West Bank

West Bank

#GS-02 International Relations

For Prelims

West Bank

  • The West Bank is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediterranean in Western Asia that forms the main bulk of the Palestinian territories.
  • It is bordered by Jordan and the Dead Sea to the east and by Israel to the south, west, and north.
  • It was captured by Jordan after the Arab-Israeli War (1948) but Israel snatched it back during the Six-Day War of 1967 and has occupied it ever since.
  • Ramallah, the de facto administrative capital of Palestine is situated in West Bank.
  • At present, there are around 130 formal Israeli settlements along with 26 lakh Palestinians at West Bank.
  • Under the Oslo Accords of the 1990s, both Israel and the Palestinians agreed that the status of settlements would be decided by negotiations.

Legality of the settlements:

  • The United Nations General Assembly, the UN Security Council, and the International Court of Justice have said that the West Bank settlements are violative of 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”.

Oslo Accords:

  • The Oslo Accords is a pair of agreements 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.
  • Among the notable outcomes of the Oslo Accords was the creation of the Palestinian National Authority, which was tasked with the responsibility of conducted limited Palestinian selfgovernance over parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
  • The Oslo Accords did not create a definite Palestinian state.

Source “Israel security forces shoot dead Palestinian man in West Bank