[9][58], The executive branch of the Israeli government, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has defined the West Bank as “disputed” instead of “occupied” territory, whose status can only be determined through negotiations. The large-scale operation began in the early hours of this morning while it was still dark, forcing families out of their homes, and causing great distress among residents. The total length of the land boundaries of the region are 404 kilometres (251 miles). With the exception of East Jerusalem and the former Israeli-Jordanian no man's land, the West Bank was not annexed by Israel; it remained under Israeli military control until 1982. [citation needed]. [89], In June 2011, the Independent Commission for Human Rights published a report that found that Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip were subjected in 2010 to an "almost systematic campaign" of human rights abuse by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, as well as by Israeli authorities, with the security forces of the PA and Hamas being responsible for torture, arrests and arbitrary detentions.[90]. The Arab town of Bartaa straddles Israel’s West Bank border. Border Bank has locations extending from Northern Minnesota to Metro Minneapolis, and into North Dakota. [148], Israel ratified the international Basel Convention treaty on Israel on 14 December 1994, according to which, any transfer of waste must be performed with an awareness of the dangers posed to the disempowered occupied people. ", " With Palestinian traffic banned from all the main and secondary roads, clusters of yellow group taxis gather at each such barrier, and groups of people trying to get to work, school, clinics, universities, relatives houses, or markets clamber up and down sand embankments or across ditches to circumvent concrete slabs and soldiers, who sometimes shoot at them.". Moshe Dayan proposed a plan which Gershom Gorenberg likens to a "photo negative of Allon's. [75][74], In 2020, President Donald Trump unveiled his peace plan, which radically differs from previous peace plans. Typical of these is UN Security Council resolution 446 which states [the] practices of Israel in establishing settlements in the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967 have no legal validity, and it calls on Israel as the occupying Power, to abide scrupulously by the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention. Initial information emerging from the community indicates that hundreds of Israeli forces entered the community this morning and have demolished a number of residential buildings, including inhabited homes, located in Areas A, B and C of the West Bank on the East Jerusalem side of the Barrier. Based on 1967 figures, the Palestinian Dead Sea Coastline is roughly 40 km in length, of which 15% (6 kilometres) could lend itself to the same tourist infrastructure developed by Jordan and Israel in their respective areas. The Palestinian territories contain several of the most significant sites for Muslims, Christians and Jews, and are endowed with a world-class heritage highly attractive to tourists and pilgrims. [175] RAMALLAH, West Bank — The spotless cafeteria is fashionably furnished with fluorescent orange and lime green tables, ... “This is a sector that has no borders,” Mr. Tahboub observed. Allenby Bridge, or ‘King Hussein Bridge’, is the main port for the Palestinian in the West Bank to the Jordanian borders. George Washington University. [citation needed] 80% of Jordan's fruit-growing land and 40% of its vegetables lay in the West Bank, and, with the onset of the occupation, the area could no longer produce export earnings. A further 476 unstaffed physical obstacles, such as dirt mounds, concrete blocks, gates and fenced sections had been placed on roads for Palestinian use. [66][67][68], In 2005 the United States ambassador to Israel, Daniel C. Kurtzer, expressed U.S. support "for the retention by Israel of major Israeli population centres [in the West Bank] as an outcome of negotiations",[69] reflecting President Bush's statement a year earlier that a permanent peace treaty would have to reflect "demographic realities" on the West Bank. This has often been interpreted as tantamount to an official annexation, though Ian Lustick, in reviewing the legal status of Israeli measures, has argued that no such annexation ever took place. [142], In 1993, the Palestinian National Authority, according to Oslo Accord assigned by PLO and the Israeli government, became a partial supervisor over the Rafah Border Crossing to Gaza Strip. The founding of Palestinian universities has greatly increased education levels among the population in the West Bank. The journalist Hamdi Faraj, jailed for endangering public order, had his 500-volume library confiscated, including copies of the Bible and Qur'an and, when he applied for their restitution, was told all the books had been accidentally burnt. With Military Order No. [51] Nevertheless, Britain, as custodians of the land, implemented the land tenure laws in Palestine, which it had inherited from the Ottoman Turks (as defined in the Ottoman Land Code of 1858), applying these laws to both Arab and Jewish legal tenants or otherwise. In the West Bank and the Jordan Valley, the state of Israel has three principal interests: defensible borders, space for the development of Israel beyond the narrow coastal strip where 80 percent of today’s industrial, technological, and population