RAMALLAH, West Bank (Deutsche Presse-Agentur) — The number of Palestinian Arabs and Jews in Israel and the occupied areas will be equal by 2016, but the number of Palestinians will exceed that of Jews by 2020, a report by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics said Monday.

It estimated the
number of Palestinians in the world at the end of 2012 to be 11.6 million, of whom 4.4 million are in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem and
1.4 million live inside Israel.

The PCBS said the
number of Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories is estimated at 5.8 million at the end of 2012 compared to a predicted 6 million Jews.

It forecast that the number of Palestinians and Jews will total about 6.5 million each by the end of 2016.

However, with a Palestinian fertility rate at 3.3 births inside Israel, and 4.4 million in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, compared to 3 births among Jews, the number of Palestinians will exceed that of Jews by 2020, to reach 7.2 million Palestinians compared to 6.9 million Jews.

The PCBS said 2.7 million Palestinians live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and 1.7 million live in the Gaza Strip.

According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, Israel’s population at the end of 2012 stands at nearly 8 million, of whom 5.9 million are Jews and 1.4 million are Arabs and the rest are Christian or other denominations.