Israel
Israel the State of Israel, is a country in Western Asia, located on the southeastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea and the northern shore of the Red Sea. It has land borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the northeast, Jordan on the east, the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip to the east and west and Egypt to the southwest; the country contains geographically diverse features within its small area. Israel's economic and technological center is Tel Aviv, while its seat of government and proclaimed capital is Jerusalem, although the state's sovereignty over Jerusalem has only partial recognition. Israel has evidence of the earliest migration of hominids out of Africa. Canaanite tribes are archaeologically attested since the Middle Bronze Age, while the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah emerged during the Iron Age; the Neo-Assyrian Empire destroyed Israel around 720 BCE. Judah was conquered by the Babylonian and Hellenistic empires and had existed as Jewish autonomous provinces.
The successful Maccabean Revolt led to an independent Hasmonean kingdom by 110 BCE, which in 63 BCE however became a client state of the Roman Republic that subsequently installed the Herodian dynasty in 37 BCE, in 6 CE created the Roman province of Judea. Judea lasted as a Roman province until the failed Jewish revolts resulted in widespread destruction, expulsion of Jewish population and the renaming of the region from Iudaea to Syria Palaestina. Jewish presence in the region has persisted to a certain extent over the centuries. In the 7th century CE, the Levant was taken from the Byzantine Empire by the Arabs and remained in Muslim control until the First Crusade of 1099, followed by the Ayyubid conquest of 1187; the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt extended its control over the Levant in the 13th century until its defeat by the Ottoman Empire in 1517. During the 19th century, national awakening among Jews led to the establishment of the Zionist movement in the diaspora followed by waves of immigration to Ottoman Syria and British Mandate Palestine.
In 1947, the United Nations adopted a Partition Plan for Palestine recommending the creation of independent Arab and Jewish states and an internationalized Jerusalem. The plan was accepted by the Jewish Agency, rejected by Arab leaders; the following year, the Jewish Agency declared the independence of the State of Israel, the subsequent 1948 Arab–Israeli War saw Israel's establishment over most of the former Mandate territory, while the West Bank and Gaza were held by neighboring Arab states. Israel has since fought several wars with Arab countries, since the Six-Day War in 1967 held occupied territories including the West Bank, Golan Heights and the Gaza Strip, it extended its laws to the Golan East Jerusalem, but not the West Bank. Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories is the world's longest military occupation in modern times. Efforts to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict have not resulted in a final peace agreement. However, peace treaties between Israel and both Egypt and Jordan have been signed.
In its Basic Laws, Israel defines itself as a democratic state. The country has a liberal democracy, with a parliamentary system, proportional representation, universal suffrage; the prime minister is head of government and the Knesset is the legislature. Israel is a developed country and an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development member, with the 32nd-largest economy in the world by nominal gross domestic product as of 2017; the country benefits from a skilled workforce and is among the most educated countries in the world with one of the highest percentages of its citizens holding a tertiary education degree. Israel has the highest standard of living in the Middle East, has one of the highest life expectancies in the world. Furthermore, Israel ranked 11th in the UN's 2018 World Happiness Report. Upon independence in 1948, the country formally adopted the name "State of Israel" after other proposed historical and religious names including Eretz Israel and Judea, were considered but rejected.
In the early weeks of independence, the government chose the term "Israeli" to denote a citizen of Israel, with the formal announcement made by Minister of Foreign Affairs Moshe Sharett. The names Land of Israel and Children of Israel have been used to refer to the biblical Kingdom of Israel and the entire Jewish people respectively; the name "Israel" in these phrases refers to the patriarch Jacob who, according to the Hebrew Bible, was given the name after he wrestled with the angel of the Lord. Jacob's twelve sons became the ancestors of the Israelites known as the Twelve Tribes of Israel or Children of Israel. Jacob and his sons had lived in Canaan but were forced by famine to go into Egypt for four generations, lasting 430 years, until Moses, a great-great grandson of Jacob, led the Israelites back into Canaan during the "Exodus"; the earliest known archaeological artifact to mention the word "Israel" as a collective is the Merneptah Stele of ancient Egypt. The area is known as the Holy Land, being holy for all Abrahamic religions including Judaism, Christianity and the Bahá'í Faith.
