Gaza (Ques News Network)- Life expectancy in Gaza reportedly declined during the first year of the Israeli assault on the Palestinian enclave, according to a new eight-page paper originally published in The Lancet.
Between October 2023 and September 2024, the research found that life expectancy decreased by 34.9 years. The decrease was greater for men than for women. This figure is nearly half of prewar levels.
The paper, published on January 23, revealed that this was due to the 45,936 people killed and over 10,000 missing persons reported by the Gaza Health Ministry since Oct. 7, 2023. In the study, the quality of the GHM death count was evaluated by comparing GHM data against register data.
The researchers compared individuals listed in the GHM registry of fatalities from October 7, 2023, to August 30, 2024, with those in the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East refugee database, which covers about 66% of Gaza’s population. They developed three scenarios for estimating life expectancy, each based on different fatality counts provided by GHM. These scenarios did not take into account the indirect effects of the war, such as healthcare disruptions or individuals missing or trapped under rubble.
The central scenario — based on the official count of fatalities from GMH, excluding the count of individuals reported missing between October 2023 and September 2024 — was found to be 40.5 years. The lower-end scenario — based on the deaths of complete identifying information — was found to be 44.4 years.
The decrease in life expectancy was higher for men, with a decrease of 51.6% from 73.6 years pre-war to 35.6 years. For women, the life expectancy decreased by 38.6% from 77.4 years to 47.5 years. These totals do not include the indirect impacts of the war, such as limited access to healthcare or individuals who are missing or trapped under rubble.
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The World Health Organization warned that the people of the Gaza Strip — about 22,500 people — have suffered “life-changing injuries” that will require ongoing rehabilitation services for years to come.
