RAMALLAH – The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) Monday said that there were 11.6 million Palestinians in the world at the end of 2012. PCBS said in a press release that about 4.4 million Palestinians are living in the Palestinian territories, of which 2.7 million are in the West Bank and 1.7 million in the Gaza Strip. It added that 1.4 million Palestinians live inside Israel, of whom about 36.5 percent are less than 15 years old and 4.1 percent over 65. It added that 5.1 million Palestinians live in Arab countries and 655,000 in other countries. PCBS said that 5.8 million Palestinians lived in historical Palestine at the end of 2012 compared to 6 million Jews, according to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics. It added that the number of Palestinians and Jews will each reach about 6.5 million by the end of 2016 providing current growth rates remain the same. However, the number of Palestinians in historical Palestine will reach 7.2 million compared to 6.9 million Jews by the end of 2020. Meanwhile, the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics said that there were 6 million Jews in Israel as of November, 1.8 percent more than the previous year. It added that the Jewish population represents 75.4 percent of the total, of which Palestinians are 20.6 percent. The other four percent of the Israeli population includes Christians, other faiths and 319,000 people who call themselves Jewish but are not recognized as such according to Jewish law. Almost all of them are from the former Soviet bloc.
