Palestinian Statistics Report Paints a Grim Picture of Palestinians' Conditions at the End of 2025

A report by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics paints a grim picture of the Palestinians' conditions at the end of 2025, documenting tens of thousands of martyrs and millions of displaced people in Gaza, a sharp decline in the sector's population, a near-total collapse of the health and education systems, alongside unprecedented economic contraction and record-high unemployment rates.

Based on data from the Ministry of Health, the number of martyrs in Palestine exceeded 72,000 martyrs since the start of the Israeli war on October 7, 2023, 98% of them in the Gaza Strip.

By the end of December 2025, the number of martyrs in the Gaza Strip reached 70,942 martyrs, including 18,592 children and about 12,400 women, while about 11,000 people remain missing, and the number of injured rose to 171,195.

Since the start of the war on Gaza, about 100,000 Palestinians were forced to leave the sector, and about two million citizens were displaced from their homes out of about 2.2 million who resided in Gaza before the aggression.

In the West Bank, the escalation of the occupation's aggression and settler attacks resulted in the martyrdom of 1,102 Palestinians and the injury of 9,034 others.

The human losses and forced displacement movements directly impacted the population size, as estimates indicate that the population of the State of Palestine reached about 5.56 million people at the end of 2025, including 3.43 million in the West Bank.

The Gaza Strip witnessed a sharp and unprecedented decline in population by about 254,000 people, a decrease rate of 10.6% compared to population estimates before the aggression.

The sector's population is currently estimated at 2.13 million people, described by the Central Bureau of Statistics as a "sharp demographic hemorrhage" resulting from killing, displacement, and deteriorating living conditions.

The estimates showed that the number of Palestinians worldwide reached about 15.49 million people by the end of 2025, including 5.56 million residing in the West Bank and Gaza, and 1.86 million in the 1948 territories.

The Bureau also estimated the number of Palestinians in the diaspora at about 8.82 million, with 6.82 million concentrated in Arab countries, while the rest are distributed in other countries around the world, reflecting the expansion of the population dispersion due to prolonged political and historical coercive factors.

Despite the huge human losses, the Palestinian society remains young in terms of age structure. The population estimates for the end of 2025 indicated that children in the age group (0-4 years) constitute about 13% of the total population in the State of Palestine, at 12% in the West Bank and 14% in the Gaza Strip.

The proportion of those under 15 years reached about 36% of the total population (35% in the West Bank compared to 39% in Gaza), while those under 30 years constituted about 64% of the population.

In contrast, the proportion of the elderly (65 years and over) did not exceed 4% of the total population.

The Israeli war on the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, led to a near-total collapse in the health care system.

According to data from the World Health Organization, about 94% of health care facilities and hospitals in the sector were damaged or destroyed, and only 19 hospitals out of 36 operate partially with severely limited capacities, amid a severe shortage of medicines and medical supplies, depletion of health personnel, and repeated interruptions in fuel supplies needed to operate electrical generators.

The number of available beds in Gaza Strip hospitals is about 2,000 beds for a population exceeding two million people, which is an extremely low rate that does not meet the minimum health needs, especially with the significant increase in the number of injured and patients.

Health Ministry data reveal severe humanitarian repercussions, as there are about 60,000 pregnant women in the Gaza Strip, all of whom are exposed to serious health risks due to the absence or severe limitation of care services, and about 155,000 pregnant and nursing women face acute difficulties in accessing pre- and post-natal care services.

More than 70% of the sector's residents rely on contaminated or unsafe drinking water. By July 2025, 95% of households were unable to obtain safe drinking water.

The data indicate that 96% of households suffer from water insecurity, and 90% of them reported a sharp deterioration in water quality, which contributes to the widespread spread of gastrointestinal diseases, especially among children.

The education sector also suffered unprecedented destruction, especially in the Gaza Strip. By early December 2025, more than 179 government schools were completely destroyed, while 218 other schools were bombed or vandalized, including 118 government schools and 100 schools affiliated with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

In the West Bank, Palestinian schools faced repeated raids and demolition orders, including the demolition of the "Khalat Amira" primary school in the Yatta Directorate on December 1 of this year.

In higher education, 63 university buildings in the Gaza Strip were completely destroyed, while 8 universities in the West Bank were subjected to repeated raids and vandalism.

The Central Bureau of Statistics indicated that the human losses in the education sector are "horrifying," with 18,979 students martyred, including 18,863 in the Gaza Strip, in addition to the martyrdom of 1,399 university students, 797 teachers and administrators, and 241 employees in higher education, in the context of what it described as direct targeting of the education structure and its cadres.

The economic indicators for 2025 reveal an unprecedented collapse in the Palestinian economy. The gross domestic product of the Gaza Strip contracted by 84% compared to 2023, indicating near-total economic paralysis. In the West Bank, the gross domestic product decreased by 13% despite recording slight growth of 4.4% compared to 2024.

The contraction of Gaza's economy continued during 2025, recording an additional decline of 8.7%. Unemployment reached "catastrophic" levels, reaching 46% of the total Palestinian labor force (28% in the West Bank and 78% in the Gaza Strip), which is among the highest rates globally, and the number of unemployed rose to about 650,000 people, indicating the depth of the economic and social crisis faced by Palestinians.