WEST
BANK – GEOGRAPHY
What's
in the news?
●
President Biden issued an executive order
targeting Israeli settlers in the West Bank who have been attacking
Palestinians in the occupied territory.
West
Bank:
●
West Bank (about one and a half times the
size of Goa) is a landlocked territory
in West Asia.
●
It also contains a significant section of
the western Dead Sea.
●
It was captured by Jordan after the
Arab-Israeli War (1948) but Israel snatched it back during the Six-Day War of
1967 and has occupied it ever since.
●
At present, there are around 130 formal Israeli settlements along with 26 lakh Palestinians in the West Bank.
Countries
in West Bank:
●
The West Bank borders Jordan and the Dead Sea
to the east and Israel to the south,
west, and north.
Global
Stand over West Bank Settlements:
●
Majority of the countries consider West
Bank settlements illegal and an occupied
territory.
●
The United Nations General Assembly, the
UN Security Council, and the International Court of Justice have declared that
the West Bank settlements are violative
of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
○
Under the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949),
an occupying power “shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian
population into the territory it occupies”.