Report: children constitute half the Palestinian population

The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics has said that children constitute 45.3 per cent of the Palestinian population, 43.4 per cent in the West Bank and 48 per cent in the Gaza Strip.

“According to the final results of the Population, Housing and Establishment Census 2017, the number of children reached 2,115,370 in the State of Palestine,” the bureau said in a report to mark Palestinian Children’s Day.

According to the report, Israeli armed forces arrested 6,742 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 2017, including 1,467 children under 18; 350 of them are still in detention.

As many as 15 Palestinian children were killed in 2017, including one child in the age group 9-12 years, three children in the age group 13-15 years and 11 children in the age group 16-17 years old while six children were killed in the first two months of 2018.

Read: On Palestine Children’s Day, 350 Palestinian children inside Israeli jails