A report on Israel, Jerusalem and East Jerusalem

Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one half of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the territory of former British Palestine, now encompassing the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (the Palestinian territories) as well as Israel.

In this combined area,, Palestinians constituted 49 percent of all inhabitants, encompassing the entire population of the Gaza Strip (1.865 million), the majority of the population of the West Bank (approximately 2,785,000 versus some 600,000 Israeli settlers, which includes about 200,000 in East Jerusalem), and almost 21 percent of the population of Israel proper as part of its Arab citizens.

The Jewish population in Jerusalem and its environs in Judea suffered a hard blow during the Jewish-Roman Wars that was never fully recovered.

The Six-Day War (מִלְחֶמֶת שֵׁשֶׁת הַיָּמִים; النكسة or حرب 1967), also known as the June War, the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or the Third Arab–Israeli War, was an armed conflict fought from 5 to 10 June 1967 between Israel and a coalition of Arab states primarily comprising Jordan, Syria and Egypt (then known as United Arab Republic).

At the cessation of hostilities, Israel had seized the Golan Heights from Syria, the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) from Jordan, and the Gaza Strip as well as the entire Sinai Peninsula from Egypt.

The first two were permanently stationed near Jerusalem and were the Jerusalem Brigade and the mechanized Harel Brigade.

It is bordered by Jordan and the Dead Sea to the east and by Israel (see Green Line) to the south, west, and north.

The West Bank's borders also include the lands that comprise East Jerusalem.

The most densely populated part of the region is a mountainous spine, running north–south, where the cities of Jerusalem, Nablus, Ramallah, al-Bireh, Jenin, Bethlehem, Hebron and Yattah are located as well as the Israeli settlements of Ariel, Ma'ale Adumim and Beitar Illit.

It was soon recognized by all Arab League members except Transjordan, which had occupied and later annexed the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

Israel later captured the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria during the Six-Day War in June 1967.

Although Palestine claims Jerusalem as its capital, the city is under the control of Israel; both Palestine's and Israel's claims to the city are mostly not recognized by the international community.

In 1947, these ongoing tensions erupted into civil war following the 29 November 1947 adoption of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, which planned to divide Palestine into an Arab state, a Jewish state, and the Special International Regime encompassing the cities of Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

Transjordan took control of East Jerusalem and what became known as the West Bank, annexing it the following year, and the Egyptian military took control of the Gaza Strip.

On 14 May 1948, David Ben-Gurion declared the establishment of the State of Israel and the 1948 Palestine war entered its second phase with the intervention of the Arab state armies and the beginning of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO; منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية, Munaẓẓamat at-Taḥrīr al-Filasṭīniyyah) is a Palestinian nationalist political and militant organization founded in 1964 with the initial purpose of establishing Arab unity and statehood over the territory of former Mandatory Palestine, in opposition to the State of Israel.

The Palestinian National Council convened in Jerusalem on 28 May 1964.

In 1988, however, the PLO officially endorsed a two-state solution, contingent on terms such as making East Jerusalem capital of the Palestinian state and giving Palestinians the right of return to land occupied by Palestinians prior to 1948, as well as the right to continue armed struggle until the end of "The Zionist Entity."

Prior to hostilities in 1948, Palestine (modern-day West Bank, Gaza Strip and Israel) had been under the Mandate for Palestine control of the British Empire, which captured it from the Ottomans in 1917.

Jordanian forces remained in most positions they held in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Old City.

A Special Committee was to be formed to make arrangements for safe movement of traffic between Jerusalem and the Mount Scopus campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, along the Latrun-Jerusalem Highway, free access to the Holy Places, and other matters. The committee was never formed, and access to the Holy Places was denied to Israelis.

Israeli-occupied territories are the lands that were captured and occupied by Israel during the Six-Day War of 1967.

Despite the dissolution of the military government, and in line with Egyptian demands, the term Occupied Arab Territories had remained in use, referring to the West Bank (including East Jerusalem, which Israel effectively annexed in 1980), the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights.

Jerusalem has created additional issues in relation to the question of whether or not it is occupied territory.

Corpus separatum (Latin for "separated body") was the internationalization proposal for Jerusalem and its surrounding area as part of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine.

The corpus separatum was one of the main issues of the Lausanne Conference of 1949, besides the borders of Israel and the question of the Palestinian right of return.

The Partition Plan was not implemented, being firstly rejected by Palestinian and other Arab leaders and then overtaken by the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, which left Jerusalem split between Israel (West Jerusalem) and Jordan (East Jerusalem).

Opposed to the 1948 creation of the State of Israel, he fought alongside the Muslim Brotherhood during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.

Jerusalem was the family home of his mother, Zahwa Abul Saud, who died from a kidney ailment in 1933, when Arafat was four years of age.

It called for a Palestinian national authority over every part of "liberated" Palestinian territory, which refers to areas captured by Arab forces in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War (present-day West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip).