How many people lived in Gaza before the war
Executive summary
Before the October 2023 war, the consensus of multiple demographic sources places the population of the Gaza Strip at roughly 2.1 to 2.23 million people, with commonly used official figures clustering around 2.1 million (PCBS/UN-based estimates) and a specific 2023 figure of 2,226,544 reported by some Palestinian sources and media [1] [2] [3]. These numbers are estimates and projections based on pre‑conflict censuses and growth models; researchers and fact‑checkers warn that projections published before the war cannot account for the dramatic mortality and displacement that followed [4].
1. What most official sources reported immediately before the war
Palestinian and international demographic data circulated in 2023–2024 consistently put Gaza’s population at just over two million: UN and World Bank–linked projections and the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) point to about 2.1 million inhabitants as the baseline pre‑war figure [1] [5]. Some Palestinian official releases and reporting cited a slightly higher 2023 figure — 2,226,544 — which appears in multiple news accounts and agency summaries as the number “before the outbreak of the Israeli war” [2] [3].
2. Why sources give a range rather than a single precise number
All widely cited pre‑war figures derive from census data and projection models produced before October 2023, often using the 2017 PCBS census as a starting point and applying annual growth rates; that methodology yields estimates around 2.1 million but can produce higher point estimates depending on the growth assumptions, hence the 2.226 million figure in some releases [5] [4]. Independent fact‑checkers note that institutional datasets such as the CIA World Factbook and other compendia used projections published before the conflict and therefore cannot reflect the war’s demographic impact [4].
3. How the war altered the population and complicates retrospective counts
Since the fighting began, population tallies have diverged sharply because of deaths, mass displacement, and cross‑border movement; PCBS and humanitarian agencies later reported population declines in Gaza of several percent tied to deaths and outflow, and UN/UNRWA reports documented massive internal displacement that obscures where people were “living” at any given moment before, during, or after evacuations [6] [7]. Media and agency summaries published during 2024–2025 referenced tens of thousands of presumed deaths and roughly 100,000 people leaving the enclave — figures that further complicate reconstructing an exact pre‑war headcount from post‑conflict data [6] [2].
4. What reputable statistical compendia and researchers say
Demographic compendia such as Statista (drawing on US Census and UN inputs) report an estimated Gaza population of around 2.1 million for 2023, while encyclopedic sources like Wikipedia summarize older baseline data (“just over 2 million” in earlier years) and contextual density figures [1] [8]. Skeptical and methodological reviews emphasize that growth‑rate‑based projections were reasonable pre‑war tools but stress their limitations after large‑scale violence and displacement, so any precise figure must be read as an estimate [9] [4].
5. Bottom line and the honest uncertainty
The best-supported, widely cited pre‑war range for Gaza’s population is approximately 2.1 million to 2.23 million people, with many authoritative datasets using roughly 2.1 million as the baseline and some Palestinian agency reports giving the specific 2023 number 2,226,544; however, all of these are based on pre‑conflict projections and cannot be retroactively confirmed to absolute precision given subsequent deaths and displacement [1] [2] [4] [6]. Reporting and policy that hinge on precise totals should therefore cite ranges and the original data source (PCBS/UN projections) rather than a single definitive headcount, because post‑war population dynamics have rendered earlier point estimates provisional [4] [7].