Under British Mandate, the whole region was known as Palestine (Hebre
Israeli–Palestinian conflict
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is the ongoing struggle between Israelis and Palestinians that began in the mid-20th century. The origins to the conflict can be traced back to Jewish immigration and sectarian conflict in Mandatory Palestine between Jews and Arabs, it has been referred to as the world's "most intractable conflict", with the ongoing Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip reaching 52 years. Despite a long-term peace process and the general reconciliation of Israel with Egypt and Jordan and Palestinians have failed to reach a final peace agreement; the key issues are: mutual recognition, security, water rights, control of Jerusalem, Israeli settlements, Palestinian freedom of movement, Palestinian right of return. The violence of the conflict, in a region rich in sites of historic and religious interest worldwide, has been the object of numerous international conferences dealing with historic rights, security issues and human rights, has been a factor hampering tourism in and general access to areas that are hotly contested.
Many attempts have been made to broker a two-state solution, involving the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel. In 2007, the majority of both Israelis and Palestinians, according to a number of polls, preferred the two-state solution over any other solution as a means of resolving the conflict. Moreover, a majority of Jews see the Palestinians' demand for an independent state as just, thinks Israel can agree to the establishment of such a state; the majority of Palestinians and Israelis in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have expressed a preference for a two-state solution. Mutual distrust and significant disagreements are deep over basic issues, as is the reciprocal scepticism about the other side's commitment to upholding obligations in an eventual agreement. Within Israeli and Palestinian society, the conflict generates a wide variety of opinions; this highlights the deep divisions which exist not only between Israelis and Palestinians, but within each society.
A hallmark of the conflict has been the level of violence witnessed for its entire duration. Fighting has been conducted by regular armies, paramilitary groups, terror cells, individuals. Casualties have not been restricted to the military, with a large number of fatalities in civilian population on both sides. There are prominent international actors involved in the conflict; the two parties engaged in direct negotiation are the Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Palestine Liberation Organization headed by Mahmoud Abbas. The official negotiations are mediated by an international contingent known as the Quartet on the Middle East represented by a special envoy, that consists of the United States, the European Union, the United Nations; the Arab League is another important actor. Egypt, a founding member of the Arab League, has been a key participant. Jordan, having relinquished its claim to the West Bank in 1988 and holding a special role in the Muslim Holy shrines in Jerusalem, has been a key participant.
Since 2006, the Palestinian side has been fractured by conflict between the two major factions: Fatah, the traditionally dominant party, its electoral challenger, Hamas. After Hamas's electoral victory in 2006, the Quartet conditioned future foreign assistance to the Palestinian National Authority on the future government's commitment to non-violence, recognition of the State of Israel, acceptance of previous agreements. Hamas rejected these demands, which resulted in the Quartet's suspension of its foreign assistance program, the imposition of economic sanctions by the Israelis. A year following Hamas's seizure of power in the Gaza Strip in June 2007, the territory recognized as the PA was split between Fatah in the West Bank, Hamas in the Gaza Strip; the division of governance between the parties had resulted in the collapse of bipartisan governance of the PA. However, in 2014, a Palestinian Unity Government, composed of both Fatah and Hamas, was formed; the latest round of peace negotiations began in July 2013 and was suspended in 2014.
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict has its roots in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with the birth of major nationalist movements among the Jews and among the Arabs, both geared towards attaining sovereignty for their people in the Middle East. The collision between those two forces in southern Levant and the emergence of Palestinian nationalism in the 1920s escalated into the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in 1947, expanded into the wider Arab–Israeli conflict on; the return of several hard-line Palestinian Arab nationalists, under the emerging leadership of Haj Amin al-Husseini, from Damascus to Mandatory Palestine marked the beginning of Palestinian Arab nationalist struggle towards establishment of a national home for Arabs of Palestine. Amin al-Husseini, the architect of the Palestinian Arab national movement marked Jewish national movement and Jewish immigration to Palestine as the sole enemy to his cause, initiating large-scale riots against the Jews as early as 1920 in Jerusalem and in 1921 in Jaffa.
