'on this side of the River Jordan') are the usual names for the territory in Romance languages, e.g. Spanish: Cisjordania, Portuguese: Cisjordânia, French: Cisjordanie, Italian: Cisgiordania, and Romanian: Cisiordania, and in some others, e.g. Basque: Zisjordania, Breton: Sisjordania, Hungarian: Ciszjordánia, Guarani: Sihorytáña, and Esperanto: Cisjordanio.

Since the 1993 Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority officially controls a geographically non-contiguous territory comprising approximately 11% of the West Bank, known as Area A, which remains subject to Israeli incursions.

[50] The migration of workers from the territories had a negative impact on local industry, by creating an internal labour scarcity in the West Bank and consequent pressure for higher wages there.

[49] Attempting to impose governmental authority, Israel established a licensing system according to which no industrial plant could be built without obtaining a prior Israeli permit.

In order to protect Israeli farmers, melon production was forbidden, imports of grapes and dates were banned, and limits were set to how many cucumbers and tomatoes could be produced.

[54] Israeli protectionist policies distorted wider trade relations to the point that, by 1996, 90% of all West Bank imports came from Israel, with consumers paying more than they would for comparable products had they been able to exercise commercial autonomy.

Turkey, successor state to the Ottoman Empire, renounced its territorial claims in 1923, signing the Treaty of Lausanne, and the area now called the West Bank became an integral part of the British Mandate for Palestine.

[63][65]The executive branch of the Israeli government, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has defined the West Bank as "disputed" instead of "occupied" territory, whose status can only be determined through negotiations.

[78][79] In December 2016, a resolution was adopted by United Nations Security Council that condemned Israel's settlement activity as a "flagrant violation" of international law with "no legal validity".

Among those most commonly cited have been: The importance of demographic concerns to some significant figures in Israel's leadership was illustrated when Avraham Burg, a former Knesset Speaker and former chair of the Jewish Agency for Israel, wrote in The Guardian in September 2003, As of 2022, there are over 450,000 Israeli settlers living in 132 Israeli settlements in the West Bank excluding East Jerusalem, with an additional 220,000 Jewish settlers residing in 12 settlements in East Jerusalem.

[123] Immediately after the 1967 war, Theodor Meron, legal counselor of Israel's Foreign Ministry, advised Israeli ministers in a "top secret" memo that any policy of building settlements across occupied territories violated international law and would "contravene the explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention".

[132] The demolitions sparked a political debate as according to PeaceNow it was a double standard ("After what happened today in Bil'in, there is no reason that the state should defend its decision to continue the construction" credited to Michael Sfard).

[146][147][148] The barrier generally runs along or near the 1949 Jordanian-Israeli armistice/Green Line, but diverges in many places to include on the Israeli side several of the highly populated areas of Jewish settlements in the West Bank such as East Jerusalem, Ariel, Gush Etzion, Immanuel, Karnei Shomron, Givat Ze'ev, Oranit, and Maale Adumim.

Swimming pools, well-watered lawns and large irrigated farms in Israeli settlements in the OPT stand in stark contrast next to Palestinian villages whose inhabitants struggle even to meet their essential domestic water needs.

[174] The landfill near Al-Jiftlik in the Jericho Governorate, built on absentee Palestinian property without planning or an environment impact analysis, is for the exclusive use of waste, 1,000 tons per day, produced by Israeli settlements and cities within Israel.

[190] A Human Rights Watch report contrasts the difference between a Palestinian-owned quarry company in Beit Fajar and that of a European one working on what Israeli considers its state land.

The potential incremental value that could accrue to the Palestinian economy from the production and sales of potash, bromine and magnesium has been conservatively estimated at US$918 million per annum, or 9 percent of GDP.

[193][194] The lost earnings from not being allowed to process Dead Sea minerals such as potash, and for making bromide-based flame retardants, based on calculations of comparable use by Israel and Jordan, suggest a figure of $642 million.

The journalist Hamdi Faraj, jailed for endangering public order, had his 500-volume library confiscated, including copies of the Bible and Qur'an and, when he applied for their restitution, was told all the books had been accidentally burnt.

Based on 1967 figures, the Palestinian Dead Sea Coastline is roughly 40 km in length, of which 15% (6 kilometres) could lend itself to the same tourist infrastructure developed by Jordan and Israel in their respective areas.

[202] It is also the only maritime recreational outlet for West Bankers, but according to an Acri complaint to the Israeli Supreme Court in 2008 Palestinians are often barred or turned away from the beaches at their only access point, the Beit Ha'arava checkpoint on Route 90.

All access points are controlled by Israel and the road system, checkpoints and obstacles in place for visitors desiring to visit Palestinian towns leaves their hotels half-empty.

[218] 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.

Modi'in Illit, Qalqilyah and Tulkarm are in the low foothills adjacent to the Israeli Coastal Plain, and Jericho and Tubas are situated in the Jordan Valley, north of the Dead Sea.

"[226] Between 1994 and 1997, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) built 290 km (180 mi) of bypass roads in the territories, on appropriated land because they ran close to Palestinian villages.

[228] For TAU emeritus professor of geography Elisha Efrat, they ignored the historical topography, road systems and environmental characteristics of the West Bank, and simply formed an apartheid network of "octopus arms which hold a grip on Palestinian population centres".

At best drivers must wait for several hours for them to be returned, when, as can happen, the IDs themselves are lost as soldiers change shifts, in which case Palestinians are directed to some regional office the next day, and more checkpoints to get there.

[227] Even before the Al Aqsa Intifada, UNFPA estimated that 20% of pregnant West Bank women were unable to access prenatal care because of the difficulties and delays caused by crossing checkpoints, and dozens were forced to deliver their children on the roadside.

[234] The checkpoint system did not ease up after the Oslo Accords, but was strengthened after them, which has been interpreted as suggesting their function is to assert control over Palestinians, and as a sign of an unwillingness to yield ground in the West Bank.

[235] According to PA Health Ministry statistics relating to the period from 2000 to 2006, of 68 Palestinian women who gave birth to their children while held up at checkpoints, 35 miscarried and 5 died while delivering their child there.