November 15 in History
1988 –An independent State of Palestine is proclaimed by the Palestinian National Council
On this day in 1988, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), at the urging of its chairman Yasser Arafat, issued the Palestinian Declaration of Independence, establishing the State of Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza strip designating eastern Jerusalem as the state’s capital. The declaration was made while the PLO was in exile in Algiers, Algeria. Today, almost 70% of all UN member states recognize the State of Palestine as an independent country.
The West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip has been Israeli-occupied territories since the 1967 Six-Day War.
The West Bank contains 165 Palestinian enclaves that are under partial Palestinian rule, but the remainder, including 200 Israeli settlements, is under full Israeli control. The Gaza Strip was governed by Egypt but conquered by Israel in 1967. Israel governed the region until it withdrew in 2005.
A year after the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) was formed to govern (in varying degrees) areas A and B in the West Bank, comprising 165 enclaves, and the Gaza Strip. After Hamas became the PNA parliament‘s leading party in the 2006 elections a conflict broke out between it and the Fatah party, leading to the Gaza Strip being taken over by Hamas in 2007. The Gaza Strip has since been blockaded by Israel and Egypt.
The State of Palestine’s mid-year population in 2021 was 5,227,193. Although Palestine claims Jerusalem as its capital, the city is under the control of Israel; both Palestinian and Israeli claims to the city are mostly unrecognized by the international community. Palestine is a member of the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the G77, the International Olympic Committee, as well as UNESCO, UNCTAD and the International Criminal Court. Following a failed attempt in 201 to secure full United Nations member state status, the United Nations General Assembly voted in 2012 to recognize Palestine as a non-member observer state.
-Wikipedia/ENCL
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