The number of individuals whose lineage traced back to Palestinian ancestry has surpassed 25 million worldwide, according to a new study.
The analytical study, "How Many Are We?" was based on the fact that there were 1,363,387 Palestinians in Palestine in 1948 based on official figures as reported by the Palestinian Government.
The study was conducted by "All 4 Palestine", an organisation that gives insights into Palestinians living around the globe.
The study benchmarked 1948 as the base year.
According to the study, the UN World Population Prospects 2012 for population growth rates in the relevant countries was used as a reference for population and growth rate.
The countries selected were GCC member states, Egypt and Sudan as their population growth rates were based on domestic populations, and were not due to the including of forced or voluntary migrations and also these countries do not have high rates of naturalisation.
Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states are Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
The average of the population growth rates of the eight countries (4.54 per cent) was used as the average growth rate for Palestinians worldwide for a period of 67 years. The calculated number comes out to be conservative as Palestinian growth rate is one of the highest in the world, the report said.
The study also found that children of Palestinian mothers and non-Palestinian fathers were not included in the calculation, which also makes 25 million a very conservative figure.
The Palestinian Diaspora has been dispersed all over the world as forced migrants, refugees, asylum seekers, immigrants, and at times holders of various nationalities, which makes all the more difficult to calculate.