Among the results of the violence was the establishment of the Jewish paramilitary force Haganah. In 1929, a series of violent anti-Jewish riots was initiated by the Arab leadership; the riots resulted in massive Jewish casualties in Hebron and Safed, the evacuation of Jews from Hebron and Gaza. In the earl
International Court of Justice
The International Court of Justice sometimes called the World Court, is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations. It settles legal disputes submitted by states and gives advisory opinions on legal issues referred by authorized U. N. organs and specialized agencies. Through its opinions and rulings, the ICJ serves as a source of international law; the ICJ is the successor of the Permanent Court of International Justice, established by the League of Nations in 1920 and began its first session in 1922. After the Second World War, both the League and the PCIJ were dissolved and replaced by the United Nations and ICJ, respectively; the Statute of the ICJ draws from that of its predecessor, the latter's cases remain valid opinio juris. All members of the U. N. are party to the ICJ Statute. The ICJ comprises a panel of 15 judges elected by the General Assembly and Security Council for nine-year terms, it is seated in the Peace Palace in The Hague, making it the only principal U. N. organ not located in New York City.
Its official working languages are French. Established in 1945 by the UN Charter, the court began work in 1946 as the successor to the Permanent Court of International Justice; the Statute of the International Court of Justice, similar to that of its predecessor, is the main constitutional document constituting and regulating the court. The court's workload covers a wide range of judicial activity. After the court ruled that the United States's covert war against Nicaragua was in violation of international law, the United States withdrew from compulsory jurisdiction in 1986 to accept the court's jurisdiction only on a discretionary basis. Chapter XIV of the United Nations Charter authorizes the UN Security Council to enforce Court rulings. However, such enforcement is subject to the veto power of the five permanent members of the Council, which the United States used in the Nicaragua case; the ICJ is composed of fifteen judges elected to nine-year terms by the UN General Assembly and the UN Security Council from a list of people nominated by the national groups in the Permanent Court of Arbitration.
The election process is set out in Articles 4–19 of the ICJ statute. Elections are staggered, with five judges elected every three years to ensure continuity within the court. Should a judge die in office, the practice has been to elect a judge in a special election to complete the term. No two judges may be nationals of the same country. According to Article 9, the membership of the court is supposed to represent the "main forms of civilization and of the principal legal systems of the world"; that has meant common law, civil law and socialist law. There is an informal understanding that the seats will be distributed by geographic regions so that there are five seats for Western countries, three for African states, two for Eastern European states, three for Asian states and two for Latin American and Caribbean states. For most of the court's history, the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council have always had a judge serving, thereby occupying three of the Western seats, one of the Asian seats and one of the Eastern European seats.
Exceptions have been China not having a judge on the court from 1967 to 1985, during which time it did not put forward a candidate, British judge Sir Christopher Greenwood being withdrawn as a candidate for election for a second nine-year term on the bench in 2017, leaving no judges from the United Kingdom on the court. Greenwood had been supported by the UN Security Council but failed to get a majority in the UN General Assembly. Indian judge Dalveer Bhandari instead took the seat. Article 6 of the Statute provides that all judges should be "elected regardless of their nationality among persons of high moral character" who are either qualified for the highest judicial office in their home states or known as lawyers with sufficient competence in international law. Judicial independence is dealt with in Articles 16–18. Judges of the ICJ are not able to act as counsel. In practice, members of the court have their own interpretation of these rules and allow them to be involved in outside arbitration and hold professional posts as long as there is no conflict of interest.
A judge can be dismissed only by a unanimous vote of the other members of the court. Despite these provisions, the independence of ICJ judges has been questioned. For example, during the Nicaragua case, the United States issued a communiqué suggesting that it could not present sensitive material to the court because of the presence of judges from Eastern bloc states. Judges may give their own separate opinions. Decisions and advisory opinions are by majority, and, in the event of an equal division, the President's vote becomes decisive, which occurred in the Legality of the Use by a State of Nuclear Weapons in Armed Conflict, ICJ Reports 66. Judges may deliver separate dissenting opinions. Article 31 of the statute sets out a procedure whereby ad hoc judges sit on contentious cases before the court; the system allows any party to a contentious case to select one additional person to sit as a judge on that case only. It is thus possible; the system may seem strange when compared with domestic court processes, but its purpose is to encourage states to submit cases.
