Gaza’s population has fallen six percent since the war with Israel began nearly 15 months ago as some 100,000 Palestinians fled the enclave while more than 55,000 are presumed dead, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS).
Some 45,500 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, have been killed since the war began, but another 11,000 are missing, the bureau said, citing figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
As such, the population of Gaza has fallen by about 160,000 over the course of the war to 2.1 million. More than a million, or 47 percent, of those remaining in the enclave are under the age of 18, the PCBS said.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said the PCBS data was “fabricated, inflated and manipulated to insult Israel”.
The PCBS added that Israel has “raged a brutal aggression against Gaza targeting all forms of life there; people, buildings and vital infrastructure…whole families were erased from the civil register. There is catastrophic human and material loss.”
Accusations of genocide
Israel has faced accusations of genocide in Gaza due to the scale of death and destruction.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the UN’s highest legal body, ruled last January that Israel must prevent acts of genocide against Palestinians, while Pope Francis has suggested the global community study whether Israel’s campaign in Gaza constitutes genocide. Earlier this month, Amnesty International published a report which concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
Israel has repeatedly rejected accusations of genocide, saying it abides by international law and has the right to defend itself after the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas, killing 1,200 Israelis and sparking the current war.
Amnesty International has accused the state of Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza war in a new report, a charge Israel vehemently denies, saying it has respected international law.
Israel’s repeated attacks on hospitals in Gaza, which it has justified by claiming that Hamas fighters are using the hospitals as command centers, has also drawn fierce criticism and concerns that Israel is violating international law. The UN human rights office said in a report on Tuesday that attacks on hospitals have pushed Gaza’s health care system “to the point of almost complete collapse”.
About 90 percent of Gaza’s population has been internally displaced during the course of the conflict, many of them multiple times due to changing evacuation orders.
The PCBS said 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.
