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West Bank & Gaza
Strip History
West Bank
 West
Bank, territory in southwestern Asia, in the Middle East, located
west of the Jordan River, occupied by Israel since 1967 . It covers
an area of about 5879 sq km and supports a population of about
973,500. All of the people are Palestinian Arabs. There is some Jews
who have settled in the area since 1967. The West Bank was part of
the British League of Nations Palestine mandate from 1922 to 1948,
after the first Arab Israeli war in 1948 , Jordan took control of
the region in 1949 . In 1967 the area was seized by Israel during
the Six Day War.
Under accords reached in the late 1970s between Egypt and Israel,
the latter agreed to give the Palestinians of the West Bank more
self rule , but subsequent negotiations failed to determine what the
exact nature of government in the territory would be.
Beginning in December 1987, Intifada started in West Bank and Gaza
Strip demanding Palestinian autonomy in Palestinian lands occupied
by Israel . In November 1988 the PLO proclaimed a Palestinian state
that included the West Bank and Gaza Strip based on UN resolution no
242 and other UN resolution related the Arab Israeli conflict.
After decades of violence between Arabs and Israeli in the West
Bank, leaders of the PLO and Israel agreed to the signing of an
historic peace treaty . On September 13, 1993, PLO leader Yasser
Arafat and Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin met in the United
States for the signing of the accord, which pledged to establish
limited Palestinian self rule, beginning with the Gaza Strip and the
West Bank town of Jericho . In May 1994 Israeli troops left Jericho,
and a Palestinian authority took control of the city.
Gaza Strip
 Gaza,
(Arabic Ghazze), city and port near the Mediterranean Sea, about 32
km north of the Egyptian border. This ancient city has given its
name to the Gaza Strip , a territory that was occupied by Israeli
forces from 1967 until 1994. The Gaza Strip covers about 378 sq km
(about 146 sq mi) and extends northeast from the Sinai Peninsula
along the Mediterranean for about 40 km (about 25 mi).
Gaza was an important city in the 15th century BC , when the
Egyptian king Thutmose III made it a base for his army in a war with
Syria . In biblical times Gaza was one of the five royal cities of
the ancient Philistines .
In the 8th century BC it was conquered by the Assyrians; from the
3rd to the 1st century BC , Egyptian , Syrian , and Hebrew armies
fought for its possession . During Roman occupation it was called
Minoa .
In the 7th century AD it became a sacred Muslim city, but the
Crusaders found it almost deserted in the 12th century . Gaza fell
to the French general Napoleon Bonaparte during his Egyptian
campaign .
In 1917 , during World War I, the city was taken from Turkey by
British forces under General Edmund Henry Hynman Allenby.
By the terms of the United Nations (UN) plan of 1947 providing for
the partition of Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state,
Gaza was to have been included in the Arab area. In 1948 , during
the war between Jewish the Arabs , Egyptian forces retained Gaza and
the surrounding area , which came to be called the Gaza Strip. This
territory came under the control of Egypt by the terms of the Arab
Israeli armistice agreement of 1949 . In the course of the war some
200,000 Palestinian refugees from the Palestinian occupied land by
Israel settled in the strip, doubling the population. Although the
city of Gaza has bazaars and markets and some light industry, and
the Gaza Strip is an established citrus producing area , the economy
cannot support the large population , which has been aided by the
United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in
the Near East.
In the spring of 1956 several military clashes between Egypt and
Israel took place in the Gaza Strip. Israel accused Egypt of using
the area as a base for commando raids into Israeli territory . In
October 1956, shortly before the invasion of the Suez Canal Zone of
Egypt by French and British forces, Israeli troops seized the Gaza
Strip and advanced into the Sinai Peninsula. The following March a
UN emergency force replaced the Israeli troops, and Egypt regained
control of the civil administration of the strip.
Israeli forces seized the area again during the Arab Israeli War of
June 67.
The 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel called for eventual
self rule for the Palestinians in the strip.
Beginning in December 1987, the area was site of al-Intifada,
demonstrations by Palestinians demanding self rule.
In September 1993, after secret negotiations, Prime Minister Yitzhak
Rabin of Israel and Chairman Yasser Arafat of the Palestine
Liberation Organization signed a peace accord calling for withdrawal
of the Israeli military from the Gaza Strip and other areas , and
for Palestinian administration of the local government.
In May 1994 Israeli troops withdrew from the Palestinian towns and
refugee camps of the Gaza Strip, and the area came under Palestinian
authority.
Source:
Palestine
History
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