The population has fallen by about 160,000 since Israel’s assault on Gaza began, the official Palestinian statistics agency says.
Gaza’s population has fallen 6 percent since Israel’s devastating assault on the besieged Palestinian territory began nearly 15 months ago, according to the official Palestinian statistics agency.
About 100,000 Palestinians have fled the enclave while more than 55,000 are presumed dead, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) said in a statement on Tuesday.
An estimated 45,500 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, have been killed since the war began and another 11,000 are missing, the bureau said, citing figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
As such, Gaza’s population has fallen by about 160,000 over the course of the war to 2.1 million, with more than one million, or 47 percent of the remaining total population, children under the age of 18, PCBS said.
It said that Israel “has carried out a brutal aggression against Gaza targeting all kinds of life there; people, buildings and vital infrastructure … entire families were wiped from the civil register. There are catastrophic human and material losses.”
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said the PCBS data was “fabricated, inflated and manipulated to insult Israel”.
Leading human rights groups have accused Israel of committing acts of genocide in its war in Gaza, citing the sheer scale of death and destruction and the denial of essential services, including humanitarian aid.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nations’ highest legal body, ruled last January that Israel must prevent acts of genocide against Palestinians, while Roman Catholic Pope Francis has suggested that the global community study whether Israel’s campaign in Gaza constitutes genocide.
Israel has repeatedly denied the accusations, claiming it abides by international law and has the right to defend itself against Hamas.
Israeli forces have continued to close the closed border crossings into Gaza, preventing the entry of desperately needed aid, including food and medicine.
In the north of the Strip, an even tighter siege has been put in place since the Israeli army launched a renewed ground offensive there in October. Residents there are trapped, facing a famine and enduring relentless Israeli bombardment while key medical facilities have been raided and burned.
The PCBS said that about 22 percent 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.
Included in that 22 percent are about 3,500 children at risk of dying from malnutrition and lack of food, the bureau said.
About 60,000 pregnant women also face serious health risks in Gaza, the report said, due to the crumbling health care sector and general lack of access to health care.
Babies are often born in difficult circumstances, with families unable to provide adequate support such as basic health care.
Several babies have died in recent days without access to health care facilities and due to falling temperatures, the Gaza government’s media office said.
Israel’s war has displaced nearly the entire population of Gaza, forcing tens of thousands of people into makeshift tents in open-air camps.