For example, if a state knows that it will have a judicial officer
Al-Bireh
Al-Bireh, al-Birah, or el-Bira is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank, 15 kilometers north of Jerusalem. It is situated on the central ridge running through the West Bank and is 860 meters above sea level, covering an area of 22.4 square kilometers. Because of its location Al-Bireh served as an economic crossroad between the north and south, along the caravan route between Jerusalem and Nablus. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the city had a population of 39,202 in the 2007 census. Edward Robinson in the early 19th century thought Al-Bireh was the biblical Be'eroth, but modern scholars believe Be'eroth was located at Kh. el-Burj near Beit Iksa. Claude Reignier Conder and others identified it with Beirothah of the Samaritan chronicles; the Crusaders named the town Birra. It was called Castrum Mahomeria, Magna Mahomeria or Mahomeria Major, it was one of 21 villages given by King Godfrey as a fief to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In 1114, the gift was re-confirmed by Baldwin I of Jerusalem.
In 1156, 92 people from Mahomeria pledged their allegiance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a further 50 names were added in the next three decades. Hence, it has been estimated that the total Frankish population at this time was 500-700; the Crusaders built a castle and hospice there. The latter two buildings were built by the Knights Templar in 1146 and belonged to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; the Ayyubids under Saladin drove away the Crusaders from Birra when they reconquered interior Palestine after the Battle of Hattin in 1187, demolished the town. Yaqut al-Hamawi mentions seeing the ruins a few times during his travels in the area. Nearing the end of Ayyubid rule, in 1280, the modern town of al-Bireh was an inhabited village; the Ayyubids built a mosque in the town dedicated to Umar ibn al-Khattab adjacent to the church ruins. Potsherds from the Crusader/Ayyubid era have been found. Al-Bireh, like the rest of Palestine, was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517, in the census of 1596 the village, called Bira al-Kubra, was a part of the nahiya of Al-Quds, under the administration of the liwa of Al-Quds.
It had a population of 45 households, all Muslim, paid taxes on wheat, olive trees, fruit trees, occasional revenues, beehives and/or goats. Half of the revenue went to a waqf. In the spring of 1697, Henry Maundrell noted at Al Bireh, which he called Beer, the remains of a Church, which he wrote was built by Empress Helena. After the 1834 Arab revolt in Palestine, the Ottoman authorities conscripted many men from Al-Bireh as soldiers. In 1838, when Robinson visited, 60 had been taken away to be soldiers, out of a total population of 700; when French explorer Victor Guérin visited the village in 1863, he found it to have 800 inhabitants. Socin, citing an official Ottoman village list compiled around 1870, noted that Al-Bireh had a population of 399 Muslims in 142 houses, 20 "Greeks" in 5 houses, though that population count included men, only, it was further noted that the name meant "The cistern". Hartmann found. In 1883, the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine described Bireh as a good-sized village, with "fairly well built" houses.
In 1896 the population of Bireh was estimated to be about 1,080 persons. Until 1917, the city served as a administrative center for the Ottoman Empire. In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Al-Bireh had a population of 1,479; the population had increased in the 1931 census to 2,292. In the 1945 statistics, the town's residents numbered 2,920. Of this, 5,162 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 11,226 used for cereals, while 759 dunams were built-up land. In the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Al-Bireh came under Jordanian rule. In 1961, the population of Bira was 14,510. During the Six-Day War, on June 6, 1967, Israeli troops occupied the city, Al-Bireh has been under Israeli occupation since. In 1994, the civil administration of the city was turned over to the Palestinian National Authority under the Oslo Accords. Al-Bireh is the second largest center of Palestinian administration after Gaza. Besides the governor’s headquarters, it hosts a considerable number of governmental, non-governmental, private organizations, including the Ministries of Transportation, Information, Public Works and Higher Education, as well as the Palestine Broadcasting Corporation and the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.
Due to its proximity with Ramallah, the cities form a single constituency for elections to the Palestinian National Authority. After the 1995 accords, 39.8% of village land belongs to Area A, 5% to Area B, while the remaining 55.2% is Area C. The 1997 census carried out by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics counted 27,856 residents half male and half female; the majority of the inhabitants were Palestinian refugees. In the 2007 PCBS census, there were 38,202 people living in the city. Al-Bireh is inhabited by 5 major clans: Hamayel,Qar'an,'Abed, Karakra, At Taweel and Ar Rafidi. Al-Bireh established a city council headed by mayor Eid Musa in 192
Arabic
Arabic is a Central Semitic language that first emerged in Iron Age northwestern Arabia and is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. It is named after the Arabs, a term used to describe peoples living in the area bounded by Mesopotamia in the east and the Anti-Lebanon mountains in the west, in northwestern Arabia, in the Sinai Peninsula. Arabic is classified as a macrolanguage comprising 30 modern varieties, including its standard form, Modern Standard Arabic, derived from Classical Arabic; as the modern written language, Modern Standard Arabic is taught in schools and universities, is used to varying degrees in workplaces and the media. The two formal varieties are grouped together as Literary Arabic, the official language of 26 states, the liturgical language of the religion of Islam, since the Quran and Hadith were written in Arabic. Modern Standard Arabic follows the grammatical standards of Classical Arabic, uses much of the same vocabulary. However, it has discarded some grammatical constructions and vocabulary that no longer have any counterpart in the spoken varieties, has adopted certain new constructions and vocabulary from the spoken varieties.
Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the post-classical era in modern times. Due to its grounding in Classical Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic is removed over a millennium from everyday speech, construed as a multitude of dialects of this language; these dialects and Modern Standard Arabic are described by some scholars as not mutually comprehensible. The former are acquired in families, while the latter is taught in formal education settings. However, there have been studies reporting some degree of comprehension of stories told in the standard variety among preschool-aged children; the relation between Modern Standard Arabic and these dialects is sometimes compared to that of Latin and vernaculars in medieval and early modern Europe. This view though does not take into account the widespread use of Modern Standard Arabic as a medium of audiovisual communication in today's mass media—a function Latin has never performed. During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a major vehicle of culture in Europe in science and philosophy.
As a result, many European languages have borrowed many words from it. Arabic influence in vocabulary, is seen in European languages Spanish and to a lesser extent Portuguese, Catalan, owing to both the proximity of Christian European and Muslim Arab civilizations and 800 years of Arabic culture and language in the Iberian Peninsula, referred to in Arabic as al-Andalus. Sicilian has about 500 Arabic words as result of Sicily being progressively conquered by Arabs from North Africa, from the mid-9th to mid-10th centuries. Many of these words relate to related activities; the Balkan languages, including Greek and Bulgarian, have acquired a significant number of Arabic words through contact with Ottoman Turkish. Arabic has influenced many languages around the globe throughout its history; some of the most influenced languages are Persian, Spanish, Kashmiri, Bosnian, Bengali, Malay, Indonesian, Punjabi, Assamese, Sindhi and Hausa, some languages in parts of Africa. Conversely, Arabic has borrowed words from other languages, including Greek and Persian in medieval times, contemporary European languages such as English and French in modern times.
Classical Arabic is the liturgical language of 1.8 billion Muslims, Modern Standard Arabic is one of six official languages of the United Nations. All varieties of Arabic combined are spoken by as many as 422 million speakers in the Arab world, making it the fifth most spoken language in the world. Arabic is written with the Arabic alphabet, an abjad script and is written from right to left, although the spoken varieties are sometimes written in ASCII Latin from left to right with no standardized orthography. Arabic is a Central Semitic language related to the Northwest Semitic languages, the Ancient South Arabian languages, various other Semitic languages of Arabia such as Dadanitic; the Semitic languages changed a great deal between Proto-Semitic and the establishment of the Central Semitic languages in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include: The conversion of the suffix-conjugated stative formation into a past tense; the conversion of the prefix-conjugated preterite-tense formation into a present tense.
The elimination of other prefix-conjugated mood/aspect forms in favor of new moods formed by endings attached to the prefix-conjugation forms. The development of an internal passive. There are several features which Classical Arabic, the modern Arabic varieties, as well as the Safaitic and Hismaic inscriptions share which are unattested in any other Central Semitic language variety, including the Dadanitic and Taymanitic languages of the northern Hejaz; these features are evidence of common descent from Proto-Arabic. The following features can be reconstructed with confidence for Proto-Arabic: negative particles m *mā.
Israeli-occupied territories
The Israeli-occupied territories refers to the territories occupied by Israel during the Six-Day War of 1967 and sometimes to areas of Southern Lebanon, where Israeli military was notably present to support local Lebanese militias during the civil war and after it. Those territories included the Syrian Golan Heights, the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula and Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip and Jordanian-annexed West Bank; the first use of the term'territories occupied' was in United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 following the Six-Day War in 1967, which called for "the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East" to be achieved by "the application of both the following principles:... Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict... Termination of all claims or states of belligerency" and respect for the right of every state in the area to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries. In addition to the territories occupied following the Six-Day War, Israel occupied portions of Southern Lebanon following the 1982 Lebanon War, maintained a military presence there until withdrawing in 2000.
