A recent study found that between October 2023 and September 2024, life expectancy in the Gaza Strip nearly halved compared to pre-war levels.
The study was conducted by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, led by Dr. Michel Guillot and a team of international researchers, and was published in the medical journal The Lancet.
The researchers found that life expectancy fell from the pre-war average of 75.5 years to 40.5 years during the period from October 2023 to September 2024.
The decline in life expectancy was greater for men, falling from 73.6 years before the war to 35.6 years, compared to women, whose average lifespan fell from 77.4 years before the war to 47.5 years.
The authors calculated 3 life expectancy scenarios:
The first scenario, based on the official death count from the Gaza Ministry of Health, excluding the estimated number of individuals reported missing or under rubble, average life expectancy between October 2023 and September 2024 is estimated at 40.5 years.
The second scenario, based on deaths for which full identifying information was available, estimated life expectancy between October 2023 and September 2024 to be 44.4 years.
Scenario 3, based on the official death count from the Gaza Ministry of Health, including the minimum estimated number of individuals reported missing or under rubble, where the average life expectancy between October 2023 and September 2024 is estimated at 36 .1 year.
The authors highlight that none of the scenarios include indirect effects of war on mortality, such as lack of access to health care and malnutrition.
Detailed coverage published by Al Jazeera Health revealed that the Israeli occupation systematically targeted the health sector in the Gaza Strip, including destroying facilities and killing doctors and health workers.
The health sector is trying to recover
Al Awda Hospital in the Gaza Strip announced the start of work on establishing hospitals, clinics and health centers for primary care in several areas of the Strip, to address the effects of the Israeli occupation’s aggression on Gaza and its repercussions, targeting the health system and destroying a number of hospitals.
Raafat Al-Majdalawi, General Director of the Al-Awda Health and Community Association in Gaza, said that the association, to which Al-Awda Hospitals are affiliated, will work to establish health centers to provide primary care services for displaced persons returning to the northern Gaza Strip.
He explained in special statements to Qatar News Agency (QNA) that the association will work to establish 12 new primary health care centers in the north, center and south of the Gaza Strip, to provide health care to Palestinian citizens and to displaced persons returning to their cities and homes, which will raise the number of care centers affiliated with the association to 19. Focused.
He noted that the association is working to restore Al-Awda Hospital in the Tal Al-Zaatar area in the northern Gaza Strip, which is the only hospital that has continued to provide its services since the beginning of the Israeli occupation aggression on October 7, 2023.
Al-Majdalawi confirmed that the Israeli occupation forces deliberately, from the first moments of the aggression, targeted the Palestinian health system in the Gaza Strip, launching about 520 attacks on health facilities operating in the Gaza Strip, 148 attacks on ambulances, and a thousand attacks on humanitarian workers in the health field, which led to – According to his speech – 860 health workers were martyred, 262 health personnel were arrested, in addition to the arrest of 89. Sick from hospital.
Al-Majdalawi stressed that the occupation forces violated all international norms and conventions, and targeted hospitals operating in the Gaza Strip, which led to the destruction and putting 50% of them out of service, numbering 36 hospitals, while the remaining hospitals became partially operational due to the severe and significant damage they sustained. In addition to being deprived of the logistical and medical supplies that enable it to carry out its duties.
Gaza is the most dangerous place in the world for children
The United Nations Children’s Agency (UNICEF) said yesterday, Saturday, that the war in Gaza was devastating for children, as more than 13,000 Palestinian children were killed, in addition to about 25,000 being injured, and more than 25,000 others were transferred to hospitals due to malnutrition.
“If you are a child, Gaza is the most dangerous place in the world you can be,” James Cariki, Britain’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, recently told the Security Council.
He continued, “The children of Gaza did not choose this war, yet they paid the highest price.”
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported on Thursday that of the 40,717 Palestinian bodies identified so far in Gaza, a third of them (13,319 bodies) were of children. The agency said on Friday that these numbers were issued by the Ministry of Health in Gaza.