Israel's war depletes Gaza's population by 6 percent

Israel faces accusations of genocide in Gaza because of the scale of death and destruction. (Photo/AA)

The population of Gaza has fallen 6 percent since Israel's war began nearly 15 months ago as about 100,000 Palestinians left the enclave while more than 55,000 are presumed dead, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS).

Around 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 numbers from the Palestinian Health Ministry.

As such, the population of Gaza has declined by about 160,000 during the war to 2.1 million, with more than a million or 47 percent of the total children under the age of 18, the PCBS said.

It added that Israel has "raged a brutal aggression against Gaza targeting all kinds of life there; humans, buildings and vital infrastructure entire families were erased from the civil register. There are catastrophic human and material losses."

Food insecurity

Israel has faced accusations of genocide in Gaza because of the scale of death and destruction.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nations' highest legal body, ruled last January that Israel must prevent acts of genocide against Palestinians.

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.

Included in that 22 percent are some 3,500 children at risk of death due to malnutrition and lack of food, the bureau said.

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Source: TRT