The Israel-PLO Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements (the DOP, better known as the Oslo accords), signed in Washington on 13 September 1993, provided for a transitional period not exceeding five years of Palestinian interim self-government in sections of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Under the DOP, Israel agreed to recognize the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a ‘‘Single Territorial Unit’as well as to transfer certain powers and responsibilities to the Palestinian Authority, which includes the Palestinian Legislative Council elected in January 1996, as part of the interim self-governing arrangements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

A transfer of powers and responsibilities for the Gaza Strip and Jericho took place pursuant to the Israel-PLO 4 May 1994 Cairo Agreement on the Gaza Strip and the Jericho Area. In other areas of the West Bank, transfer of powers took place pursuant to the Israel-PLO 28 September 1995 Interim Agreement, the Israel-PLO 15 January 1997 Protocol Concerning the Redeployment in Hebron, the Israel-PLO 23 October 1998 Wye River Memorandum, and the 4 September 1999 Sharm el-Sheikh Agreement.

The southern limit of the Gaza Strip is the border with Egypt. Egypt renounced all claims to land north of the international border, including the Gaza Strip, in the Israel-Egypt peace treaty. The Palestinians were not parties to either agreement.

In any event, the natural geographic boundaries for the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, respectively.

It is now generally accepted, at least as a basis for negotiation between the sides, that the boundaries between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and the State of Israel are what has historically been referred to as the Green Line. The Green Line represents the armistice lines under the 1949 Armistice Agreements, which brought an end to the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and which were expressly declared in the Agreements to be armistice lines and not international borders.

The resolution calls for the “withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict” (there has been some Disagreement about whether this means all the territories: see UN Security Council Resolution 242: semantic dispute) and the “[t] ermination Of all claims or states of belligerency “. It also calls for the mutual recognition by the belligerent parties (Israel, Egypt, Syria, Jordan) of each other’s established states and calls for the establishment of secure and recognized boundaries for all parties.

The current and future political status of the territories is highly controversial. Specific issues include the legality of Israeli policies allegedly encouraging settlement, whether it is legitimate for Israel to annex portions of the territories, whether Israel is legally an occupying power according to the Fourth Geneva Convention, and whether an independent Arab state will be created in the territories.

Since 1994, the autonomous Palestinian Authority has exercised various degrees of control in large parts of the territories, pursuant to the Oslo Accords.

Since the Battle of Gaza (2007), the territories have split into two administrative entities, with Hamas leading the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian National Authority (with Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah in leadership) continuing to administer the West Bank despite the election (in January, 2006) of Hamas to the majority of seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council. Neither group recognize the other one as the official Palestinian leadership.

The United Nations generally uses the term “Occupied Palestinian Territory”, with the “Palestinian” label having gained use since the 1970s. Previous UNSC resolutions (such as 242 and 338) use the term “territories occupied by Israel”, whereas in the UN General Assembly Resolution 181 passed on November 29, 1947, the term “Samaria and Judea” was used.

Many Jews object to the term “Palestinian territories”, and similar descriptions, which they regard as negating what is in their view legitimate Jewish land rights, in accordance with the recorded history of the region, including Greek and Roman writings, the Hebrew Bible and indigenous Jewish history (and current settlements) in the area.

The United Nations generally uses the term “Occupied Palestinian Territory”, with the “Palestinian” label having gained use since the 1970s. Previous UNSC resolutions (such as 242 and 338) use the term “territories occupied by Israel”, whereas in the UN General Assembly Resolution 181 passed on November 29, 1947, the term “Samaria and Judea” was used. Many Jews object to the term “Palestinian territories”, which they perceive as a rejection of what is in their view legitimate Jewish land according to written history of the Mediterranean including Greek and Roman writings, the Hebrew Bible and indigenous Jewish history (and current settlements) in the area.

Today, the designation typically refers to the territories governed in varying degrees by the Palestinian Authority (42% of the West Bank plus all of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip), or includes all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It does not include the Golan Heights captured from Syria during the Six Day War, or the Sinai Peninsula, captured from Egypt at that time but later returned by Israel to Egypt after a peace accord was signed between the two countries in 1979. Israel does not consider East Jerusalem nor the former Israeli – Jordanian no man’s land (the former annexed in 1980 and the latter in 1967) to be parts of the West Bank. Israel claims that both fall under full Israeli law and jurisdiction as opposed to the 58% of the Israeli-defined West Bank which is ruled by the Israeli ‘Judea and Samaria Civil Administration’, although this has not been recognized by any other country.