LONDON: The population of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip decreased by 6 percent in 2024, while the total number of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, inside Israel, and globally reached almost 15 million.
The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics’ 2024 consensus published on Sunday reported that the Gaza Strip’s population decreased by 6 percent in 2024, resulting in a loss of nearly 160,000 Palestinians, bringing the total population to 2.1 million.
The report confirmed the deaths of 45,484 individuals during the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, as of December 2024.
The casualties included 17,581 children, 12,048 women, and 11,000 individuals who were missing and believed to be dead under the rubble.
Additionally, 108,090 people were injured, and nearly 100,000 Palestinians have fled the coastal enclave since the Israeli military aggression began in October 2023.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the figures were “terrifying,” and showed the extent of the Israeli occupation’s “brutality and its bloody massacres against our people,” the WAFA News Agency reported.
The total number of Palestinians reached 14.9 million in 2024, of which, according to the Bureau of Statistics, 7.3 million lived between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Of these, 5.5 million resided in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza, with 65 percent being under 30 and only 4 percent above 65.
About 3.4 million people lived in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, 2.1 million in the Gaza Strip, while 1.8 million were Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Around 6.4 million Palestinians resided across various Arab countries, including Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the UAE, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia.
The remaining 1.2 million Palestinians belonged to the diaspora in Western countries, including Europe and North America.
