About the Palestinian People

The Palestinian people are residents of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, areas which have been under Israeli occupation ever since the end of the 1967 war with its Arab neighbors. They trace their ancestry to the Canaanites and other Semitic peoples who moved into ancient Palestine some 2000 years ago. Over the years, the Palestinian people have enriched this land with monuments and places which have been worldly attractions for hundreds of years. Visit the Archives link for more information on Palestinian cities and towns.

The West Bank

The West Bank comprises an area of 5655 Km west of the Jordan River and administered by Jordan until 1967. It has a total population of 2.4 million. There is also an estimated 400, 000 Israelis who have illegally settled in the West Bank since the 1967 takeover by Israel.
The West Bank is predominantly rural with up to 60% of the population living in about 500 villages. There are eight medium size towns, of which Ramallah, the largest one, currently serves as the center of the Palestinian National Authority’s (PNA) operations.

Gaza Strip

The Gaza Strip is a narrow strip of land on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, lying about 40 miles southeast of the West Bank. It is bordered by Israel on the north and east, and by Egypt on the south under whose sovereignty it was until the 1967 war. Stretching about 40 miles from north to south but only about 5 miles wide it has a total area of just 365 Km2. However, with a population of 1.4 million people, it is one of the most densely populated places in the world (4000 people per square km).

In sharp contrast to the West Bank, Gaza is highly “urbanized” with the bulk of the population living in cities, towns and 8 crowded refugee camps, home to approximately 468,071 refugees.

The population of both the West Bank and Gaza Strip consists mostly of young people, with 47% of the total populace fourteen years of age or younger and 57% of 19 years of age or younger. Families are usually large, averaging between 6 to 7 individuals per household in Gaza and 5-6 persons in the West Bank. The rate of population growth too is very high at the- an annual average rate of increase of 4.7% a year in the West Bank and 5.4% in Gaza.

From 1967 until 1993, both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip were under complete Israeli occupation. Following the Oslo Peace Accords in 1993, some areas of the West Bank were handed over to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) along with about 60% of the Gaza Strip. However, Israeli military incursions into the territories that have been handed over have not stopped completely.