infrastructure is concentrated, and a link with Jewish history and heritage that is embodied in landscapes harking back to biblical times. [198][199][200] A 2011 EU report titled "Area C and Palestinian State Building" reported that before the Israeli occupation in 1967, between 200,000 and 320,000 Palestinians used to live in the Jordan Valley, 90% which is in Area C, but demolition of Palestinian homes and prevention of new buildings has seen the number drop to 56,000, 70% of which live in Area A, in Jericho. This rate of growth was indispensable if the post-war West Bank were to achieve economic self-reliance. [23] The tourism industry also played an important role. [240] The literacy rate among Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) is 94.6% for 2009. For example, entrepreneurs were denied a permit for a cement factory in Hebron. [73][74] the United States was absent from vote and denounced the settlement activity in West Bank has gotten "so much worse" as to endanger the progress of the peaceful two-state solution. 393 (14 June 1970), the local commander was given the power and authority to block any construction if, in his evaluation, the building might pose a danger to Israel's security. 60% of their production is sold in the EU market. The San Remo Resolution adopted on 25 April 1920 incorporated the Balfour Declaration of 1917. In 2002, following a wave of Palestinian attacks, including suicide bombings, Israel began building the Barrier with the stated aim of preventing these attacks. [158], Israel had denied Palestinians permits to process minerals in that area of the West Bank. Many nations have fences to protect their borders - the United States, for example, has one to prevent illegal immigration. Significant portions of the Israeli public similarly oppose the continuing presence of Jewish Israelis in the West Bank and have supported the 2005 settlement relocation. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns the many cases of journalists being injured or otherwise prevented from covering protests in the West Bank against US President Trump’s “deal of the century” peace plan, and calls on the authorities to ensure that the media are able to cover developments despite the surge in tension. Approximately 65.3 per cent (465km) of the projected 712-kilometre-long structure has been completed, of which 85 per cent runs inside the West Bank. [4], The West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has a land area of 5,640 km2 plus a water area of 220 km2, consisting of the northwest quarter of the Dead Sea. [228], As of February 2012[update], a plan for 475-kilometer rail network, establishing 11 new rail lines in West Bank, was confirmed by Israeli Transportation Ministry. [110] Immediately after the 1967 war Theodor Meron, legal counsel of Israel's Foreign Ministry advised Israeli ministers in a "top secret" memo that any policy of building settlements across occupied territories violated international law and would "contravene the explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention". In addition, it can prevent anyone from using the crossing. Gibney, Mark and Frankowski, Stanislaw (1999). Obama was the first US president to formally support the policy, but he stated that it had been one long held by the US in its Middle East negotiations. [214] These checkpoints, together with the separation wall and the restricted networks restructure the West Bank into "land cells", freezing the flow of normal everyday Palestinian lives. Israel's fence garnered international condemnation, but the outrage is a clear double standard - there is nothing new about the construction of a security fence. [176][177] The lost earnings from not being allowed to process Dead Sea minerals such as potash, and for making bromide-based flame retardants, based on calculations of comparable use by Israel and Jordan, suggest a figure of $642 million. [216] The checkpoint system did not ease up after the Oslo Accords, but was strengthened after them, which has been interpreted as suggesting their function is to assert control over Palestinians, and as a sign of an unwillingness to yield ground in the West Bank. Were Israel to permit a parallel development of this Palestinian sector, the World Bank estimates that 2,900 jobs would be added, allowing the Palestinian economy a potential value-added input of something like $126 million annually. In 1947, it was subsequently designated as part of a proposed Arab state by the United Nations (UN) partition plan for Palestine. Law School (2005). The name West Bank is a translation of the Arabic term ad-Diffah I-Garbiyyah, given to the territory west of the Jordan River that fell, in 1948, under occupation and administration by Jordan, which subsequently annexed it in 1950. The last Jordanian elections in which West Bank residents would vote were those of April 1967, but their parliamentary representatives would continue in office until 1988, when West Bank seats were finally abolished. ", 15,000 More Jews in Judea-Samaria in 2014, "Israel labour laws apply to Palestinian workers", "Number of Palestinians Working in Israel Doubled Over Four Years, Central Bank Says", "UNRWA in Figures: Figures as of 31 December 2004", "Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics", "EU ministers look to Israeli grab of Palestinian farmland", "EU report: Israel policy in West Bank endangers two-state solution". As of April 2006 the length of the barrier as approved by the Israeli government is 703 kilometers (437 mi) long. In June 1967, the West Bank and East Jerusalem were captured by Israel as a result of the Six-Day War. A two-state option, dividing Palestine, as opposed to a binary solution arose during the period of the British mandate in the area. Coordinates: .