Jerusalem, 5 June, 2025 (TPS-IL) — At the end of 2024, the Muslim population in Israel was estimated at approximately 1.809 million people, which is 18% of all Israeli residents, an increase of approximately 35,100 residents compared to the end of 2023. This is according to data released by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics ahead of the Muslim holiday Feast of the Sacrifice (Eid-ul-Adha in Arabic), which begins Friday night.
The annual growth rate of the Muslim population in 2024 was 2%.
The city of Jerusalem has the highest number of Muslim residents, 386,000, which is 21.4% of all Muslims in Israel and 36.9% of all Jerusalem’s residents.
The Muslim population is a young population: the percentage of children aged 0-14 is high – 31.2%, and the percentage of those aged 65 and over is low – 5.1%.
The percentage of single Muslim women aged 45-49 is 9.2%, compared to the percentage of single Muslim men in these ages – 4.7%.
The total fertility rate in the Muslim population has been on a downward trend since 2001. In 2024, the rate reached 2.75 children per woman, compared to 3.06 children per Jewish woman, 1.66 for a Druze woman, 1.61 for a Christian woman, and 1.13 for women with no religious classification.
About 27% of households headed by a Muslim have 6 or more people, compared to only about 10% of households headed by a Jew.
The Feast of the Sacrifice celebrates what Muslims believe is the anniversary of when Abraham was told by God to sacrifice his son. However, where the Bible says this was Isaac, according to the Muslim tradition it was Ishmael.