{ "Introduction": { "Background": { "text": "
The landlocked West Bank - the larger of the two Palestinian territories - is home to some three million Palestinians. Inhabited since at least the 15th century B.C., the West Bank has been dominated by many different peoples throughout its history; it was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in the early 16th century. The West Bank fell to British forces during World War I, becoming part of the British Mandate of Palestine. Following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the West Bank was captured by Transjordan (later renamed Jordan), which annexed the West Bank in 1950; it was captured by Israel in the Six-Day War in 1967. Under a series of agreements known as the Oslo Accords signed between 1993 and 1999, Israel transferred to the newly created Palestinian Authority (PA) security and civilian responsibility for many Palestinian-populated areas of the West Bank as well as the Gaza Strip.
In addition to establishing the PA as an interim government, the Oslo Accords divided the West Bank into three areas with one fully managed by the PA, another fully administered by Israel, and a third with shared control until a permanent agreement could be reached between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel. In 2000, a violent intifada or uprising began across the Palestinian territories, and in 2001 negotiations for a permanent agreement between the PLO and Israel on final status issues stalled. Subsequent attempts to re-start direct negotiations have not resulted in progress toward determining final status of the area.
The PA last held national elections in 2006, when the Islamic Resistance Movement (HAMAS) won a majority of seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). Fatah, the dominant Palestinian political faction in the West Bank, and HAMAS failed to maintain a unity government, leading to violent clashes between their respective supporters and HAMAS’s violent seizure of all PA military and governmental institutions in the Gaza Strip in June 2007. In December 2018, the Palestinian Constitutional Court dissolved the PLC. In recent years, Fatah and HAMAS have made several attempts at reconciliation, but the factions have been unable to implement agreements.
Since 1994, the PA has administered parts of the West Bank under its control, mainly the major Palestinian population centers and areas immediately surrounding them. Roughly 60% of the West Bank remains under full Israeli civil and military control, impeding movement of people and goods through the territory." } }, "Geography": { "Location": { "text": "Middle East, west of Jordan, east of Israel" }, "Geographic coordinates": { "text": "32 00 N, 35 15 E" }, "Map references": { "text": "Middle East" }, "Area": { "total": { "text": "5,860 sq km" }, "land": { "text": "5,640 sq km" }, "water": { "text": "220 sq km" }, "note": "note: includes West Bank, Latrun Salient, and the northwest quarter of the Dead Sea, but excludes Mt. Scopus; East Jerusalem and Jerusalem No Man's Land are also included only as a means of depicting the entire area occupied by Israel in 1967" }, "Area - comparative": { "text": "slightly smaller than Delaware" }, "Land boundaries": { "total": { "text": "478 km" }, "border countries": { "text": "Israel 330 km; Jordan 148 km" } }, "Coastline": { "text": "0 km (landlocked)" }, "Maritime claims": { "text": "none (landlocked)" }, "Climate": { "text": "temperate; temperature and precipitation vary with altitude, warm to hot summers, cool to mild winters" }, "Terrain": { "text": "mostly rugged, dissected upland in west, flat plains descending to Jordan River Valley to the east" }, "Elevation": { "highest point": { "text": "Khallat al Batrakh 1,020 m" }, "lowest point": { "text": "Dead Sea -431 m" } }, "Natural resources": { "text": "arable land" }, "Land use": { "agricultural land": { "text": "43.3% (2018 est.)" }, "agricultural land: arable land": { "text": "arable land: 7.4% (2018 est.)" }, "agricultural land: permanent crops": { "text": "permanent crops: 11% (2018 est.)" }, "agricultural land: permanent pasture": { "text": "permanent pasture: 24.9% (2018 est.)" }, "forest": { "text": "1.5% (2018 est.)" }, "other": { "text": "55.2% (2018 est.)" }, "note": "note: includes Gaza Strip" }, "Irrigated land": { "text": "(2013) 151 sq km; note - includes Gaza Strip" }, "Major lakes (area sq km)": { "salt water lake(s)": { "text": "Dead Sea (shared with Jordan and Israel) - 1,020 sq km
