBS data was “fabricated, inflated and manipulated to vilify Israel.”
Israel has faced accusations of genocide in Gaza due to the scale of death and destruction.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nations' highest legal body, ruled last January that Israel must prevent acts of genocide against the Palestinians, while Pope Francis has suggested that the global community should study whether the campaign of Israel in Gaza constitutes genocide.
Israel has repeatedly rejected accusations of genocide, saying it respects international law and has the right to defend itself after the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 that killed 1,200 Israelis and precipitated the current war.
The PCBS said that around 22% of Gaza's population currently faces catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity, according to the criteria of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a global monitor.
That 22% includes about 3,500 children at risk of death due to malnutrition and lack of food, the office said.
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;n.queue=();t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)(0);s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’,’https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);
