More than 69,000 Israelis left the country in 2025 under the shadow of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, leading the country to record a negative migration balance for the second straight year, the Central Bureau of Statistics said Wednesday in a year-end report.
Israel’s total population rose 1.1 percent during the year to a record 10.178 million, the CBS said. That was the same growth rate as a year earlier, making it one of Israel’s slowest years of growth ever.
A Taub Center for Social Policy Studies study also published on Wednesday estimated that the growth rate would come in at 0.9% and mark the first time the rate dropped below 1%.
According to the CBS, about 24,600 new immigrants arrived in 2025, 8,000 fewer than in 2024. (That’s more than the 21,900 the Immigration and Absorption Ministry announced Monday.) Most of the decline was attributable to a sharp drop in immigrants from Russia, after numbers from that country spiked following the start of Russia’s war with Ukraine in 2022.
Meanwhile, some 19,000 Israelis returned to Israel after an extended time living abroad, and 5,500 people arrived for family reunification purposes, the CBS said. That brought the total migration balance to a net loss of about 20,000 people.
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It was the second straight year in which more people moved from Israel than to Israel. In 2024, 82,700 Israelis left the country, about 50,000 more than arrived.
Throughout most of the State of Israel’s history, there have been more Jews moving to Israel than leaving it, with the exception of certain periods in the 1950s and 1980s, demographers have noted.
Many have attributed the changing trend to Israel’s tense political and security climate in recent years, including the war in Gaza sparked by the Hamas-led massacre in Israel on October 7, 2023, and disillusionment with the government’s judicial overhaul plans, which critics say undermine democracy in the country.
Emigrants are only counted as such after they have spent most of a year outside the country, meaning that many of those included in this year’s figures actually left the country in 2024.
The first baby born in 2025 in Beilinson Hospital with mother Efrat Gilboa Menashe, center, Roy Gilboa Menashe, left, and midwife Mayson Issa. (Spokesperson’s Office/Beilinson Hospital)
Overall, Israel’s population of 10.178 million includes 7.771 million Jews and others (a category that includes non-Arab Christians and other people not defined by religion), representing 76.3% of the total, and 2.147 million Arabs, or 21.1%. An additional 260,000 people, roughly 2.6%, are classified as foreigners, CBS said.
Some 182,000 births were recorded in 2025, 76% to Jewish mothers and 24% to Arab mothers. Meanwhile, 50,000 residents died during the year, a slight decrease from the 52,000 deaths recorded in 2024.
All of this translated to a net increase of 112,000 people in the country over the past year, CBS said.
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