From 1967 to 1981, the four areas were governed under the Israeli Military Governorate, referred to by the UN as occupied Arab territories. The IMG was dissolved after the Egypt -- Israel Peace Treaty. In the process, Israel handed the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt, the Golan Heights was incorporated into the Northern District by the Golan Heights Law, West Bank continued to be administrated via the Israeli Civil Administration, which the UN continued to refer to as the occupied Arab territories. Despite dissolving the military government, in line with Egyptian demands, the term Occupied Arab territories had remained in use, referring to the West Bank including East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and Western Golan Heights. From 1999 to early 2013, the term Palestinian territories, Occupied became utilized to refer to territories controlled by the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Gaza Strip; the International Court of Justice, the UN General Assembly and the United Nations Security Council regards Israel as the "Occupying Power".
UN Special Rapporteur Richard Falk called Israel's occupation "an affront to international law." The Israeli High Court of Justice has ruled that Israel holds the West Bank under "belligerent occupation". According to Talia Sasson, the High Court of Justice in Israel, with a variety of different justices sitting, has stated for more than four decades that international law applies to Israel's presence in the West Bank. Israeli governments have preferred the term "disputed territories" in the case of the West Bank. Israel maintains that the West Bank is disputed territory. Israel asserts that since the disengagement of Israel from Gaza in 2005, Israel no longer occupies the Gaza Strip. However, as it retained certain control of Gaza's airspace and coastline, as of 2012 it continued to be designated as an occupying power in the Gaza Strip by the United Nations Security Council, the United Nations General Assembly and some countries and various human rights organizations; the significance of the designation of these territories as occupied territory is that certain legal obligations fall on the occupying power under international law.
Under international law there are certain laws of war governing military occupation, including the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 and the Fourth Geneva Convention. One of those obligations is to maintain the status quo until the signing of a peace treaty, the resolution of specific conditions outlined in a peace treaty, or the formation of a new civilian government. Israel disputes whether, if so to what extent, it is an occupying power in relation to the Palestinian territories and as to whether Israeli settlements in these territories are in breach of Israel's obligations as an occupying power and constitute a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions and whether the settlements constitute war crimes. In 2015, over 800,000 Israelis resided over the 1949 Armistice Lines, constituting nearly 13% of Israel's Jewish population. Israel captured the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt in the 1967 Six-Day War, it established settlements along the Gulf of Aqaba and in the northeast portion, just below the Gaza Strip.
It had plans to expand the settlement of Yamit into a city with a population of 200,000, though the actual population of Yamit did not exceed 3,000. The Sinai Peninsula was returned to Egypt in stages beginning in 1979 as part of the Israel–Egypt Peace Treaty; as required by the treaty, Israel evacuated Israeli military installations and civilian settlements prior to the establishment of "normal and friendly relations" between it and Egypt. Israel dismantled eighteen settlements, two air force bases, a naval base, other installations by 1982, including the only oil resources under Israeli control; the evacuation of the civilian population, which took place in 1982, was done forcefully in some instances, such as the evacuation of Yamit. The settlements were demolished, as it was feared that settlers might try to return to their homes after the evacuation. Since 1982, the Sinai Peninsula has not been regarded as occupied territory; the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon took place after Israel invaded Lebanon during the 1982 Lebanon War and subsequently retained its forces to support the Christian South Lebanon Army militia in Southern Lebanon.
In 1982, the Israeli Defense Forces and allied Free Lebanon Army Christian militias seized large sections of Lebanon, including the capital of Beirut, amid the hostilities of the wider Lebanese Civil War. Israel withdrew from parts of the occupied area between 1983 and 1985, but remained in partial control of the border region known as the South Lebanon Security Belt, ini
Jordan Valley
The Jordan Valley forms part of the larger Jordan Rift Valley. Unlike most other river valleys, the term "Jordan Valley" applies just to the lower course of the Jordan River, from the spot where it exits the Sea of Galilee in the north, to the end of its course where it flows into the Dead Sea in the south. In a wider sense, the term may cover the Dead Sea basin and the Wadi Arabah or Arava valley, the Rift Valley segment beyond the Dead Sea and ending at Aqaba/Eilat, 155 km farther south; the valley is a long and narrow trough, it is 105 km long with a width averaging 10 km with some points narrowing to 4 km over most of the course before widening out to a 20 km delta when reaching the Dead Sea. Due to meandering the length of the river itself is 220 km; this is the deepest valley in the world, beginning at an elevation of −212 m below sea level and terminating at an elevation lower than −400 m below sea level. On both sides, to the east and west, the valley is bordered by high, escarpments with the difference in elevation between the valley floor and the surrounding mountains varying between 1,200 m to 1,700 m.
