According to the official Palestinian statistics agency, the population of Gaza has decreased by 6 percent since Israel’s devastating assault on the besieged Palestinian territory began almost 15 months ago.
About 100, 000 Palestinians have left the enclave while more than 55, 000 are presumed to have lost their lives, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) said in a release on Tuesday.
Approximately 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 numbers from the Palestinian Health Ministry.
As such, the population of Gaza has declined by about 160, 000 during the course of the war to 2.1 million, with more than a million, or 47 percent of the total remaining population, children under the age of 18, the PCBS said.
Israel “raged a brutal aggression against Gaza, attacking all kinds of life there, humans, buildings, and vital infrastructure,” according to the statement. Throughout the civil register, dozens of families were killed. catastrophic human and material losses occur.
Israel’s foreign ministry said the PCBS data was “fabricated, inflated, and manipulated in order to vilify Israel”.
Leading human rights organizations accuse Israel of carrying out genocide during its conflict in Gaza, citing the terrible numbers of casualties and destruction as well as the inability to provide essential services, including humanitarian aid.
The highest legal body under the UN, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), ruled in January that Israel must stop Palestinians from carrying out genocide, and Roman Catholic Pope Francis has suggested that the world community should investigate whether Israel’s Gaza campaign is a genocide.
Israel has repeatedly refuted the accusations, claiming that it is in compliance with international law and has a right to defend itself from Hamas.
Israeli forces have remained closed, preventing access to desperately needed aid, including food and medicine, through strategically located border crossings in Gaza.
Since Israel’s army launched a new ground offensive in the north of the Strip in October, an even stricter siege has been placed there. While important medical facilities have been searched and burned down, residents there are trapped and facing a looming famine.
The PCBS said some 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.
According to the bureau, there are about 3,500 children who are at risk of dying from malnutrition and lack of food in that 22%.
According to the report, Gaza’s pregnant women also face serious health risks because of the country’s crumbling healthcare system and general lack of access to healthcare.
Babies are often born into harsh circumstances, with families unable to provide adequate support such as basic healthcare.
According to Gaza’s government media office, a number of infants have recently lost their lives because of soaring temperatures and lack of access to healthcare.
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