Palestine: West Bank and Gaza

Why in news?

• The clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinians in west bank region has lead to a spate of rocket attacks from Hamas in Gaza strip and Israeli air raids into the strip.

Palestine:

• Palestine is a de jure sovereign state in Western Asia claiming the West Bank and Gaza Strip with Jerusalem as the designated capital, although its administrative center is currently located in Ramallah.
• The State of Palestine is recognized by 138 UN members and since 2012 has a status of a non-member observer state in the United Nations.
• Palestine is a member of the Arab League, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the G77, the International Olympic Committee, and other international bodies.

West Bank:

• The West Bank is a landlocked territory near the Mediterranean coast of Western Asia.
• It is bordered by Jordan to the east and Israel on the south, west and north.
• It also contains a significant section of the western Dead Sea shore.

The Dispute:

• The West Bank region was captured by Jordan after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Israel snatched it back during the ‘Six Day War’ of 1967, and has occupied it ever since.
• Since then, it has been building settlements in the region. There have also been allegations of gross human rights violations on the Palestine population by Israeli forces.
• A majority of world nations, The United Nations and International Court of Justice consider West Bank settlements illegal and an occupied territory.
• Under the Oslo Accords of the 1990s, both Israel and the Palestinians agreed that the status of settlements would be decided by negotiations. But the negotiations process has been all but dead for several years now.

Gaza strip:

• The Gaza Strip or simply Gaza, is a self-governing Palestinian territory on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, that borders Egypt on the southwest and Israel on the east and north.
• The territories of Gaza and the West Bank are separated from each other by Israeli territory.
• Both fell under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority, but the strip has since 2007 been governed by Hamas, Palestinian fundamentalist militant Islamic organization.
• It has been placed under an Israeli and US-led international economic and political boycott from that time onwards.
• With around 1.85 million Palestinians on some 362 square kilometers, Gaza ranks as the 3rd most densely populated polity in the world.
• Due to the Israeli and Egyptian border closures and the Israeli sea and air blockade, the population is not free to leave or enter the Gaza Strip, nor allowed to freely import or export goods.

Prelims Question:

Which of the following regions share boundary with the West Bank region:
1.Israel
2.Syria
3.Jordan
4.Lebanon
Choose the correct statements from the codes given below:
(a)1 and 2 only
(b)1 and 3 only
(c)1, 2 and 4 only
(d)1,2,3 and 4

Answer to Prelims question