Occupied Palestinian territories

Genesis of the Palestinian territories

Following the plane of division of 1947, voted by the Resolution 181 of the General meeting of UNO, the Palestine agent was to be divided between Juifs and Arabs to found 2 States there. Jerusalem and its surroundings became a territory under international authority.

Nevertheless, following the war of 1948 which followed this vote and the Déclaration of Independence of the State of Israel, only the Hebrew State was born, keeping the control of the territories which were reserved for him by the plan of division like Jerusalem-West and part of the territories reserved at the Arab State. The Transjordanie took the control of the Judaea and of the Samarie (renamed the West Bank) as well as Old city of Jerusalem and Jerusalem-Is while the Egypt took the control of the Gaza Strip.

Following the agreements of Armistice negotiated in 1949, a line of cease-fire was established around these territories. If the international community recognized Israel in the territories delimited by this line of cease to it fire, it was not the case of any Arab or Moslem country.

The West Bank and Jerusalem-Is were annexed by Transjordanie in 1950 but only the the United Kingdom recognized swears this annexation (except for Jerusalem-Is). Palestinian side, the Jordanian annexation was well accommodated by part of the Palestinian population, favorable to king Abdallah but rejected by his rival Amin Al-Husseini, mufti of Jerusalem, which had militated for the creation of a Palestinian State on all the Palestine.

Egypt forever annexed the Gaza Strip and exerted the civil administration there.

This first stage explains why certain Palestinian movements consider that the occupied territories are not limited to the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem-Is but that a return to the Plan of division of Resolution 181 is essential. Others declare that it is the whole of the territories of Palestine (agent) which are occupied.

Occupation by Israel

In 1967, following the War the six day old, Israel takes (in particular) the control of these territories following its military victory over the Jordanian, Egyptian and Palestinian troops of the Gaza Strip.

The legal status of the occupied Palestinian territories cannot be appreciated with its right value without an examination of the contractual engagement of Israel to respect the integrity and to withdraw occupied territories of it. The injunctions relating to the withdrawal and the territorial integrity are based on the resolution 242 (1967) of the Safety advice, universally regarded as the angular stone of a payment right, viable and complete of the Israeli-Arab Conflit.

Adopted five months after the War of the Six-Jours, this resolution provided the foundations of the later negotiations by proclaiming the principle of “ peace against the ground ”. Resolution 242 (1967) is a text in multidimensional matter, which relates to various shutters of the Israeli conflict arabo ‑. In its territorial dimension, the resolution devotes two basic principles, to found “a peace fair and lasting with the the Middle East”, which define the limits and the statute of the occupied territories in 1967:

on the one hand, “withdrawal of the Israeli armed forces OF the occupied territories at the time of the recent conflict”; It is the French translation of resolution 242. Actually the only translation which makes law is the British version of the 242 “from territories” is “occupied territories at the time of the conflict of 1967”. This deliberated official formulation is the result of several months of diplomatic negotiations meticulous persons. For example, the Soviet Union wanted to add the word “all” in front of “territories”, in the British project which became the 242. The British ambassador of the time at UNO, Lord Caradon, resisted these efforts. Soviet having failed in their attempt to use a vocabulary which implies a complete withdrawal, there was no ambiguity in the direction of the clause relating to the withdrawal in the resolution 242, which was adopted unanimously by the Safety advice of the United Nations.

in addition, the “respect and (it) recognition of the Sovereignty, the territorial integrity and the political independence of each State of the area and their right to life in peace inside sure and recognized borders safe from threats or acts of force”.

Israel annexed Jerusalem-Is and of the territories neighborhood to make of it its capital eternal and indivisible . However this annexation is still not recognized by the International community. Israel established and establishes still colonies civil in occupied territories (except for the Gaza Strip which is evacuated completely since 2005), despizing Geneva Conventions.

Agreements of Oslo and autonomy

The main part of the inhabited areas by Palestinians (Arab) received a more or less complete autonomy after the Accords of Oslo: they are the Palestinian autonomous Territoires . Israel however continues to control some and often to close the accesses of them and carries out military operations to it (targeted eliminations, destruction of houses and infrastructures).

These territories are recognized like Palestinian State by nearly 100 countries, and others recognized certain forms of diplomatic representation. The Palestinian national council proclaimed a “ State of Palestine ” the November 15th 1988. The liberation organization of Palestine PLO has a statute of observer at the General meeting of the United Nations. The territories are juridically occupied for the General meeting and the Safety advice of UNO, the European Union, the the United States, the the International Court of Justice like by the Israeli Supreme court. Although regarding these territories as occupied, France sometimes indicates them under simplified name " Territories palestiniens" .

These territories are often described like having vocation to become a future Palestinian State sovereign. Their statute is a key component of the resolution of the israélo-Palestinian Conflit.

