14 Facts About West Bank

1.

Name West Bank is a translation of the Arabic term, which designates the territory situated on the western side of the Jordan River that was occupied in 1948 and subsequently annexed in 1950 by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

FactSnippet No. 998,384
2.

The name West Bank has become the standard usage for this geopolitical entity in English and some of the other Germanic languages since its inception following the 1948 Jordanian capture.

FactSnippet No. 998,385
3.

British and Arab commercial banks operating in the West Bank were closed down soon after Israel assumed power there.

FactSnippet No. 998,386
4.

Turkey, successor state to the Ottoman Empire, renounced its territorial claims in 1923, signing the Treaty of Lausanne, and the area now called the West Bank became an integral part of the British Mandate for Palestine.

FactSnippet No. 998,387
5.

In 1947 the UN General Assembly recommended that the area that became the West Bank become part of a future Arab state, but this proposal was opposed by the Arab states at the time.

FactSnippet No. 998,388
6.

Since 1979, the United Nations Security Council, the United Nations General Assembly, the United States, the EU, the International Court of Justice, and the International Committee of the Red Cross refer to the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as occupied Palestinian territory or the occupied territories.

FactSnippet No. 998,389
7.

International Court of Justice ruling of 9 July 2004 found that the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is territory held by Israel under military occupation, regardless of its status prior to it coming under Israeli occupation, and that the Fourth Geneva convention applies de jure.

FactSnippet No. 998,390
8.

Palestinian Authority believes that the West Bank ought to be a part of their sovereign nation, and that the presence of Israeli military control is a violation of their right to Palestinian Authority rule.

FactSnippet No. 998,391
9.

The area of West Bank is landlocked; highlands are main recharge area for Israel's coastal aquifers.

FactSnippet No. 998,392
10.

Climate in the West Bank is mostly Mediterranean, slightly cooler at elevated areas compared with the shoreline, west to the area.

FactSnippet No. 998,393
11.

Israeli West Bank barrier is a physical barrier ordered for construction by the Israeli Government, consisting of a network of fences with vehicle-barrier trenches surrounded by an on average 60 meters wide exclusion area and up to 8 meters high concrete walls .

FactSnippet No. 998,394
12.

West Bank is further divided into 8 administrative regions: Menashe, HaBik'a, Shomron, Efrayim, Binyamin, Maccabim, Etzion and Yehuda .

FactSnippet No. 998,395
13.

Many waste treatment facilities in the West Bank were built for processing waste generated inside Israeli sovereign territory, according to B'Tselem, Israel's leading human rights organization for monitoring the West Bank.

FactSnippet No. 998,396
14.

Only airport in the West Bank is the Atarot Airport near Ramallah, but it has been closed since 2001.

FactSnippet No. 998,397