Census: 4.78M Palestinians in lands Israel captured in 1967
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Officials say preliminary census results show the Palestinian population in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem has grown by 27 percent in a decade, to 4.78 million.
Wednesday's findings by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics come amid renewed debate over when Arabs could reach numerical parity with Jews in the territory between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River.
The area encompasses Israel and war-won lands sought by Palestinians for a future state.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Israeli demographer Sergio Della Pergola has predicted parity in a generation — a prognosis dismissed by Israeli nationalists as baseless and hailed by supporters of an Israeli-Palestinian partition deal as a call for action.
The Palestinian bureau says 2.881 million Palestinians live in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, and 1.899 million in Gaza.