I thought the claim of a growing population sounded implausible, so I wanted to dig a bit into it.
The growth argument seems to originally stem from future estimates from CIA World Factbook. Now no longer available. The claim of 2,02% was the basis of a social media post that went viral, and has been debunked a couple of places I found
It seems hard to find actual numbers or current estimates made by reliable sources for any given year, which is not surprising when:
1.47 million of about 2.17 million Gazans are registered as refugees (2024).
West Bank is 3.19 million with 0.91 million registered refugees (2024)
70% of Gaza is under Israeli occupation
Vast areas, hospitals, schools, infrastructure etc. are destroyed
I find it hard to believe that the population has grown. 1% of the Palestinian population is about 55 000. The usual growth is 2-3% IIRC. So about 110 000 yearly. Which can very roughly translate to 220-300 000 over 2 or 330-400 000 over 3 years.
The direct death toll is at least 81 000. Directly wounded more than 170 000. Indirect deaths is something else entirely. Estimated to many times the direct death toll. Under rubble, famine, disease etc.
If death toll is higher than normal population increase for the period. That means one of the following:
Palestinians got more or the same amount of offspring. Is that likely when half the population is living as refugees?
The population declined.
I want to add something at the end, famines are a lot more destructive than one might assume. It does generational harm due to epigenetics.
I don’t have more time to spend on this unfortunately, it is mentally taxing, and I don’t have the energy to do this justice and research it properly. So please excuse any inaccuracies.
I thought the claim of a growing population sounded implausible, so I wanted to dig a bit into it.
The growth argument seems to originally stem from future estimates from CIA World Factbook. Now no longer available. The claim of 2,02% was the basis of a social media post that went viral, and has been debunked a couple of places I found
It seems hard to find actual numbers or current estimates made by reliable sources for any given year, which is not surprising when:
1.47 million of about 2.17 million Gazans are registered as refugees (2024).
West Bank is 3.19 million with 0.91 million registered refugees (2024)
70% of Gaza is under Israeli occupation
Vast areas, hospitals, schools, infrastructure etc. are destroyed
I find it hard to believe that the population has grown. 1% of the Palestinian population is about 55 000. The usual growth is 2-3% IIRC. So about 110 000 yearly. Which can very roughly translate to 220-300 000 over 2 or 330-400 000 over 3 years.
The direct death toll is at least 81 000. Directly wounded more than 170 000. Indirect deaths is something else entirely. Estimated to many times the direct death toll. Under rubble, famine, disease etc.
If death toll is higher than normal population increase for the period. That means one of the following:
I want to add something at the end, famines are a lot more destructive than one might assume. It does generational harm due to epigenetics.
I don’t have more time to spend on this unfortunately, it is mentally taxing, and I don’t have the energy to do this justice and research it properly. So please excuse any inaccuracies.