The population has fallen by around 160,000 since the start of the Israeli assault on Gaza, according to the official Palestinian statistics agency.
Gaza’s population has fallen by 6 percent since the start of Israel’s devastating attack on the besieged Palestinian territory almost 15 months ago, according to the official Palestinian statistics agency.
Around 100,000 Palestinians have left the enclave while more than 55,000 are believed to have lost their lives, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) said in a statement on Tuesday.
About 45,500 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, have been killed since the start of the war and another 11,000 are missing, the office said, citing figures from the Palestinian Health Ministry.
Thus, Gaza’s population declined by about 160,000 over the course of the war to 2.1 million, with more than a million, or 47 percent of the total population remaining, children under 18 years, the PCBS said.
He said Israel has “carried out a brutal aggression against Gaza, targeting all kinds of lives there; humans, buildings and vital infrastructure… entire families have been erased from civil status. There are catastrophic human and material losses.”
The Israeli Foreign Ministry said the PCBS data was “fabricated, inflated and manipulated with the aim of vilifying Israel.”
Leading human rights groups have accused Israel of carrying out acts of genocide in its war on Gaza, citing the scale of death and destruction and the refusal to provide essential services , particularly 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 the Palestinians, while Catholic Pope Francis suggested the world community should study whether the Israeli campaign in Gaza constitutes genocide.
Israel has repeatedly rejected the accusations, saying it respects international law and has the right to defend itself against Hamas.
Israeli forces continued to close vital border crossings in Gaza, preventing the entry of desperately needed aid, including food and medicine.
In the northern Gaza Strip, an even stricter siege has been imposed since the Israeli army launched a new ground offensive in October. Residents are trapped, facing imminent starvation and enduring relentless Israeli bombardment while key medical facilities have been attacked and burned.
The PCBS said that around 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 monitoring body.
Among these 22 percent, about 3,500 children are at risk of dying due to malnutrition and lack of food, the office said.
Some 60,000 pregnant women also face serious health risks in Gaza, the report said, due to the collapse of the health sector and the general lack of access to health care.
Babies are often born into difficult conditions, with families unable to provide them with adequate support, such as basic health care.
Several infants have lost their lives in recent days without access to health facilities and due to falling temperatures, the Gaza government media office said.
Israel’s war has displaced almost the entire population of Gaza, forcing tens of thousands into makeshift tents in open-air camps.
