I do not want to see any comments on my wall re. the Palestinians using their women and children as shields. Say it on your own wall if you believe it but dont dare put it here on mine. About half of the Strip’s population is under the age of 18. The median age in Gaza is just 18 and a few months. With the elder population amounting to an almost-negligible percentage, young children are easily the most vulnerable. One of the most commonly cited refrains about Gaza is that it is one of the most densely populated places on Earth, a complicated claim because it varies widely across the region. Gaza City has about as many people per square mile as NYC and much fewer than Hoboken. At the Jabalia camp, however, U.N. estimates say over 100,000 refugees reside on 1.4 square kilometer of land. (That’s about half a square mile, for reference.) In either case, though, Israel isn’t exactly firing into Shoot a rocket blindly into the Strip and your chances of hitting a prepubescent child are almost 50-50. Why is the population so disproportionately young in Gaza? For starters, it has the 35th highest birth rate in the world, behind almost exclusively African nations. In contrast, its infant mortality rate is quite low. Even UNICEF’s count that children account for one third of civilian casualties in Gaza means that things could be going much, much worse. Digging into age breakdowns some more doesn’t change much. UNICEF says about half the children who’ve died in Gaza during Operation Defensive Edge have been under age 12.
Posted on: Tue, 22 Jul 2014 04:59:09 +0000
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