note: on 21 March 2022, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a Travel Alert for polio in Asia; the West Bank is currently considered a high risk to travelers for polio; the CDC recommends that before any international travel, anyone unvaccinated, incompletely vaccinated, or with an unknown polio vaccination status should complete the routine polio vaccine series; before travel to any high-risk destination, the CDC recommends that adults who previously completed the full, routine polio vaccine series receive a single, lifetime booster dose of polio vaccine
" }, "Children under the age of 5 years underweight": { "text": "2.1% (2019/20)", "note": "note: estimate is for Gaza Strip and the West Bank" }, "Currently married women (ages 15-49)": { "text": "62.4% (2023 est.)", "note": "note: data includes Gaza and the West Bank" }, "Child marriage": { "women married by age 15": { "text": "0.7%" }, "women married by age 18": { "text": "13.4% (2020 est.)" }, "note": "note: includes both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank" }, "Education expenditures": { "text": "5.3% of GDP (2018 est.)", "note": "note: includes Gaza Strip and the West Bank" }, "Literacy": { "definition": { "text": "age 15 and over can read and write" }, "total population": { "text": "97.5%" }, "male": { "text": "98.8%" }, "female": { "text": "96.2% (2020)" }, "note": "note: estimates are for Gaza and the West Bank" }, "School life expectancy (primary to tertiary education)": { "total": { "text": "13 years" }, "male": { "text": "12 years" }, "female": { "text": "14 years (2021)" }, "note": "note: data represent Gaza Strip and the West Bank" }, "Youth unemployment rate (ages 15-24)": { "total": { "text": "39.6%" }, "male": { "text": "33.7%" }, "female": { "text": "69% (2021 est.)" }, "note": "note: includes Gaza Strip" } }, "Environment": { "Environment - current issues": { "text": "adequacy of freshwater supply; sewage treatment" }, "Climate": { "text": "temperate; temperature and precipitation vary with altitude, warm to hot summers, cool to mild winters" }, "Land use": { "agricultural land": { "text": "43.3% (2018 est.)" }, "agricultural land: arable land": { "text": "arable land: 7.4% (2018 est.)" }, "agricultural land: permanent crops": { "text": "permanent crops: 11% (2018 est.)" }, "agricultural land: permanent pasture": { "text": "permanent pasture: 24.9% (2018 est.)" }, "forest": { "text": "1.5% (2018 est.)" }, "other": { "text": "55.2% (2018 est.)" }, "note": "note: includes Gaza Strip" }, "Urbanization": { "urban population": { "text": "77.6% of total population (2023)" }, "rate of urbanization": { "text": "2.85% annual rate of change (2020-25 est.)" }, "note": "note: data represent Gaza Strip and the West Bank" }, "Revenue from forest resources": { "text": "0% of GDP (2018 est.)" }, "Air pollutants": { "carbon dioxide emissions": { "text": "3.23 megatons (2016 est.)" }, "note": "note: data represent combined total from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank." }, "Waste and recycling": { "municipal solid waste generated annually": { "text": "1.387 million tons (2016 est.)" }, "municipal solid waste recycled annually": { "text": "6,935 tons (2013 est.)" }, "percent of municipal solid waste recycled": { "text": "0.5% (2013 est.)" }, "note": "note: data represent combined total from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank." }, "Major lakes (area sq km)": { "salt water lake(s)": { "text": "Dead Sea (shared with Jordan and Israel) - 1,020 sq kmWest Bank-Israel: West Bank is Israeli-occupied with current status subject to the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement - permanent status to be determined through further negotiation; in 2002, Israel began construction of a \"seam line\" separation barrier along parts of the Green Line and within the West Bank; as of mid-2020, plans were to continue barrier construction
" }, "Refugees and internally displaced persons": { "refugees (country of origin)": { "text": "871,537 (Palestinian refugees) (2020)" }, "IDPs": { "text": "131,000 (includes persons displaced within the Gaza strip due to the intensification of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since June 2014 and other Palestinian IDPs in the Gaza Strip and West Bank who fled as long ago as 1967, although confirmed cumulative data do not go back beyond 2006) (2020); note - data represent Gaza Strip and West Bank" } } } }