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}32°00′N 35°23′E / 32.000°N 35.383°E / 32.000; 35.383. In 1965, 15,000 workers were employed in industry, producing 7% of the GNP. At the 1920 San Remo conference, the victorious Allied powers (France, UK, USA, etc.) There are also small ethnic groups, such as the Samaritans living in and around Nablus, numbering in the hundreds. Israel has exclusive control over 60% of the West Bank, its borders and airspace, and imposes restrictions on movement and residency. The Israeli settlements were, on the other hand, administered subsequently as Judea and Samaria Area directly by Israel. The infrastructure, consisting of settlements, the barrier, military bases and closed military areas, Israeli declared nature reserves and the roads that accompany them is off-limits or tightly controlled to Palestinians. [172] The products of the Israeli cosmetics firm Ahava, established in 1988, were developed in laboratories at the West Bank Dead Sea settlements of Mitzpe Shalem and Kalya. The Haaretz published an article in December 2005 about demolition of "Palestinian outposts" in Bil'in,[118] the demolitions sparked a political debate as according to PeaceNow it was a double standard ("After what happened today in Bil'in, there is no reason that the state should defend its decision to continue the construction" credited to Michael Sfard). 10/06/2020. Approximately 300,000 Palestinians that live in small dispersed communities in the West Bank, Palestine, face barriers to accessing healthcare. [25] Though its per-capita product was 10 times greater than that of the West Bank, the Israeli economy on the eve of occupation had experienced two years (1966-1967) of a sharp recession. Uniquely, the Barrier has been routed around Sur Bahir so that parts of Area A, B and C fall on the ‘Jerusalem’ side. Recently, PalTel announced and has begun implementing an initiative to provide ADSL broadband internet service to all households and businesses. Approximately 65.3 per cent (465km) of the projected 712-kilometre-long structure has been completed, of which 85 per cent runs inside the West Bank. In English, the name Cisjordan is occasionally used to designate the entire region between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, particularly in the historical context of the British Mandate and earlier times. The photo used to illustrate "open borders" in "Biden's America'' actually shows the border between the West Bank and Israel. [212] Um Fuad, a 45-year-old registered Palestine refugee, lives with her husband and four children in Wadi al Khazrak in the northern Jenin governorate. [11] The term was chosen to differentiate the west bank of the River Jordan from the "east bank" of this river. Israel licenses eleven settlement quarries in the West Bank and they sell 94% of their material to Israel, which arguably constitutes "depletion" and pays royalties to its West Bank military government and settlement municipalities. [83] Areas A, B, and C cross the 11 governorates used as administrative divisions by the Palestinian National Authority, Israel, and the IDF and named after major cities. [210] For TAU emeritus professor of geography Elisha Efrat, they ignored the historical topography, road systems and environmental characteristics of the West Bank, and simply formed an apartheid network of "octopus arms which hold a grip on Palestinian population centres". [166], About 90% of the Palestinians in the Territories had access to improved sanitation in 2008. King Abdullah of Jordan had been crowned King of Jerusalem by the Coptic Bishop on 15 November 1948. [157], The landfill near Al-Jiftlik in the Jericho Governorate, built on absentee Palestinian property without planning or an environment impact analysis, is for the exclusive use of waste, 1,000 tons per day, produced by Israeli settlements and cities within Israel. [2], In 2010, the West Bank and Gaza Strip together had 4,686 km (2,912 mi) of roadways. Ramallah, although relatively mid in population compared to other major cities as Hebron, Nablus and Jenin, serves as an economic and political center for the Palestinians. [106] The majority of legal scholars also hold the settlements to violate international law,[6] however individuals including Julius Stone,[107][108] and Eugene Rostow[109] have argued that they are legal under international law. Community focused. [2], It has been said that for "Jewish settlers, roads connect; for Palestinians, they separate. In the same vein the Israeli Supreme Court stated in the 2004 Beit Sourik case that: The general point of departure of all parties – which is also our point of departure – is that Israel holds the area in belligerent occupation (occupatio bellica)......The authority of the military commander flows from the provisions of public international law regarding belligerent occupation. "[208] Between 1994 and 1997, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) built 180 miles of bypass roads in the territories, on appropriated land because they ran close to Palestinian villages. [34], The International Court of Justice ruling of 9 July 2004, however, found that