What are Israeli settlements called?
Israeli coloniesIsraeli settlements, or Israeli colonies, are civilian communities inhabited by Israeli citizens, overwhelmingly of Jewish ethnicity, built on lands occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War.
What does occupied territory mean in Israel?
The Occupied Territories, which include the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, are subject to the jurisdiction of Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA), with the division of responsibilities overlapping in much of the territory.
How many Israeli settlements are there?
Today they total around 400,000 and live in about 130 separate settlements (this doesn't include East Jerusalem, which we'll address in a moment). They have grown under every Israeli government over the past half-century despite consistent international opposition.
Are there Israeli settlements in Gaza?
According to the report of the Security Council Commission established under resolution 446 (1979): "Between 1967 and May 1979, Israel has established altogether 133 settlements in the occupied territories, consisting of 79 in the West Bank, 29 in the Golan Heights, 7 in the Gaza Strip and 18 in the Sinai.
Why is Israel occupying the Palestinian territories?
Israel has cited several reasons for retaining the West Bank within its ambit: a claim based on the notion of historic rights to this as a homeland as affirmed in the Balfour Declaration of 1917; security grounds, both internal and external; and the deep symbolic value for Jews of the area occupied.
What does it mean to occupy a territory?
In international law, a territory is considered “occupied” when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army. The definition of occupation and the obligations of the occupying power were initially codified at the end of the nineteenth century.
What land has Israel taken from Palestine?
More than 50 years ago, the state of Israel shocked the world when it seized the remaining Palestinian territories of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza Strip, as well as the Syrian Golan Heights and the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula, in a matter of six days.
What was Israel before 1948?
The region was ruled under the British Mandate for Palestine until 1948, when the Jewish State of Israel was proclaimed in part of the ancient land of Israel. This was made possible by the Zionist movement and its promotion of mass Jewish immigration.
Who owns the Gaza Strip?
Israel'sThe West Bank and the Gaza Strip are territories that have been under Israel's occupation since 1967. A look at the issues surrounding the two regions.
What happened to Israeli settlements in Gaza?
The Israeli disengagement from Gaza (Hebrew: תוכנית ההתנתקות, Tokhnit HaHitnatkut) was the unilateral dismantling in 2005 of the 21 Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip and the evacuation of Israeli settlers and army from inside the Gaza Strip.
What percentage of Palestine is occupied by Israel?
“Israel now controls around 27,000 cubic meters of land, accounting for 85% of historical Palestine,” the PCBS said. The bureau accused Israel of exploiting the classification of the occupied West Bank into Area A, B and C under the Oslo Accords.
Is Jerusalem occupied by Israel?
Sovereignty. East Jerusalem has been occupied by Israel since 1967 and has been effectively annexed, in an act internationally condemned, by Israel in 1980.
Why is it called occupied territory?
Overview. The significance of the designation of these territories as occupied territory is that certain legal obligations fall on the occupying power under international law.
What is considered occupied Palestinian territory?
Occupied by Israel since June 1967, the West Bank - including East Jerusalem- and the Gaza Strip have come to constitute the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT).
What is meant by occupied East Jerusalem?
September 2020) The Israeli annexation of East Jerusalem, known to Israelis as the Reunification of Jerusalem, refers to the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem during the 1967 Six-Day War, and its annexation. Jerusalem was envisaged as a separate, international city under the 1947 United Nations partition plan.
What are the 3 Occupied Territories that are considered Palestinian?
The Gaza Strip and the West Bank had been occupied by Egypt and Jordan, respectively, since the 1948 Arab–Israeli War until the Six-Day War of 1967. Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1967 and has since maintained control.
Housing costs and state subventions
Settlement has an economic dimension, much of it driven by the significantly lower costs of housing for Israeli citizens living in Israeli settlements compared to the cost of housing and living in Israel proper.
Number of settlements and inhabitants
On 30 June 2014, according to the Yesha Council, 382,031 Israeli citizens lived in the 121 officially recognised Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
Character: rural and urban
Settlements range in character from farming communities and frontier villages to urban suburbs and neighborhoods. The four largest settlements, Modi'in Illit, Ma'ale Adumim, Beitar Illit and Ariel, have achieved city status. Ariel has 18,000 residents, while the rest have around 37,000 to 55,500 each.
History
Following the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel occupied a number of territories. It took over the remainder of the Palestinian Mandate territories of the West Bank including East Jerusalem, from Jordan which had controlled the territories since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, which had held Gaza under occupation since 1949.
Resettlement of former Jewish communities
Some settlements were established on sites where Jewish communities had existed during the British Mandate of Palestine or even since the First Aliyah or ancient times.
Demographics
At the end of 2010, 534,224 Jewish Israeli lived in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. 314,132 of them lived in the 121 authorised settlements and 102 unauthorised settlement outposts on the West Bank, 198,629 were living in East Jerusalem, and almost 20,000 lived in settlements in the Golan Heights.
Administration and local government
The Israeli settlements in the West Bank fall under the administrative district of Judea and Samaria Area. Since December 2007, approval by both the Israeli Prime Minister and Israeli Defense Minister of all settlement activities (including planning) in the West Bank is required.
June 5 is 48th anniversary of the Six Day War. This map shows each Israeli settlement (along with other data)
Screen shot of Americans for Peace Now "Facts on the Ground" map of settlements.
Hebron
Over the past decade Israel has constructed a barrier - part fence and accompanying security roads and set-back areas, part cement wall - to separate Israel from the West Bank. Much of this barrier is located inside the West Bank, de facto annexing West Bank territory to Israel.
