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Population
The Palestinian world population is estimated at more than 7 million. Only 2.9 of them reside in the Palestinian areas:about 1.9 million in the West Bank and one million in theGaza Strip. Over 95% of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are Moslems, and less than 5% are Christians. Gaza is a very densely populated strip of land with approxi-mately 2,63 8 persons per km2. The rate in the West Bank is about 280 persons per km2. About 50% of the population of those two areas are under 15 years of age, and the population growth rate is 3.8% annually, one of the highest rates in the world. The infantmortality rate is around 28per thousand, and life ex-pectancy rate at birth is 66 years. The average Palestinian family is about 7 persons. About 70% of the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza live in small villages with a population of no more than 5,000 inhabitants. 15% live in refugee camps and about 15% in towns. An insignificant number of people are still living in tents, especially in the Jerusalem Wilderness.
More than 50% of the total population of the Palestinian areas are refugees who were displaced as a result of the 1948 war. They represent about 77% of the total population of Gaza and 37% of the population of the West Bank. The graph on the right shows the distribution of population in the Palestinian Cities. Since 1967, more than 160 Israeli-Jewish settlements havebeen established in the West Bank and Gaza, some 170,000 settlers reside in them. The size of the settlements and the number of settlers is growing rapidly, especially after the signing of the Oslo accords. All major Palestinian centers in the West Bank are ringed by Jewish settlements and isolated from one another by a strategic road network knownlocally as 'the bypass roads'.
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