Area C

Instead of transferring to Palestinian control, the biggest 'Area' in the West Bank remains firmly in Israeli hands.


Under the Oslo Accords, the 1993 interim agreement between Israel and the PLO, the Occupied West Bank was divided into three Areas, A, B, and C, which were placed under different jurisdictions.

The largest and the most contentious of these, Area C, was supposed to pass to Palestinian control but in the last two decades the exact opposite has happened. Israel has retained control of an area comprising over 60% of the Occupied West Bank.


"Area C constitutes a real disaster," says Dr Hussein Al-Rimmawi of Birzeit University in the West Bank. "Most of the Israeli settlements have been built in Area C. It's under full Israeli control, particularly security. Palestinians have no authority over this."

The whole Palestinian people have been affected and individual communities like the villages of Al Maleh, Kafr Qaddum and Aqaba have suffered.