Over most of its length, the Jordan Valley forms the border between Jordan to the east, Israel and the West Bank to the west. The details are regulated by the Israel–Jordan peace treaty of 1994, which establishes an "administrative boundary" between Jordan and the West Bank, occupied by Israel in 1967, without prejudice to the status of that territory. Israel has allocated 86% of the land, in the west bank portion of the valley, to Israeli settlements. According to the definition used in this article, what is elsewhere sometimes termed the Upper Jordan Valley is not considered part of the Jordan Valley; the Upper Jordan Valley comprises the Jordan River sources and the course of the Jordan River through the Hula Valley and the Korazim Plateau, both north of the Sea of Galilee. The lower part of the valley, known in Arabic as the Ghor, includes the Jordan River segment south of the Sea of Galilee which ends at the Dead Sea. Several degrees warmer than adjacent areas, its year-round agricultural climate, fertile soils and water supply have made the Ghor a key agricultural area.
South of the Dead Sea, the continuation of the larger Jordan Rift Valley contains the hot, dry area known as Wadi'Araba, the "wilderness" or "Arabah desert" of the Bible. Prior to the 1967 Six-Day War, the valley's Jordanian side was home to about 60,000 people engaged in agriculture and pastoralism. By 1971, the Valley's Jordanian population had declined to 5,000 as a result of the 1967 war and the 1970–71 "Black September" war between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Jordan. Investments by the Jordanian government in the region allowed the population to rebound to over 85,000 by 1979. 80% of the farms in the Jordanian part of the valley are family farms no larger than 30 dunams. As of 2009, Approximately 58,000 Palestinians in total live in the part of the valley that lies in the West Bank in about twenty permanent communities concentrated in the city of Jericho and communities in the greater Jericho area in the south of the valley. Of these 10,000 live in area C administers by the Israeli Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, including 2,700 people who live in small Bedouin and herding communities.
Inside pre-1967 borders, 17,332 Israelis live in the independent municipality of Beit She'an, 12,000 live in 24 communities in Valley of Springs Regional Council that are located in the valley. An additional 12,400 live in 22 communities in the Emek HaYarden Regional Council whose southern half is in the valley. In the West Bank the Israeli Bik'at HaYarden Regional Council contains 21 settlements with a total of 4,200 residents as of 2014, the independent municipality of Ma'ale Efrayim an additional 1,206 as of 2015; the Jordan valley was under control of the Ottoman Empire from their victory over the Mamluks in 1486, which involved a small battle in the valley en route to Khan Yunis and Egypt. The Ottoman internal administrative divisions varied throughout the period with the Jordan river being at times a provincial border, at times not; however the valley was contained within the group of provinces termed Ottoman Syria. Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem during some periods contained both banks of the Jordan, while during others the valley was bordered by Syria Vilayet and Beirut Vilayet.
In 1916, Britain and France engaged in the Sykes–Picot Agreement in which the Ottoman territory of the Levant, which divided the yet undefeated Ottoman regions of the Levant between France and Britain. Under the agreement, the Jordan valley would be within the British sphere of control. In February 1918, as part of the wider Sinai and Palestine Campaign the British empire's Egyptian Expeditionary Force captured Jericho. Subsequently, during the British occupation of the Jordan Valley the Desert Mounted Corps were placed in the valley to protect the eastern flank of the British forces facing Ottoman forces in the hills of Moab; this position provided a strong position from which to launch the Battle of Megiddo which lead to the capture of Amman and the collapse of the Ottoman armies in the Levant. Following conflicting promises and agreements during WWI, in particular McMahon–Hussein Correspondence and Balfour Declaration, as well as a power vacuum following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire led to a series of diplomatic conferences and treaties which convened with continued armed struggle between the great powers, their proxies, Ar
Judea and Samaria Area
