Half of Gaza’s population are children because most Palestinians “don’t ever make it past the age of 30”.
According to population data the majority of those living in Gaza are under the age of 30, but there’s no evidence to suggest most Palestinians do not live past that age. World Health Organisation data shows the average life expectancy in Gaza in 2022 was over 70 years.
The BBC cut off its own journalist for reporting that Israel used chemical weapons.
There’s no evidence that the BBC journalist was cut off because of the content of his report—the BBC says the video feed cut out due to technical issues which were clear throughout the broadcast. The BBC has covered allegations that white phosphorus has been used in Gaza, which were denied by Israel.
A TikTok video, also shared to Facebook, makes a number of claims about the current conflict in Israel and Gaza, including that half of Gaza’s population are children and that the majority of Palestinians “don’t ever make it past the age of 30”.
According to figures published by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics in April 2023, approximately 44% of all Palestinians (comprising those living in Gaza and the West Bank) and 47% of the population in the Gaza Strip are under the age of 18.
It’s also true that a majority of people living in Gaza are under 30, with approximately 21.5% aged between 18 and 29.
However, this doesn’t mean most people in Gaza “don’t ever make it past the age of 30”, and we’ve not found evidence to support this claim.
According to the World Health Organisation, based on 2022 data, the average life expectancy in Gaza is 75 years for females (slightly lower than the global average of 76 years, but higher than the regional average), and 72.5 years for males (slightly higher than the global average of 71 years).
In 2020, the World Bank’s Human Capital Index found that approximately 89% of 15-year-olds across the West Bank and Gaza survive to the age of 60.
Honesty in public debate matters
You can help us take action – and get our regular free email
The video also claims that a BBC reporter was deliberately cut off during a broadcast after he mentioned the use of white phosphorus in Gaza.
It shares a clip from the BBC News at One on 11 October, which included a live report from a correspondent in Gaza, whose feed is lost shortly after he appears to say that his team filmed the use of white phosphorus.
The TikTok video claims this shows the BBC “cutting their own journalists off for outing the Israeli army’s use of chemical weapons”, but we’ve not seen any evidence to support this claim.
White phosphorus is a substance which ignites when it comes into contact with air and burns at extremely high temperatures. It is not classed as a chemical weapon under the Chemical Weapons Convention, and it can be used legally in warfare in some circumstances, for example to create smoke screens.
However Human Rights Watch states that: “When used as a weapon, munitions with white phosphorus are considered incendiary weapons. Although incendiary weapons are not explicitly banned by international humanitarian law, customary international humanitarian law requires states to take all feasible precautions to avoid the harm to civilians caused by those weapons.”
It adds that Protocol III of the Convention on Conventional Weapons prohibits the use of incendiary weapons on “concentrations of civilians”.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have accused Israel of using white phosphorus artillery in the Gaza Strip and on the Lebanese border during the current conflict between Israel and Hamas, citing videos they have verified and interviews as evidence. However in a statement in response to those claims last month, the Israeli military reportedly said: “The current accusation made against the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] regarding the use of white phosphorus in Gaza is unequivocally false.”
More recently, on 1 November an IDF spokesperson said he ”can’t confirm” any instances of the use of white phosphorus by Israeli forces in Gaza during the current conflict.
When we contacted the BBC for comment it told us that the broadcast was affected by technical issues, noting that there were clear issues with the audio and video feed of the reporter even prior to transmission being lost.
The BBC has covered the allegations that Israel has used white phosphorus in the current conflict, for example in two blog posts on the BBC News website on 13 October.
We’ve attempted to contact the creator of the video about the claims addressed in this fact check, but have received no response.
Inaccurate or unevidenced claims often spread quickly during large-scale news events. Full Fact has fact checked a number of claims relating to the conflict in Israel and the Gaza Strip in recent weeks.
Image courtesy of Chuttersnap
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as partly false because there’s no evidence that most people in Gaza “don’t ever make it past the age of 30”, or that the BBC cut off its own journalist because of the content of his report.
Full Fact fights for good, reliable information in the media, online, and in politics.
Bad information ruins lives. It promotes hate, damages people’s health, and hurts democracy. You deserve better.