What are settlements?
Settlements are Israeli cities, towns and villages in the West Bank and the Golan Heights. (We will deal with East Jerusalem a bit later.) They tend to be gated communities with armed guards at the entrances.
Why are the West Bank and East Jerusalem considered occupied territory?
Israel began its occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1967 during the Six-Day War. Seeing a military buildup in the surrounding Arab countries, Israel launched a preemptive strike against Egypt, after which Jordan, in turn, attacked Israel. Israel annexed East Jerusalem shortly thereafter, unifying the city under Israel’s authority.
Where are the settlements?
There are 126 Israeli settlements in the West Bank (excluding East Jerusalem), according to the September 2016 report from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics. Geographically, these settlements are all across the West Bank.
Who are the settlers?
This is a very broad question, and requires a fair amount of generalization.
Why are the settlements controversial?
The settlements are built on land the Palestinians and the international community, along with some in the Israeli community, see as a future Palestinian state. Some of the settlements – especially the blocs – may be a part of Israel in a two-state solution through land swaps between Israelis and Palestinians.
What does President Donald Trump think of the settlements?
President Trump’s administration warned on February 2 that new Israeli settlement activity could potentially hamper the peace process, a new stance for a White House that has remained adamant in its support for Netanyahu.
What is the legal status of settlements?
The settlements are illegal under international law. The Fourth Geneva Convention, which concerns civilian populations during a time of war, states in Article 49 that, “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”
Introduction
Background
- In order to undertake a legal analysis, it is preliminarily necessary to outline a clear definition of Israeli settlements, as well as a brief background of the issue in order to frame it in the historical and actual context. Israeli settlements, as communities of Jewish civilians, are a longstanding and growing presence in the West Bank since 1967. The term “settlement” can be defined as an…
Israeli Settlements Under International Humanitarian Law
- A legal analysis about settlements cannot be carried out without tackling the relevant provisions of International Humanitarian Law, especially the law of belligerent occupation. This is the major legal framework applicable to Israeli settlements in the West Bank. International Humanitarian Law is indeed the starting point and the prerequisite of an analysis about Human Rights Law for …
Israeli Settlements Under International Human Rights Law
- The applicable law In order to elaborate an analysis of the relevant provisions of International Human Rights Law that are applicable to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, it is first of all necessary to establish which is the law applicable within the context under our consideration. Human Rights Law, as a body of international law, applies not only to the territory of a State’s so…
Conclusion
- The establishment of Israeli settlements and its associated regime constitute a violation of numerous aspects of international law, including both international humanitarian law and international human rights law. While the violations of IHL have been well documented, this paper has focused on examining how settlements violate human rights law. Unfortunately, the human …
Overview
Israeli settlements, or Israeli colonies, are civilian communities inhabited by Israeli citizens, overwhelmingly of Jewish ethnicity, built on lands occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. The international community considers Israeli settlements to be illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.
Israeli settlements currently exist in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), claimed by the St…
Housing costs and state subventions
Settlement has an economic dimension, much of it driven by the significantly lower costs of housing for Israeli citizens living in Israeli settlements compared to the cost of housing and living in Israel proper. Government spending per citizen in the settlements is double that spent per Israeli citizen in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, while government spending for settlers in isolated Israeli settlements is three times the Israeli national average. Most of the spending goes to the securit…
Number of settlements and inhabitants
As of 2022, there are 140 Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including 12 in East Jerusalem. In addition, there are over 100 Israeli illegal outposts in the West Bank. In total, over 450,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank excluding East Jerusalem, with an additional 220,000 Jewish settlers residing in East Jerusalem.
Additionally, over 20,000 Israeli citizens live in settlements in the Golan Heights.
Character: rural and urban
Settlements range in character from farming communities and frontier villages to urban suburbs and neighborhoods. The four largest settlements, Modi'in Illit, Ma'ale Adumim, Beitar Illit and Ariel, have achieved city status. Ariel has 18,000 residents, while the rest have around 37,000 to 55,500 each.
History
Following the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel occupied a number of territories. It took over the remainder of the Palestinian Mandate territories of the West Bank including East Jerusalem, from Jordan which had controlled the territories since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, which had held Gaza under occupation since 1949. From Egypt, it also captured the Sinai Peninsula a…
Geography and municipal status
Some settlements are self-contained cities with a stable population in the tens of thousands, infrastructure, and all other features of permanence. Examples are Beitar Illit (a city of close to 45,000 residents), Ma'ale Adumim, Modi'in Illit, and Ariel (almost 20,000 residents). Some are towns with a local council status with populations of 2,000–20,0000, such as Alfei Menashe, Eli, Elkana, Efrat and Kirya…
Types of settlement
• Cities/towns: Ariel, Betar Illit, Modi'in Illit and Ma'ale Adumim.
• Urban suburbs, such as Har Gilo.
• Block settlements, such as Gush Etzion and settlements in the Nablus area.
• Frontier villages, such as those along the Jordan River.
Resettlement of former Jewish communities
Some settlements were established on sites where Jewish communities had existed during the British Mandate of Palestine or even since the First Aliyah or ancient times.
• Golan Heights – Bnei Yehuda, founded in 1890, abandoned because of Arab attacks in 1920, rebuilt near the original site in 1972.
• Jerusalem – Jewish presence alongside other peoples since biblical times, various surrounding communities and neighborhoods, including Kfar Shiloah, als…