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West Bank
The West Bank is on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in West Asia's Levant region, it is bordered by Jordan and the Dead Sea to the east and by Israel (via the Green Line) to the south, west, and north. Since 1967, the territory has been under Israeli occupation, which has been regarded as illegal under the law of the international community.
The territory first emerged in the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War as a region occupied and subsequently annexed by Jordan. Jordan ruled the territory until the 1967 Six-Day War, when it was occupied by Israel. Since then, Israel has administered the West Bank (except for East Jerusalem, which was effectively annexed in 1980) as the Judea and Samaria Area. Jordan continued to claim the territory as its own until 1988. The mid-1990s Oslo Accords split the West Bank into three regional levels of Palestinian sovereignty, via the Palestinian National Authority (PNA): Area A (PNA), Area B (PNA and Israel), and Area C (Israel, comprising 60% of the West Bank). The PNA exercises total or partial civil administration over 165 Palestinian enclaves across the three areas.
The West Bank remains central to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The Palestinians consider it the heart of their envisioned state, along with the Gaza Strip. Right-wing and ideological[failed verification] Israelis see it as their ancestral homeland, with numerous biblical sites. There is a push among some Israelis for partial or complete annexation of this land. Additionally, it is home to a rising number of Israeli settlers. Area C contains 230 Israeli settlements where Israeli law is applied. Under the Oslo Accords this area was to be mostly transferred to the PNA by 1997, but that did not occur. The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank to be illegal under international law. Citing the 1980 law in which Israel claimed Jerusalem as its capital, the 1994 Israel–Jordan peace treaty, and the Oslo Accords, a 2004 advisory ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) concluded that the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, remains Israeli-occupied territory. In 2024 the ICJ again ruled that Israel's occupation of the West Bank is unlawful, adding that its conduct also violates the international prohibition on racial segregation and apartheid.
The West Bank has a land area of about 5,640 square kilometres (2,180 square miles). It has an estimated population of 2,747,943 Palestinians and over 670,000 Israeli settlers, of which approximately 220,000 live in East Jerusalem.
The name West Bank is a translation of the Arabic term aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah (Arabic: الضفة الغربية), which designates the territory situated on the western side of the Jordan River that was occupied in 1948 and annexed in 1950 by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. This annexation was widely considered to be illegal, and was recognized only by Iraq, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom. In Hebrew this term is also used (Hebrew: הַגָּדָה הַמַּעֲרָבִית, romanized: Hagada HaMa'aravit), although the territory is more often called Judea and Samaria (Hebrew: יְהוּדָה וְשׁוֹמְרוֹן, romanized: Yehuda VeShomron).
Variations on the neo-Latin name Cisiordania (lit. 'on this side of the River Jordan') are the usual names for the territory in Romance languages, e.g. Spanish: Cisjordania, Portuguese: Cisjordânia, French: Cisjordanie, Italian: Cisgiordania, and Romanian: Cisiordania, and in some others, e.g. Basque: Zisjordania, Breton: Sisjordania, Hungarian: Ciszjordánia, Guarani: Sihorytáña, and Esperanto: Cisjordanio.[citation needed] The name West Bank, however, has become the standard usage for this geopolitical entity in English and some of the other Germanic languages since its inception following the 1948 Jordanian capture.
The analogous Transjordan (lit. 'over the River Jordan') was historically used to designate the region now roughly comprising the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, which lies to the east of the Jordan River.
From 1517 to 1917, the area now known as the West Bank was under Turkish rule, as part of Ottoman Syria. In the early Ottoman period, much of the northern West Bank, including the area of Jenin, and the hill country north of Nablus, formed part of the Turabay Emirate, a semi-autonomous Bedouin polity centered at Lajjun. The Turabay clan administered wide territories on behalf of the Ottoman sultans from the sixteenth to the seventeenth century, collecting taxes and overseeing security along key trade routes. Their authority reflected the empire’s reliance on local Arab elites to govern frontier districts, and the town of Lajjun became a regional administrative hub before its decline in the late seventeenth century.
