On the other problems of Palestine

What aid cutoff to Hamas would mean | csmonitor.com

The above article summaries neatly the economic problems of Palestine/Gaza. These parts are of particular interest:

Unemployment is at 23 percent.

Another issue is that the Palestinian population grows more than 3 percent a year. Each Palestinian woman in Gaza has close to six children on average; in the West Bank, 4.4 children is the average.

Some Israelis see this as a demographic threat. Abunimah holds that large families arise from the parents' need to ensure help in their old age in a society without Social Security or a system of government medical care.

For economists, rapid population growth makes a rise in economic prosperity difficult, especially in an area with limited land and resources. What's needed, the World Bank report suggests, is peace, the lifting of restrictions on Palestinian travel and commerce, Palestinian governance reform, and more foreign aid.

That's some birth rate for an area that is not exactly just emerging into the modern world.

While I understand that in old style agricultural communities, there is an incentive for the parents to have children to maintain their farm as a source of food and income, I find it more puzzling that modern Gaza families, when they have no economy to speak of in the first place, think that having extra children is going to help that problem.

Are there other reasons for the high birth rate? Why do Muslims in most places have a higher birth rate? I am not aware of what the Islamic teachings in regard to birth control are, but I must go looking...