Israeli Sovereignty in Palestinian Territory

Current Map of Palestine

Palestinian territory is divided into three main parts:
1) Occupied territories, completely under Zionist control.
2) The Gaza Strip, where the Israeli regime has had no presence since 2005..
3) The West Bank of the Jordan River.

Below, the territorial divisions of the West Bank are explained:
The fertile West Bank region was under Ottoman Empire control for about 4 centuries, from 1517 to 1917. However, with the collapse and partition of the Ottomans, Zionists entered it. After the 1948 war between Arabs and the Israeli regime, as well as Jordan’s control over it, this region with abundant natural resources west of the Jordan River was ultimately annexed to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Not long after Jordan’s sovereignty over the region, in 1967, following another military conflict between Arab countries and the Israeli regime, this area of over 5,600 square kilometers was occupied by the Israeli regime.The Israeli regime, seemingly unwilling to let go of the region, continued building illegal settlements there even after the 1993 Oslo Accords between the Israeli regime and Palestinians, thereby seeking to overshadow more areas of the West Bank.

Division of the West Bank into 3 Areas

According to the Oslo Accords signed by Yasser Arafat, then-head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and Yitzhak Rabin, then-prime minister of the Israeli regime, the West Bank was divided into Areas A, B, and C, as follows:

Area A, comprising only 11 percent of the West Bank’s land, was placed under full control of the Palestinian Authority.
Area B, with 28 percent of the West Bank’s area, was jointly assigned to the Israeli regime and the Palestinian Authority, such that the Israeli regime is responsible for security and Palestinians for urban affairs.
Finally, Area C, comprising two-thirds (61 percent) of the region’s area, was fully handed over to Israeli regime management.

However, the 2,900,000 Palestinians living in the West Bank have been entirely dissatisfied with this tripartite management in the years following the Oslo Accords, as their homes have been demolished throughout the West Bank on spurious security pretexts. Additionally, the lives of over 418,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank have caused many troubles for Palestinians, with no week passing without reports of settler encroachments on Palestinian lands. Some of these reports include the burning of Palestinian farmlands during these conflicts, most of which end in favor of settlers with Zionist soldiers present at the scene.

Dispute Over East Jerusalem

One of the contested sections in the West Bank is East Jerusalem (Al-Quds). East Jerusalem, the eastern part of the city of Jerusalem, came under Jordanian control during the Arab-Israeli war through secret negotiations between Jordan and Israelis. The agreement from these negotiations was officially signed by the two governments in 1949. In the following months, this agreement was also approved by the Israeli Knesset and the Jordanian parliament. With the outbreak of the Six-Day War between the Israeli regime and some Arab countries, the Israeli regime succeeded in occupying East Jerusalem and annexing it to its territorial domain in 1980, seizing all holy sites of Abrahamic religions in the city. Although the Palestine Liberation Organization declared East Jerusalem the political capital of the State of Palestine in 1988 following the Palestinian Declaration of Independence, the Israeli regime has refused to accept this Palestinian law and does not allow them to do so.

In the early 1980s, the Israeli regime illegally considered both East and West Jerusalem as a single unit part of its own soil(!), but the UN Security Council declared this decision illegal, condemning it with Resolution 478 and demanding the return of East Jerusalem to Palestinians. However, the Israeli regime has refused to accept this resolution and in subsequent years has tried to present a united Jerusalem as its political capital to the world! Western countries with political relations with the Israeli regime have accepted Tel Aviv as the political capital of the Israeli regime due to the dispute over East Jerusalem’s ownership, with some limiting themselves to establishing consulates in Jerusalem.

Destruction of Palestinian Identity and History

From the first steps of the Israeli regime toward realizing the promises of Zionism’s founders, especially Theodor Herzl, regarding the creation of a Jewish state, has been the de-identification of Palestine and its Judaization through actions such as building illegal settlements for Jewish immigrants, demolishing historic Palestinian villages, tampering with the architecture of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and more.
The Israeli regime, in stealing Palestinian identity, has effectively taken sovereignty over all of historic Palestine, including Gaza, the West Bank, and other occupied areas since 1967, such that it limits and specifies Palestinians’ places of residence, restricts their access to services and political participation while monitoring it, and fully controls the civil registry and identity documents system. The Zionist regime has gone so far in Israelizing Palestine that it divides its citizens into two categories:

Israeli Jewish citizens (Jews from other countries who migrated to Palestine);
Palestinian Israeli citizens (Palestinians residing in their occupied homeland under Israeli regime citizenship).

Classification of Palestinian and Israeli Citizens

The Israeli regime’s civil registry system pursues discriminatory positions toward various residents of Palestine, with the identity status of residents in each area explained below:

1) Israelis (5.9 million people), the first group of Israeli citizens, are free to live in all occupied Palestinian areas and 60 percent of the West Bank, are not subject to systematic discrimination, and have voting rights.

2) But the situation is different for Palestinians. Palestinians living in occupied areas, the second group of Israeli citizens (1.3 million people), are barred by acceptance committees from living in 68 percent of all cities in occupied areas, have voting rights, but are subject to legal and practical discrimination.

3) Additionally, Palestinians in East Jerusalem (300,000 people) have access to most areas but risk revocation of their identity documents (ID/national card) if they live outside Jerusalem, and are subject to legal discrimination, military occupation, and lack voting rights.

4) Palestinians in the West Bank (2.3 million people) are also barred from living in all of the West Bank except 40 percent of it due to settlers and Israeli military presence, and are subject to legal discrimination, military occupation, and lack voting rights.

5) Furthermore, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip (1.6 million people) have been prohibited from living outside Gaza since 2007 and are subject to legal discrimination, military occupation, and lack voting rights..

6) Additionally, exiled Palestinians (5.7 million people) are barred from returning to any part of Palestine (occupied or unoccupied areas) and are excluded from the civil registry system, identity documents, and voting rights.¹

The identity document status of Palestine’s residents in each section is summarized in the table below:

Group		Are they considered Israeli citizens?	Population	Access to which areas of Palestine?	Discrimination status	Do they have voting rights?
Israelis	Israeli Jews	Yes	5.9 million	Free to live in all occupied Palestinian areas and 60% of the West Bank.	Not subject to systematic discrimination.	Yes
Palestinians	Palestinians in occupied areas	Yes	1.3 million	Barred by acceptance committees from living in 68% of all cities in occupied areas.	Subject to legal and practical discrimination.	Yes
	Palestinians in East Jerusalem	No	300,000	Access to most areas; but risk of identity document revocation if living outside Jerusalem.	Subject to legal discrimination and military occupation.	No
	West Bank Palestinians	No	2.3 million	Barred from living in all of the West Bank except 40% due to settlers and Israeli military presence.	Subject to legal discrimination and military occupation.	No
	Gaza Strip Palestinians	No	1.6 million	Prohibited from living outside Gaza since 2007.	Subject to legal discrimination and military occupation.	No
	Exiled Palestinians	No	5.7 million	Barred from returning to any part of Palestine (occupied or unoccupied).	Excluded from civil registry and identity documents.	No