the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is territory held by Israel under military occupation, regardless of its status prior to it coming under Israeli occupation, and that the Fourth Geneva convention applies de jure. Although permanent residents are permitted, if they wish, to receive Israeli citizenship if they meet certain conditions including swearing allegiance to the State and renouncing any other citizenship, most Palestinians did not apply for Israeli citizenship for political reasons. British and Arab commercial banks operating in the West Bank were closed down soon after Israel assumed power there. By Uriel Heilman April 27, 2021 4:02 pm … The Near East, South Asia, and Africa, "Assessing the Viability of a Palestinian State", "Applicability of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949, to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including Jerusalem, and the other occupied Arab territories", "Conference of High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention: Statement by the International Committee of the Red Cross", "Disputed Territories: Forgotten Facts about the West Bank and Gaza Strip", "Palestine – Trade – European Commission", "Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory", "Beit Sourik Village Council v. 1.The Government of Israel 2.Commander of the IDF Forces in the West Bank", Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories: The conflict in Gaza: A briefing on applicable law, investigations and accountability, Human Rights Council Special Session on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Independent law report commissioned by the BBC Board of Governors, Map: Palestine Recognized by Two More Countries (134/193), 'West Bank and Gaza Strip as a Single Territorial Unit,', "Obama calls for Israel's return to pre-1967 borders", "Obama to AIPAC: 1967 borders reflect long-standing U.S. policy", "Israel's Settlements Have No Legal Validity, Constitute Flagrant Violation of International Law, Security Council Reaffirms: 14 Delegations in Favour of Resolution 2334 (2016) as United States Abstains", "Israeli settlements: UN Security Council calls for an end", "Full text of US envoy Samantha Power's speech after abstention on anti-settlement vote", "Israeli public opinion regarding the conflict", "A Further Turn to the Right: Israeli Public Opinion on National Security – 2002", "Israeli Policy towards the Occupied Palestinian Territories: The Economic Dimension, 1967–2007", "A house demolished, three others threatened in the town of Halhul", "JURIST – Palestinian Authority: Palestinian law, legal research, human rights", "Maps of Israeli Interests in Judea and Samaria Determining the Extent of the Additional Withdrawals", "The West Bank and Gaza: A Population Profile – Population Reference Bureau", 'World Bank report is a message against Israeli occupation,', "B'Tselem – Publications – Land Grab: Israel's Settlement Policy in the West Bank, May 2002", "2014: Arabs Built 550 Illegal Structures in Area C Alone", "The Humanitarian Impact on Palestinians of Israeli Settlements and Other Infrastructure in the West Bank", "PA bans journalists from reporting human rights abuses", "The Quiet Deportation: Revocation of Residency of East Jerusalem Palestinians", "The Quiet Deportation: Revocation of Residency of East Jerusalem Palestinians (Summary)", "Legal status of East Jerusalem and its residents", "Our Positions: Solving the Palestinian/Israeli Conflict", "Carter Center calls for end to Jerusalem deportations | JTA – Jewish & Israel News", "Uneasy Settlements: Reparation Politics and the Meanings of Money in the Israeli Withdrawal from Gaza", "International Law and the Arab Israel Conflict", "Resolved: are the settlements legal? From 1517 through 1917, the area now known as the West Bank was under Ottoman rule as part of the provinces of Syria. [2] The terrain is mostly rugged dissected upland, some vegetation in the west, but somewhat barren in the east. In 1967 it appropriated the Palestine Archaeological Museum[e] and its library in East Jerusalem. [2] Under Israeli occupation since 1967, the area is split into 167 Palestinian "islands" under partial Palestinian National Authority civil rule, and 230 Israeli settlements into which Israeli law is "pipelined". [2] The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this. [217] According to PA Health Ministry statistics relating to the period from 2000 to 2006, of 68 Palestinian women who gave birth to their children while held up at checkpoints, 35 miscarried and 5 died while delivering their child there. [48], The sum effect after two decades was that 15% of all Palestinian firms in the West Bank (and Gaza) employing over eight people, and 32% with seven or less, were prohibited from selling their products in Israel. The Palestinian residents have legal permanent residency status. In January 2012, the European Union approved the "Area C and Palestinian state building" report. However, Israel remained the major responsible party for this crossing point. [164], In 1995, the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA) was established by a presidential decree. Immediately after the occupation, from 1967 to 1974, the economy boomed. ", 'sacrifice zone is a geographic area that has become irrevocably impaired by environmental damage or economic neglect. [16], In 1967, Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan in the Six-Day War. Some of the petitions (27) had been set for trials[124] and the majority received a verdict. Roughly 73 percent of global bromine production comes from Israeli and Jordanian exploitation of the Dead Sea. Since the 1993 Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority officially controls a geographically non-contiguous territory comprising approximately 11% of the West Bank (known as Area A) which remains subject to Israeli incursions. A further 110 settlements are not officially recognized and are illegal under Israeli law, but have nevertheless been provided with infrastructure, water, sewage, and other services by the authorities. 