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Gaza’s population has dropped by 10% as Israel continued its destructive war on the Palestinian enclave, official figures showed on Thursday, Anadolu reports.
“Palestine, specifically the Gaza Strip, is suffering an unprecedented humanitarian and demographic catastrophe due to the ongoing Israeli aggression since October 2023,” the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics said in a statement.
The bureau said that more than 57,000 Palestinians, including 18,000 children and 12,000 women, were killed in Israeli attacks, which constitutes 2.4% of Gaza’s total population.
Figures released by the bureau also showed that nearly 100,000 Palestinians have left the enclave since the start of the Israeli war.
Before the outbreak of the Israeli war, Gaza’s population stood at 2,226,544 in 2023, as official figures showed.
READ: US firm accused of modelling ethnic cleansing in Gaza probed by UK parliamentary committee
“Population estimates indicate that the population has declined to approximately 2,129,724, representing a 6% decrease compared to the projection of mid-2024 estimates,” it said.
“Furthermore, the population dropped to 2,114,301, a decrease of 10% from what was estimated for mid-2025.”
The bureau warned of “a fundamental shift” and distortion in the age and population pyramid “due to the deliberate targeting of younger age groups by the Israeli army, particularly children and youth.”
Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez accused Israel on Wednesday of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, stating that Europe is not doing enough to stop it.
Speaking before the Spanish parliament, Sánchez compared the actions of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to those of Russian President Vladimir Putin in Ukraine.
He said: “No one that tramples on the EU’s founding principles – or that uses hunger and war to annihilate a legitimate state – can be a partner of the European Union,”
Sánchez warned that Netanyahu’s actions would be remembered as “one of the darkest chapters of the 21st century.”
He went on to say that “The harrowing images of children searching for their families under the rubble or dying of hunger in tents should not only move and shame us, they should compel the international community — and Europe in particular — to act.”
Sánchez also noted that Spain and Ireland were the first to request a review by the European Union in February 2024 of whether Israel is complying with the EU-Israel Association Agreement.
READ: Spain opens war crimes probe against Netanyahu over Madleen aid ship attack
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Visiting Washington, Benjamin Netanyahu delighted in telling Donald Trump that he had nominated him for the Nobel peace prize. The Israeli prime minister cited Mr Trump’s efforts to end conflicts in the Middle East. But in truth he is grateful to the US president for joining his war against Iran last month and for allowing carnage in Gaza to continue after a brief pause. He is also eager that the US president does not strong‑arm him into another ceasefire. Perhaps the indirect talks between Hamas and Israel in Qatar will reach a temporary deal again, with hostages released and possibly more aid allowed in. Even so, few expect that a lasting peace would result.
Words matter. They have become so detached from reality when it comes to Israel’s war in Gaza that it is not merely absurd, or despicable, but obscene. The defence minister, Israel Katz, has laid out plans for a “humanitarian city”: this means forcing all Palestinians in Gaza into a camp that the military would bar them from leaving. Prof Amos Goldberg, a historian of the Holocaust, used the accurate words: it would be “a concentration camp or a transit camp for Palestinians before they expel them”. The “emigration plan” which Mr Katz says “will happen”, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, is in fact an ethnic cleansing plan. No departure can be considered voluntary when the alternative is starvation or indefinite imprisonment in inhuman conditions.
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Destroying Palestinians’ means of survival, planning the removal of Gaza’s population and envisioning its outright destruction are surely not merely brutal acts but ones committed with “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group” – the definition of genocide in the UN convention.
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Article continues at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/08/the-guardian-view-on-israel-and-gaza-they-make-a-desert-and-call-it-peace