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West Bank
The West Bank is on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in West Asia's Levant region, it is bordered by Jordan and the Dead Sea to the east and by Israel (via the Green Line) to the south, west, and north. Since 1967, the territory has been under Israeli occupation, which has been regarded as illegal under the law of the international community.
The territory first emerged in the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War as a region occupied and subsequently annexed by Jordan. Jordan ruled the territory until the 1967 Six-Day War, when it was occupied by Israel. Since then, Israel has administered the West Bank (except for East Jerusalem, which was effectively annexed in 1980) as the Judea and Samaria Area. Jordan continued to claim the territory as its own until 1988. The mid-1990s Oslo Accords split the West Bank into three regional levels of Palestinian sovereignty, via the Palestinian National Authority (PNA): Area A (PNA), Area B (PNA and Israel), and Area C (Israel, comprising 60% of the West Bank). The PNA exercises total or partial civil administration over 165 Palestinian enclaves across the three areas.
The West Bank remains central to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The Palestinians consider it the heart of their envisioned state, along with the Gaza Strip. Right-wing and ideological[failed verification] Israelis see it as their ancestral homeland, with numerous biblical sites. There is a push among some Israelis for partial or complete annexation of this land. Additionally, it is home to a rising number of Israeli settlers. Area C contains 230 Israeli settlements where Israeli law is applied. Under the Oslo Accords this area was to be mostly transferred to the PNA by 1997, but that did not occur. The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank to be illegal under international law. Citing the 1980 law in which Israel claimed Jerusalem as its capital, the 1994 Israel–Jordan peace treaty, and the Oslo Accords, a 2004 advisory ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) concluded that the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, remains Israeli-occupied territory. In 2024 the ICJ again ruled that Israel's occupation of the West Bank is unlawful, adding that its conduct also violates the international prohibition on racial segregation and apartheid.
The West Bank has a land area of about 5,640 square kilometres (2,180 square miles). It has an estimated population of 2,747,943 Palestinians and over 670,000 Israeli settlers, of which approximately 220,000 live in East Jerusalem.
The name West Bank is a translation of the Arabic term aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah (Arabic: الضفة الغربية), which designates the territory situated on the western side of the Jordan River that was occupied in 1948 and annexed in 1950 by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. This annexation was widely considered to be illegal, and was recognized only by Iraq, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom. In Hebrew this term is also used (Hebrew: הַגָּדָה הַמַּעֲרָבִית, romanized: Hagada HaMa'aravit), although the territory is more often called Judea and Samaria (Hebrew: יְהוּדָה וְשׁוֹמְרוֹן, romanized: Yehuda VeShomron).
Variations on the neo-Latin name Cisiordania (lit. 'on this side of the River Jordan') are the usual names for the territory in Romance languages, e.g. Spanish: Cisjordania, Portuguese: Cisjordânia, French: Cisjordanie, Italian: Cisgiordania, and Romanian: Cisiordania, and in some others, e.g. Basque: Zisjordania, Breton: Sisjordania, Hungarian: Ciszjordánia, Guarani: Sihorytáña, and Esperanto: Cisjordanio.[citation needed] The name West Bank, however, has become the standard usage for this geopolitical entity in English and some of the other Germanic languages since its inception following the 1948 Jordanian capture.
The analogous Transjordan (lit. 'over the River Jordan') was historically used to designate the region now roughly comprising the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, which lies to the east of the Jordan River.
From 1517 to 1917, the area now known as the West Bank was under Turkish rule, as part of Ottoman Syria. In the early Ottoman period, much of the northern West Bank, including the area of Jenin, and the hill country north of Nablus, formed part of the Turabay Emirate, a semi-autonomous Bedouin polity centered at Lajjun. The Turabay clan administered wide territories on behalf of the Ottoman sultans from the sixteenth to the seventeenth century, collecting taxes and overseeing security along key trade routes. Their authority reflected the empire’s reliance on local Arab elites to govern frontier districts, and the town of Lajjun became a regional administrative hub before its decline in the late seventeenth century.