Palestinian Statistics: Israel killed 1.8 percent of Gaza's population

The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics said on Sunday that "Israel killed in its war on Gaza since October 7, about 1.8 percent of the population of the Strip, 24 percent of whom were young people."

He added in a statement on the eve of International Youth Day: "Since the beginning of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, more than 39,000 Palestinians have been martyred, which constitutes 1.8 percent of the total population of the Strip, including about 24 percent of youth."

The statement indicated that "the number of martyrs as a result of the famine reached 34 martyrs, and there are about 3,500 children at risk of death due to malnutrition and food shortages."

He said, "The number of wounded exceeded 95,000, 70 percent of whom are women and children, in addition to about 10,000 missing."

The statistics stated that "on the eve of the Israeli occupation's aggression on the Gaza Strip, there were approximately 5.6 million Palestinians living in the State of Palestine, including 1.2 million young men and women (between 18 and 29 years old), constituting 22 percent of the total population."

The agency highlighted the "displacement of about two million Palestinians from their homes, out of about two million and 200 thousand Palestinians who were residing in the Strip on the eve of the war."

As for the number of martyrs in the West Bank, it reached 620, most of whom were young people and children, with the percentage of martyrs under the age of 30 reaching about 75 percent, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics.

Based on this data, the agency expected the estimated growth rate in the Gaza Strip to decline "from about 2.7 percent according to the agency's estimates for 2023 to only about 1 percent during 2024."

He pointed out that "the number of martyrs since the beginning of the aggression among students enrolled in higher education institutions in Palestine has reached 653 male and female students, 619 in the Gaza Strip and 34 in the West Bank (...) and 105 male and female workers in higher education institutions in the Gaza Strip have also been killed."

He stressed that "88,000 male and female students in the Gaza Strip are deprived of their right to university education, indicating that out of every 100 young men and women between the ages of 18 and 29, there are 18 who hold a bachelor's degree or higher," according to 2023 data.

The agency spoke of unemployment rates reaching 56 percent in the West Bank during 2023, and 75 percent in the Gaza Strip during the fourth quarter of the same year, noting that "unemployment rates among young people with an intermediate diploma or higher reached about 91 percent" in the Gaza Strip.

With American support, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7, leaving nearly 132,000 Palestinians dead and wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 10,000 missing, amid massive destruction and deadly famine.

In contempt of the international community, Tel Aviv continues the war, ignoring the UN Security Council resolution to stop it immediately, and the International Court of Justice’s orders to take measures to prevent acts of genocide and to improve the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Source: Anadolu Agency