26 branches of 8 Arab banks were present. [209] The given aim was said to be to afford protection to settlers from Palestinian sniping, bombing, and drive-by shootings. [94] The government of Israel has not formally confirmed an official reason; however, historians and analysts have established a variety of such, most of them demographic. He declared it an independent Hashemite kingdom on 25 May 1946. [i], A large number of embankments, concrete slabs and barriers impeded movement on primary and secondary roads. It has been argued that Israel had used the area of the West Bank as a ‘sacrifice zone’ where its waste can be dumped.." [d], Many waste treatment facilities in the West Bank were built for processing waste generated inside Israeli sovereign territory, according to B'Tselem, Israel's leading human rights organization for monitoring the West Bank. [2], There are few natural resources in the area except the highly arable land, which comprises 27% of the land area of the region. [60], International law (Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention) prohibits "transfers of the population of an occupying power to occupied territories", incurring a responsibility on the part of Israel's government to not settle Israeli citizens in the West Bank. The report said Palestinian presence in Area C has been continuously undermined by Israel and that state building efforts in Area C of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the EU were of "utmost importance in order to support the creation of a contiguous and viable Palestinian state". The overall effect was to obstruct manufacturing development and subordinate any local industrial activity to the exigencies of Israel's economy, or to block the creation of industries that might compete with Israel's. The West Bank (Arabic: الضفة الغربية aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; Hebrew: הגדה המערבית HaGadah HaMa'aravit or יהודה ושומרון Yehuda VeShomron)[3] is a landlocked territory near the Mediterranean coast of Western Asia, bordered by Jordan and the Dead Sea to the east and by Israel to the south, west and north. [187] From 92 to 94 cents in every dollar of the tourist trade goes to Israel. Israel's cable television company HOT, satellite television provider (DBS) Yes, AM and FM radio broadcast stations and public television broadcast stations all operate. The military authorities do not render public the details of these operations. Near Ramallah the new city of Rawabi is under construction. The Barrier impedes access to services and resources, disrupts family and social life, undermines livelihoods and compounds the fragmentation of the occupied Palestinian territory. At best drivers must wait for several hours for them to be returned, when, as can happen, the IDs themselves are lost as soldiers change shifts, in which case Palestinians are directed to some regional office the next day, and more checkpoints to get there. [22] [167] Cesspits were used by 39% of households, while access to the sewer network increased to 55% in 2011, up from 39% in 1999. [168] In the West Bank, only 13,000 out of 85,000 m³ of wastewater were treated in five municipal wastewater treatment plants in Hebron, Jenin, Ramallah, Tulkarem and Al-Bireh. Dialling code +970 is used in the West Bank and all over the Palestinian territories. Palestinian refugees constituted more than a third of the kingdom's population of 1.5 million. [29], The growth rate of the West Bank economy in the period of the Jordanian Occupation of the West Bank before Israeli occupation had ticked along at an annual rate of 6-8%. West Bank The West Bank is an area located between in the Middle East between Israel and Jordan, to the north of the Dead Sea.It forms the larger half of the semi-autonomous Palestinian Territories, the smaller being the Gaza Strip. [150], In 2007 it was estimated that 38% (35 mcm a year) of all wastewater flowing into the West Bank derived from settlements and Jerusalem. Subsequent events in these territories have done nothing to alter this situation. According to a Birzeit University study, the percentage of Palestinians choosing local universities as opposed to foreign institutions has been steadily increasing; as of 1997, 41% of Palestinians with bachelor's degrees had obtained them from Palestinian institutions. Later, Order ‘446’ was issued which annexed the Damia Bridge crossing point to the Allenby Bridge as a commercial crossing point only. [173] As an illustrative example, a Human Rights Watch report contrasts the difference between a Palestinian-owned quarry company in Beit Fajar and that of a European one working on what Israeli considers its state land. In 1975, Birzeit College (located in the town of. [42] Expropriation of prime agricultural land in an economy where two thirds of the workforce had farmed is believed to account for the flight of labourers to work in Israel.