What Is the West Bank and Who Controls It?
Israeli troops raided two Palestinian cities on Wednesday in what they called an effort to tamp down rising militancy in the northern West Bank.
The renewed violence has cast a spotlight on the Israeli-occupied territory, where over 600 Palestinians have been killed in clashes with Israeli forces, according to the United Nations, in parallel to the devastating war in Gaza.
Here’s what to know.
What is the West Bank?
Roughly three million Palestinians and 500,000 settlers live in the West Bank, a kidney-shaped area between Israel and Jordan that has been a battleground between Israelis and Palestinians for decades.
The modern territory emerged after the 1948 war that created Israel; during the conflict, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes, with many taking refuge in the West Bank. Jordan occupied and then annexed the territory after the war.
In 1967, Israel occupied the West Bank and other territories in a war with neighboring Arab states. For religious Jews, the territory’s rolling hills and ancient sites were the heart of what they deemed a divinely promised homeland.
Israel slowly began permitting its own citizens — propelled by both nationalism and religious fervor — to build and expand settlements in the West Bank. But it never formally annexed the territory, fearing both the diplomatic repercussions abroad and that it might end the country’s coveted Jewish majority at home.
Gradually, a two-tier system developed in the West Bank. Israeli citizens live there, vote in Israeli elections and generally enjoy the rights and privileges of their compatriots who live within the country’s internationally recognized boundaries.
Their Palestinian neighbors, meanwhile, live under Israeli military rule. They have never had the right to vote for Israel’s government, whose decisions shape their everyday lives.
Wasn’t there a peace process?
During the 1990s, Palestinian leaders signed the Oslo Accords, which allowed them to administer some cities and towns under the aegis of the newly minted Palestinian Authority. They hoped the Authority would become the basis for a future sovereign Palestine.
Under the agreements, the West Bank was broadly divided into three fragmented zones until the two sides could hash out a final deal. In the largest — comprising 60 percent of the West Bank — Israel would maintain direct control. Palestinian officials would hold varying degrees of autonomy in the other two.
That future state has never materialized, with both sides pointing figures at one another for the failure to reach an accord in the intervening decades.
Israeli leaders blamed Palestinian officials for rejecting peace offers and launching the Second Intifada, an uprising in which suicide attacks killed many Israeli civilians across the country. Israel struck back by recapturing major Palestinian cities in the West Bank in devastating battles with militants.
Palestinian leaders insist that Israel was never serious about reaching an agreement and note that most Israeli politicians today reject giving them an independent state at all.
Who controls it now?
In practice, the Israeli military wields overriding security control over Palestinian cities and has the ultimate say on whoever wants to enter or leave the territory. Palestinians suspected of involvement in violence against Israelis are generally judged in Israeli military courts. Lacking full sovereign alternatives, Palestinians buy much of their electricity and water from Israel.
Officials from the Palestinian Authority still administer some local matters: trash collection, education, hospitals and schools. They also have their own local security forces, who coordinate with their Israeli counterparts but have limited authority.
Palestinians argue that Israel has managed to continue ruling the West Bank while saddling the Authority with the responsibility to provide services to the territory’s Palestinian residents. In the past, some accepted this as a necessary step on the path to statehood, but many Israeli leaders now reject the idea of ever allowing Palestinians to have a sovereign state.
Why is there fighting there?
Israeli troops are in Tulkarm and Jenin to fend off the rising influence of Palestinian militant groups, who have become increasingly dominant in the northern West Bank. According to the Israeli military, roughly 150 attacks were launched at Israelis from the two areas over the past year.
The dwindling hope for a diplomatic end to Israeli rule has turbocharged the influence of groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad, who believe in open-ended armed struggle against Israel, including attacks on civilians.
Newer local militias have also sprung up, made up of younger Palestinians who — having lost faith in a long-moribund peace process — believe that only violence will advance their cause. At the same time, Israel’s regional archnemesis, Iran, has sought to pump in more advanced weaponry in an attempt to spur further unrest.
The Palestinian Authority, whose leaders are broadly unpopular with the Palestinian public, has worked closely with Israeli security forces to crack down on the militants. But the increasingly frail body has seen its grip erode, particularly in the northern West Bank, such as in refugee camps in Tulkarm and Jenin.
Israeli military officials often say they would prefer to see Palestinian officers arrest the militants. But as long as the armed groups continue to plot attacks unhindered, Israeli soldiers will raid the cities to get at them, they say.
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