Israel’s occupation of West Bank

GGAIIsrael’s occupation of West Bank

#GS-02 International Relation

For Prelims

Formation of Israel

  • Israel was created on 14 May 1948 by dividing Mandatory Palestine which was under the British control since the end of first world war.
  • However, this was not acceptable to the Arab nations which led to the first Arab-Israel war.
  • Post the war, historical Palestine was divided into;
  • The State of Israel which included West Jerusalem;
  • The West Bank which included East Jerusalem and was under the control of Jordan; and
  • The Gaza Strip which was controlled by Egypt.

West Bank

  • The West Bank is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediterranean in Western Asia.
  • West Bank forms the largest and most populous of the Palestinian territories.
  • The territory is bordered by Israel to the south, west, and north and by Jordan and the Dead Sea to the east.
  • It was captured by Jordan after the Arab-Israeli War (1948) but Israel recaptured the region during the Six-Day War of 1967.
  • It has been under Israeli occupation ever since.
  • Ramallah, the de facto administrative capital of Palestine is located in West Bank.
  • At present, there are around 130 formal Israeli settlements in West Bank who live alongside 26 lakh Palestinians.
  • Under the Oslo Accords of the 1990s, it was agreed by both Israel and the Palestinians that the status of settlements would be decided through negotiations.

Oslo Accords:

  • The Oslo Accords is a pair of agreements signed between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
  • The Oslo I Accord was signed in Washington, D.C., in 1993.
  • The Oslo II Accord, was signed in Taba, Egypt, in 1995.
  • One of the notable outcomes of the Oslo Accords was the creation of the Palestinian National Authority.
  • The authority was tasked with the responsibility of conducting limited Palestinian selfgovernance over parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
  • The Oslo Accords did not result in the creation of a definite Palestinian state.

Legality of the settlements:

  • The UNGA, the UNSC, and the ICJ have on multiple occasions said that the West Bank settlements violate the Fourth Geneva Convention.
  • Under the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949), an occupying power “shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies”.
  • The UNGA passed a resolution asking the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to render its opinion on the legal consequences of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land.

Source “On the legality of Israel’s occupation