Many tests to calm the conflict in this area were undertaken, and one of most important was the agreements of Oslo according to which the Palestinians were gradually to profit from an increased independence. Since the middle of the years 1990, a certain form of autonomy was reached with the creation of a Palestinian authority, which deals with certain questions of interior policy and has its own body of police force. The interior policy of Israel and the conflicts inside the Palestinian authority created by these agreements prevented several times the development of Palestinian independence. These territories remain under Israeli occupation (except and certain the zone Gaza Strip of the West Bank) and the Palestinian Autorité has only one very limited control.

Colonies

As of the arrival of Benyamin Netanyahou, this one cancels in August 1996 the decision taken into 1992 to freeze the establishment of new colonies in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. With the autumn 1996, its decision to authorize reopening, since Jerusalem-Is, of a tunnel skirting the esplanade of the Mosques, was regarded as a provocation by the Arabs and started a series of riots in the Occupied territories. In February 1997, he announces the resumption of Jewish colonization in part of the town of Jerusalem. Since then, it continued the policy of colonization of the Occupied territories and of Jerusalem-Is.

Analyzes

In International law, the right of the armed conflicts envisages a certain number of rules which apply when an army deploys its activity apart from the territory of its State after the opening of the hostilities. The military occupation recovers at the same time various possibilities, and it is not always easy to know if such or such situation falls under the blow from this legal definition.

With regard to the territories whose Israel taken control in 1967, two terms can be used: “Occupation” and “Annexation”. It is advisable to reconsider the definitions that gives these two terms the public international law in order to better be able to appreciate the case of the Palestinian territories:

the annexation : according to the definition given by the former president of the the International Court of Justice, Professor Jules Basdevant, in his Dictionary of the terminology of the international law , the annexation is a “ an operation carried out or not under the terms of a treaty, by which totality or part of a territory of a State passes under the sovereignty of another State ”. It was the case, for example, the heights of the plate of Golan, annexed following a law voted by the Knesset the December 14th 1981, even if this one were declared “null” as well by the Safety advice as by the General meeting of the United Nations.
the military occupation : according to the payment of $the Hague of 1907, “ a territory is regarded as occupied when it is placed in fact under the authority of the enemy army ”. In its dictionary already quoted, professor Basdevant precise that the occupation is a “ term employed to indicate the presence of military forces of a State on the territory of another State, without this territory ceasing belonging to this one”.

In June 1967, Israel became occupying soldier of a certain number of territory Arabic (the Sinai and Golan) or without official statute at the time (Gaza Strip under administrative control of Egypt and the West Bank annexed by Jordan but without international recognition).
Taking into consideration principle of the international law, the use of the force to seize territories is “inadmissible” such as points out it the expression “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territories by the war” used in the resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973). This principle is expressly reiterated, with alternatives of pure form, in connection with the statute of Jerusalem, by the resolution 252 (1968) of the May 21st 1968 which reaffirms that “the acquisition of territories by the military conquest is inadmissible”.

Geography of the Palestinian Territories

The Palestinian territories thus gather the West Bank (Jerusalem-Is included) and it Gaza Strip (a coastal strip located at the south of old Palestine, long 45 km and deep of 10 km only). At the end of the agreements of autonomy, the two areas were divided into three zones:

a zone has including/understanding, since 1994, Gaza as well as the towns of Jericho, Jenin, Qalqilya, Ramallah, Tulkarem, Nablus, Bethlehem (the town of Hebron will be the subject of a distinct agreement in January 1997) on which the Palestinian Authority exerts a civil jurisdiction including the policing powers;
a zone B including/understanding the other zones of the West Bank (other villages and refugee camps) in which Palestinian National authority exerts civil competences, the internal security being exerted jointly with the Israeli armed ;
a zone C including the Israeli colonies established in the West Bank, in Gaza (dismantled today) and with Jerusalem-Is, which remains under the control of the Hebrew State.

The zones has and B represent, to date, respectively 18% and 22% of the territories, against 60% for the zone C. the Palestinian Authority, made up of the Legislative council (compound of 88 members: 37 for Gaza and 51 for the West Bank) and of the National council Palestinian, which is the political body representative of the Palestinian people, thus exerts only competences limitativement definite, which are effective only on one parcelled out territory.

According to the definitions of the Ministry for Agriculture, the territories are composed of five agro-ecological zones:

the zone of coastal plain (Gaza Strip): this zone skirts north to the south the south-eastern shore of the Mediterranean and is called the “fishing net” of the Palestinian Authority;
the semi-coastal zone (north-western of the the West Bank), which includes the provinces of Jenin, Tulkarem and Qalqylia. This sector receives strongest annual precipitations;
the average zone of altitude extending from Jenin in north with Hebron in the south;
the zone of steppe extending from Jenin to the Dead Sea in the south;
the zone of Ghor (Western bank of the valley of the Jordan).

Refugees

The occupied territories accommodate a population of 2,6 million inhabitants. In fact, the respect of resolution 194 of UNO voted in 1948, sanctioning the right to the return of the Palestinian refugees, remains random.

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