WEST BANK

The area of Mandatory Palestine inside the 1949 armistice line west of the Jordan River, including East Jerusalem, not controlled by Israel at the end of the 1948 War. Covering an area of 2,270 square miles, the West Bank was controlled by the Jordanians following the war and occupied by Israel following the 1967 War. Its principal cities, in addition to East Jerusalem, are Bethlehem, Hebron, Jericho, Nablus, Ramallah, Tulkarm, and Jenin. The West Bank was a part of the Arab state whose creation was proposed in the partition plan adopted by the United Nations by General Assembly Resolution 181 of 29 November 1947. Referred to by many Israelis as "Judea and Samaria," it was opened to settlement by the Israeli government and is home to several hundred thousand Israeli settlers. In 1978, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza showed strong opposition to the Camp David Accords, which led to Israeli military and administrative repression. In 1982 the majority of Palestinian mayors were discharged and replaced by Israeli administrators. This measure, combined with the departure of Palestinian forces from Lebanon, moved a group of young West Bank intellectuals to oppose the Israeli occupation openly, a move that resulted in a great number of arrests.

In December 1987 the Intifada broke out in the Gaza Strip and spread to the West Bank. On the following 15 November, at a meeting of the Palestine
National Council in Algiers, Yasir Arafat proclaimed the creation of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. In May 1994 the Oslo Accords led to the establishment of the Palestinian Authority and Jericho became the first autonomous territory under its control. The following year, the Oslo Accords II allowed approximately one-third of the West Bank to recover partial autonomy and the Israel Defense Force started withdrawing from the principal cities, with the exception of Hebron. According to the Israeli-Palestinian Declaration of Principles signed on 13 September 1993 in Washington, D.C., the "definitive and permanent" status of the West Bank and Gaza should have been decided by the end of 1999. In late September 2000 a new uprising, the al-Aqsa Intifada, broke out in the Palestinian territories. In 2002 Israel reinvaded and reoccupied many West Bank cities. Israel has also increased its confiscations of Palestinian property, increased its restrictions on Palestinian movement and economic activity, increased Israeli settlement, and begun to construct a "separation wall" between Jewish and Palestinian areas inside the Green Line.

SEE ALSO Aqsa Intifada, al-;Arab-Israel War (1948);Arab-Israel War (1967);Arafat, Yasir;British Mandate;Camp David Accords;Gaza Strip;Intifada (1987–1993);Jordan River;Oslo Accords;Oslo Accords II;Palestine National Council;Palestinian Authority;Resolution 181.