From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: West Bank and its location
Mains level: Israeli claims over West Bank and Gaza
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed that the Israeli leader’s plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank would not start on the original target date as the British PM made an extraordinary appeal to Israel to call off the plan.
The strategic location of Gaza strip, West Bank, Dead Sea etc. creates a hotspot for a possible map based prelims question.
Consider this PYQ from 2015 CSP:
Q. The area known as ‘Golan Heights’ sometimes appears in the news in the context of the events related to:
a) Central Asia
b) Middle East
c) South-East Asia
d) Central Africa
Must read:
Where is West Bank Located?
- The West Bank is located to the west of the Jordan River.
- It is a patch of land about one and a half times the size of Goa, was captured by Jordan after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
- Israel snatched it back during the Six-Day War of 1967 and has occupied it ever since.
- It is a landlocked territory, bordered by Jordan to the east and Israel to the south, west, and north.
- Following the Oslo Accords between the Israeli government and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) during the 1990s, part of the West Bank came under the control of the Palestinian Authority.
- With varying levels of autonomy, the Palestinian Authority controls close to 40 per cent of West Bank today, while the rest is controlled by Israel.
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