Population - 1½ million
Median age : 17.5 years. Half the population is under 17½, putting it slightly ahead of Chad, Niger, and Uganda.
44% of the population is under 14 years old.
2% is over 65.
Population below the poverty line - 70%
Unemployment rate - 40%
Literacy rate - 92%
Arable land - 29%
UNICEF - Gaza
Number of homes obliterated in last year's war - 3,500
Number of homes damaged - 50,000
"Throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) almost 12,000 children under five years old still die from preventable causes each year, as do more than 1,800 children under 12 months old."
So. Despite horrific child mortality rates, half the population of Gaza are children living in rubble below the poverty line with a 60/40 likelihood of future employment.
As the CIA Factbook notes cryptically : "The rapid growth of a young adult population unable to find employment can lead to unrest".
Bradley Burston, senior editor at Haaretz :
"We are no longer defending Israel. We are now defending the siege, which is itself becoming Israel's Vietnam.
We explain, time and again, that we are not at war with the people of Gaza.
We say it time and again because we ourselves need to believe it, and because, deep down, we do not. "
h/t Big News Network : 800,000 kids bearing brunt of Gaza blockade , which sent me off to check out their sources.
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1 comment:
The objective of the Israeli right seems to be to provoke some Arab, any Arab, into doing something that would justify expelling all Arabs from the area they control and sealing the borders. It's hard to see how one could keep a pure "xxx-ish" state by any other mechanism.
A good start would be by making clear that a "pureblood" state would not be tolerated under any circumstances, would be automatically illegitimate. Anything concrete, though, will depend on getting rid of the Israeli right's enablers in the US Congress.
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