GAZA, (PIC)
The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics reported that the Israeli occupation forces have killed, in the ongoing genocide war on the Gaza Strip over the past 10 months, around 1.8% of Gaza’s population, 24% of them from the youth category.
This came in a press statement on the occasion of the International Youth Day, which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1999 on August 12 of each year.
The Bureau explained that more than 39,000 Palestinians from the Gaza population have been martyred since the start of the Israeli occupation’s aggression on the Strip.
It added that the number of those who fell due to hunger reached 34 martyrs, noting that “about 3,500 children are at risk of death due to malnutrition and lack of food.”
It also stated that the number of wounded from Gaza’s population “exceeded 95,000, 70% of them women and children, in addition to about 10,000 missing.”
The Central Bureau pointed out that on the eve of the Israeli occupation’s aggression on the Gaza Strip, there were around 5.6 million Palestinians residing in the State of Palestine, including 1.2 million youths (18-29 years) who constitute 22% of the total population.
The Bureau highlighted the displacement of around two million Palestinians from their homes out of the 2.2 million Palestinians who were residing in the Strip on the eve of the war.
In the same context, the Bureau indicated that the number of martyrs in the occupied West Bank reached 620 Palestinians, mostly young people and children.
Decline in growth rate
The Palestinian Central Bureau expected a decline in the estimated growth rate in the Gaza Strip from around 2.7% according to the Bureau’s estimates for 2023 to only around 1% in 2024.
The Bureau stated that the number of martyr students enrolled in higher education institutions in Palestine reached 653 students, 619 of them in the Gaza Strip and 34 in the West Bank, in addition to the martyrdom of 105 employees in higher education institutions in the Gaza Strip.
The Central Bureau, in its statement, referred to the deprivation of 88,000 students in the Gaza Strip of their right to university education.
It also indicated that out of every 100 youths aged 18-29 years, there are 18 who hold a bachelor’s degree or higher according to 2023 data.
The Bureau also addressed unemployment, explaining that it reached 56% in the occupied West Bank in 2023, and 75% in the Gaza Strip in the fourth quarter of the same year, noting that the unemployment rate among young people with an intermediate diploma or higher qualification reached about 91% in the Gaza Strip.
