Displaced Palestinians prepare to usher in 2026 in Gaza
Children warm by the fire in Deir el-Balah next to a sand sculpture of the coming year
Gaza’s population drops by over 10 percent in 2 years
The Gaza Strip has seen its population fall by 10.6 percent in the last two years, representing a “severe demographic haemorrhage”, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS).
In its year-end update, PCBS said the Strip experienced a “sharp and unprecedented population decline of approximately 254,000 people” since Israel’s full-scale war on Gaza began in October 2023.
The bureau has tallied 70,942 deaths in the Gaza Strip, including 18,592 children and about 12,400 women.
Roughly two million people – the vast majority of the 2.2 million living in the Strip at the war’s start – have been displaced, it added.
According to the enclave’s Health Ministry, Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza has killed at least 71,266 Palestinians and wounded 171,222.
Israel deployed multi-tonne truck bombs in Gaza City: Report
The Israeli military widely deployed M113 Armoured Personnel Carriers repurposed to carry between 1 and 3 tonnes of explosives in the weeks before the Gaza ceasefire on October 10, the Reuters news agency has found.
As Israeli troops pushed towards the centre of Gaza City, these powerful bombs, along with air attacks and armour-plated bulldozers, levelled swaths of buildings, according to the news agency’s analysis of drone footage and satellite images.
Three military experts consulted by Reuters said use of the vehicles as bombs was highly unusual and risked excessive damage to civilian dwellings. The reporting provides new evidence of the power of these low-tech weapons and how they came to be widely used.
Palestinian children sit next to a damaged armoured personnel carrier after Israeli military operations in Gaza City, November 7, 2025
