Comparing Gaza’s population data to the Holocaust, Rwanda, and Jewish expulsions reveals how misleading the UN’s charge really is.

As the United Nations (UN) General Assembly convenes in New York City this week, all eyes will be on one country: Israel.  

Just days before delegates arrived in New York, the UN Human Rights Council dubiously concluded that Israel’s war against Hamas counts as a genocide. “It is clear that there is an intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza through acts that meet the criteria set forth in the Genocide Convention,” the Council said.  

But if Israel has been trying to eradicate Palestinians, it’s not showing up in the numbers: Gaza’s population has doubled over the last 25 years.  

History’s Worst Genocides 

In previous genocides, the population changes have been rapid and dramatic.  

During the Rwandan Genocide, for example, an estimated three-quarters of the Tutsi ethnic group were murdered over the course of 100 days. And in the Holocaust, some 60% of Europe’s Jews were killed or forced out by the time the war ended – and the population never recovered. 

The Israel-Hamas war is taking a real toll on Gaza, and every civilian death is a tragedy – but any suggestion that Israel has been trying to systematically eliminate Palestinians is belied by Gaza’s population numbers. 

The Situation in Gaza 

Reliable population estimates of Gaza are hard to come by, but two sources – Palestine’s Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) and the United States’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) – both agree that Gaza has not seen a substantial drop in population since the October 7 attacks:  

According to PCBS, which is based in Palestine’s West Bank and not controlled by Hamas, there were 2.19 million Gazans at the end of 2022. By May 2025, PCBS says, Gaza’s population was 2.11 million – a decrease of about 80,000 people or 3.6% of the pre-war population.  

While they haven’t released figures for 2025 yet, the CIA is a little more optimistic than the PCBS. By the CIA’s estimates, there were 1.99 million Gazans at the end of 2022 compared to 2.14 million in mid-2024, an increase of about 145,000 people or 7% of the pre-war total.  

So, Gaza has either shrunk by 80,000 people or grown by 145,000. Which of these figures is more accurate? We’ll probably never know. But the truth must be somewhere in this ballpark, which is several orders of magnitude away from the Holocaust or Rwandan Genocide.  

The Forgotten Genocide? 

Even by the PCBS’s estimates, what’s happening in Gaza doesn’t remotely compare to the eradication of Jewish populations in Arabic countries over the last 75 years.  

While some left on their own accord, many Jews were killed or forced out.  

  • In Egypt, some 25,000 Jews were stripped of their citizenship and expelled after the 1956 Suez Crisis. 
  • In Libya, pogroms in 1945 and again in 1967 killed hundreds and forced the country’s entire Jewish community to flee. 
  • In Algeria, nearly all 140,000 Jews left for France or Israel after violent unrest during independence in 1962. 

The UN never formally condemned any of these incidents, let alone label them as genocide.

Why It Matters 

This isn’t a competition. Innocent civilians being killed or forced out of their homes is a tragedy anywhere and everywhere. We deserve to live in a world where none of that happens for any reason.  

But words matter, and the word “genocide” is supposed to be reserved for countries or groups that aim to kill, eliminate or displace an entire population. The charges against Israel do not remotely meet that standard. When the UN stretches the word “genocide” beyond recognition, or unfairly targets certain countries and not others, it undermines its own credibility.  

The UN’s words carry weight, and that weight demands fairness and restraint.