The total population living in Israel is a shade under 10 million, the Central Bureau of Statistics said in a report released ahead of the upcoming festival of Rosh Hashanah.
A spokesperson for the CBS told the Times of Israel Thursday that the population was expected to cross the landmark figure sometime in the coming weeks.
Current data puts the total population at around 9,999,000 people.
The spokesperson said that there had been minor fluctuations in Israelis leaving the country and in new immigrant numbers, but that these could not be directly attributed to the war that has consumed Israel over most of the past year.
There are 7.689 million Jews, non-Arab Christians, and other ethnic minorities aside from Muslim Arabs.
In addition, there are 2.095 million Muslim Arabs, and another 215,000 foreign nationals whose lives are currently based in the country, according to the CBS figures.
- Jews make up 78.6 percent of the total and Arabs 21.4% of the population.
- The population increased by 118,000 people since last year, or about 1.2%, down from the growth rate in last year’s numbers of 1.6%.
- Over the previous 12 months, 183,000 babies were born in Israel, while 55,000 people died.
- There were also 33,000 new immigrants, compared with 46,000 in 2023. There has been a negative overall migration of people over the past 12 months since the last Rosh Hashanah, according to the CBS, but the spokesman explained that is largely due to a new method of counting how many Israelis are considered to have left the country.
In previous years, the CBS considered anyone who left for over a year to have emigrated, giving an average of about 16,000 people. Under the new approach, the CBS also includes those who have left the country for several months even if they come back for short visits, giving a much larger figure.
- During that same period, around 30,000 Israelis who had been living abroad came back to live in the country, with the deficit being around 10,000, according to CBS data.
The ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, which started last October 7 when the Palestinian terror group Hamas led a devastating attack on Israel, has not had a significant impact on migration data, the spokesperson said.
Though there were fewer immigrants than in recent previous years he was wary about attributing that to the war, noting there could be other causes, such as economic considerations.
The spokesman also pointed out that the CBS analyzes 12-month blocks of data for migration estimates and a year has not yet passed since the October attack.
As for Israelis leaving the country, the spokesman said there had been no particular indications of a significant exodus and stressed the difficulty in identifying the exact reasons why someone leaves.
However, he noted that the number of deaths was pushed up slightly due to the war. The initial Hamas attack killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Israel’s toll in the ground offensive it launched against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 348.
In its 2023 roundup, the CBS said 66,000 new immigrants arrived in the country while 48,000 people died. There were around 59,000 new immigrants to Israel in 2022, but just 20,000 the year before that.
The CBS report also included drill-down details for 2023.
- Last year, among Jews, 43.5% identified as non-religious or secular, 18.9% as traditional but not so religious, 13% as traditionally Orthodox, 12.% as religious, and 11.3% as ultra-Orthodox.
- The CBS reported that at the end of 2023, 91.1% of Israelis said they were satisfied with their lives, a sentiment held by 91.9% of Jews and 87.8% of Arabs.
- Over two-thirds of the population, 67.5%, were satisfied with their financial situation, while 32% were not, and 9.5% said they felt they were poor.
- The two-day Rosh Hashanah holiday, the Jewish New Year, begins on Wednesday night.
Source: TOI