Palestinian territories

"Palestinian territories" and "occupied Palestinian territories" (OPT or oPt) are descriptions often used to describe the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip which are occupied or otherwise under the control of Israel.Israeli governments have maintained that the area involved is within territorial dispute. The extent of the territories, while subject to future negotiations, have frequently been defined by the Green Line. The term "Palestinian Territory, Occupied" had been utilized by the UN and other international organizations between 1998 to 2013 in order to refer to the Palestinian National Authority; it was replaced in UN Secretariat communications by the term State of Palestine starting in 2012, and the ISO adopted the name change in 2013. However, as of August 2015, the UN Security Council continues to treat Palestine as a non-sovereign entity, which also prevents its admission to UN General Assembly membership.

Israel occupied the territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the Six-Day War of 1967, which had been earlier occupied by Jordan and Egypt respectively, and has maintained control of them since.

West Bank

The West Bank (Arabic: الضفة الغربية‎ aḍ-Ḍiffah l-Ġarbiyyah; Hebrew: הגדה המערבית‎, HaGadah HaMa'aravit) or Cisjordan is a landlocked territory near the Mediterranean coast of Western Asia, forming the bulk of the Palestinian territories and the State of Palestine. The West Bank shares boundaries (demarcated by the Jordanian-Israeli armistice of 1949) to the west, north, and south with the state of Israel, and to the east, across the Jordan River, with Jordan. The West Bank also contains a significant section of the western Dead Sea shore.

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. It has an estimated population of 2,676,740 (July 2013). More than 80%, about 2,800,000, are Palestinian Arabs, and approximately 500,000 are Jewish Israelis living in the West Bank, including about 192,000 in East Jerusalem, in Israeli settlements, built on the 43% of the West Bank which Israel has allocated to local settler councils. The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this. The International Court of Justice advisory ruling (2004) concluded that events that came after the 1967 occupation of the West Bank by Israel, including the Jerusalem Law, Israel's peace treaty with Jordan and the Oslo Accords, did not change the status of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) as occupied territory with Israel as the occupying power.

Palestinian

Palestinian is typically referring to a person belonging to the Palestinian people, an Arab nationalist group defined in the Palestinian National Charter of 1968, also referred to as Palestinians (Arabic: الفلسطينيون‎, al-Filasṭīniyyūn).

It may also refer to:

Israel

Coordinates: 31°N 35°E / 31°N 35°E / 31; 35

Israel (/ˈɪzreɪəl/ or /ˈɪzriːəl/; Hebrew: יִשְׂרָאֵל‎ Yisrā'el; Arabic: إِسْرَائِيل‎ Isrāʼīl), officially the State of Israel (Hebrew: מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל‎ Medīnat Yisrā'el [mediˈnat jisʁaˈʔel]; Arabic: دولة إِسْرَائِيل‎ Dawlat Isrāʼīl [dawlat ʔisraːˈʔiːl]), is a country in the Middle East, situated at the southeastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea and the northern shore of the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea. It shares land borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan on the east, the Palestinian territories (which are claimed by the State of Palestine and are partially controlled by Israel) comprising the West Bank and Gaza Strip to the east and west, respectively, and Egypt to the southwest. It contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area. Israel's financial and technology center is Tel Aviv, while Jerusalem is both its self-designated capital (unrecognised by the United Nations) and its most populous individual city under the country's governmental administration. Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem is internationally disputed.

Territory

A territory is a term for types of administrative division, usually an area that is under the jurisdiction of a state. In most countries' terminology, such as the United States and Nigeria, it refers to an organized division of an area that is under control of a country but not formally developed into, or incorporated into, a political unit of that country of equal status to other political units such as states or provinces. In international politics, the term is used particularly in reference to a non-sovereign geographic area which has come under the authority of another government; which has not been granted the powers of self-government normally devolved to secondary territorial divisions; or both.

Types

Common types of territory include: