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Credit: Borna SaeedniaPenn sociology professor Michel Guillot found that the life expectancy in the Gaza Strip dropped by 35 years since the war with Israel began in October 2023.
New estimates were published in "The Lancet" on Jan. 23, announcing that the life expectancy in Gaza is almost halved due to the 45,936 fatalities and over 10,000 missing persons reported by the Gaza Health Ministry since Oct. 7, 2023. In the study, the quality of the GHM death count was evaluated by comparing GHM data against register data.
The researchers compared individuals listed in the GHM registry of fatalities from October 7, 2023, to August 30, 2024, with those in the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East refugee database, which covers about 66% of Gaza’s population. They developed three scenarios for estimating life expectancy, each based on different fatality counts provided by GHM. These scenarios did not take into account the indirect effects of the war, such as healthcare disruptions or individuals missing or trapped under rubble.
The central scenario — based on the official count of fatalities from GMH, excluding the count of individuals reported missing between October 2023 and September 2024 — was found to be 40.5 years. The lower-end scenario — based on the deaths of complete identifying information — was found to be 44.4 years.
The decrease in life expectancy was higher for men, with a decrease of 51.6% from 73.6 years pre-war to 35.6 years. For women, the life expectancy decreased by 38.6% from 77.4 years to 47.5 years. These totals do not include the indirect impacts of the war, such as limited access to healthcare or individuals who are missing or trapped under rubble.
The World Health Organization warned that the people of the Gaza Strip — about 22,500 people — have suffered “life-changing injuries” that will require ongoing rehabilitation services for years to come.
"The huge surge in rehabilitation needs occurs in parallel with the ongoing decimation of the health system," Richard Peeperkorn, WHO Representative in the occupied Palestinian territory, told The Telegraph. "Patients can’t get the care they need."
Of the 36 hospitals in Gaza, only 17 remain partially functional with primary health care services frequently suspended or rendered inaccessible. The only limb reconstruction and rehabilitation center in Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis became non-functional in December 2023.
Michele Guillot is a research associate in the Population Study Center in the School of Arts and Sciences. Guillot serves as the Chair of the Technical Advisory Group and the Core Stillbirth Estimation Group of the United Nations Inter-Agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation.
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