GGAIIsrael’s occupation of West Bank

#GS-02 International Relation

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.

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.

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 self–governance over parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The Oslo Accords did not result in the creation of a definite Palestinian state.

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.