Israel's population reached 9,656,000, said a report published Thursday by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) ahead of the new year.
According to the CBS 7,106,000 residents of the state are Jews (about 73.6% of the population), 2,037,000 are Arabs (about 21.1%), and 513,000 (5.3%) are defined as other - i.e Christians who are not Arabs, different religions, and people without religious classification in the Interior Ministry.
Figures show that during 2022 the population of Israel increased by 2.2%, divided into 62% of newborns, and 38% of people who immigrated to the state.
The population growth rate rose, compared to 2021 (at the time the growth rate was 1.8%), mainly due to the high number of immigrants, as opposed to the previous year.
In 2022, Some 178,000 babies were born in Israel (74.8% to Jewish mothers, 23.8% to Arabs and 1.4% to others). and 73,000 people made Aliyah.
The major countries from which immigrants arrived this year were: Russia (58.1%), Ukraine (21.3%), the United States (4.1%), and France (3.2%). In comparison, in 2021, only about 25,000 people made Aliyah.
In 2022, about 51,700 people died. The number of deceased was said to be similar to the number in 2021 and higher than in 2020 (48,800) the year the COVID-19 pandemic broke out. The CBS emphasized that the numbers do not include deaths of Israelis abroad.
In addition, the CBS found that the rate of the deceased relative to the population rose from 5.1 per 1,000 in 2019 to 5.4 per 1,000 in 2022. According to the Health Ministry, by mid-December 2022, 3,670 people succumbed to coronavirus, and since the beginning of the pandemic, some 12,030 Israelis died from complications of the virus.