West Bank: Geography, Population, and Disputed Status

The West Bank is a landlocked territory of roughly 5,640 square kilometers (about 2,180 square miles) lying on the western bank of the Jordan River. It borders Jordan and the Dead Sea to the east and is otherwise surrounded by Israel along the Green Line, the pre-1967 armistice frontier. History and status During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War the area west of the Jordan River came under the control of Transjordan, which annexed it in 1950 and gave it the name "West Bank" (Cisjordan). That annexation received almost no international recognition. In the 1967 Six-Day War Israel captured the territory, and it has remained under Israeli military control since. The International Court of Justice, UN bodies, and most of the international community classify it as occupied territory; a July 2024 ICJ advisory opinion held Israel's continued presence there unlawful. Israel disputes the "occupied" characterization, partly because no recognized sovereign held the land before 1967. Population The West Bank is home to roughly 2.75 million Palestinians and over 670,000 Israeli settlers, of whom approximately 220,000 live in East Jerusalem. The settlers live in Israeli settlements whose legal status under the Fourth Geneva Convention is contested. Administrative divisions The 1993–95 Oslo Accords divided the West Bank into three zones. Area A (about 18% of the land) is under full Palestinian Authority civil and security control and contains a majority of the Palestinian population. Area B (about 21%) is under Palestinian civil control with shared Israeli security control. Area C (about 61%) is under full Israeli control and contains nearly all of the settlements; only a small share of Palestinians live there. East Jerusalem, which Israel sought to annex through its 1980 Jerusalem Law, is treated separately and its annexation is not recognized by the UN Security Council.