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Direct negotiations to determine the permanent status of Gaza and the West Bank had begun in September 1999 after a three-year hiatus, but have been derailed by the al-Aqsa Intifada that began in September 2000. In 2003, the Israeli government issued a plan for total withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and part of the northern West Bank by late 2005.
The West Bank (Arabic: الضفة الغربية, romanized: aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; Hebrew: הַגָּדָה הַמַּעֲרָבִית, romanized: HaGadáh HaMaʽarávit), so called due to its location relative to the Jordan River, is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine.
From 1967 to 1981, the four areas were administered under the Israeli Military Governorate, and after the return of the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt after the Egypt–Israel peace treaty, Israel effectively annexed the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem in 1980, and brought the rest of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip under the Israeli Civil ...
Israel occupied the territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which had been ruled by Jordan and Egypt respectively, in the Six Day War of 1967 and has occupied them since. For maps of Palestine before the creation of Israel in 1947–1948 see Category:Maps of Palestine (region) See also: Atlas of Israel; Category:Maps of Israel
The Hamas attack that has killed hundreds was launched from one of the most densely populated and impoverished strips of land in the world.What is the Gaza Strip?
Land boundaries: Officially undefined, figures given are the de facto boundaries of the Green Line as they apply to the West Bank and Gaza Strip (See also Israeli West Bank barrier, Israeli Gaza Strip barrier and the Seam Zone) Total: 466 km (290 mi) Israel 358 km (222 mi) Jordan 97 km (60 mi) Egypt 11 km (6.8 mi)
The terrain of the Gaza Strip is flat or rolling, with dunes near the coast. The highest point is Abu 'Awdah (Joz Abu 'Auda), at 105 m (344 ft) above sea level. The terrain of the West Bank is mostly rugged dissected upland, with some vegetation in the west, but somewhat barren in the east.
Since the Hamas attack — which killed some 1,400 people, mostly civilians — Israel has hit Hamas-controlled Gaza with weeks of air strikes and expanded ground operations in the strip.