The 82% figure comes from a March 2025 survey by Prof. Tamir Sorek (Pennsylvania State University) with Prof. Shay Hazkani, published in Haaretz. The exact question: do you support the "transfer (expulsion) of residents of the Gaza Strip to other countries?" — 82% of Jewish Israelis said yes.
Expel Arab citizens of Israel too 56% (up from 48% in Pew 2016)
IDF should kill all inhabitants of a conquered city, as at Jericho 47%
- Ben-Gvir's "Disengagement 710" plan (September 2026) targets 250,000 Gazans leaving in year one and 1.86 million within seven years — nearly the whole 2.1 million population.
And now stats on population
The numbers, from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (end-2025 brief):
Since then the toll has kept climbing despite the October 2025 ceasefire — Gaza's health ministry reported 74,370 dead as of 10 October 2026, and Wikipedia's running tally puts Palestinian deaths at 75,000+ by late September 2026. Al Jazeera counted 1,460+ killed since the ceasefire began; the BBC reported 900+ this year alone. A peer-reviewed Lancet Global Health field survey found the official toll is an undercount, and some estimates run past 100,000.
Two important caveats on that 10.6% figure:
- It's measured against a counterfactual projection — where Gaza's population would have been by now with normal growth — not against the pre-war actual. Against the actual ~2.2 million, the net drop is smaller, because births partly offset deaths and emigration.
- Estimates carry real uncertainty. The defensible range from published sources is roughly 2.05–2.13 million.
Context on what's left behind:
- 39% of Gaza's population is under 15; 14% is aged 0–4. It remains extraordinarily young.
- GDP has contracted 84% versus 2023; unemployment is 78%.
- 94% of hospitals and health facilities damaged or destroyed; only 19 of 36 hospitals partially functioning, with ~2,000 beds for over two million people.
- 179 government schools completely destroyed.
