May 25, 2013
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Description
The Palestinian Authority, is the interim self-government body established to govern the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a consequence of the 1994 Oslo Accords. Since its establishment in 1994, it has renamed itself the Palestinian National Authority and in 2013, after the United Nations General Assembly recognised the State of Palestine as a non-member observer state in the UN, the internationally recognized Fatah government in the West Bank renamed itself the State of Palestine. Following elections in 2006 and the subsequent Gaza conflict between the Fatah and Hamas parties, its authority has extended only as far as the West Bank.
The Palestinian Authority was formed in 1994, pursuant to the Oslo Accords between the Palestine Liberation Organization and the government of Israel, as a five-year interim body. Further negotiations were then meant to take place between the two parties regarding its final status. As of 2012, more than seventeen years following the formulation of the Authority, this status has yet to be reached.
According to the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority was designated to have exclusive control over both security-related and civilian issues in Palestinian urban areas and only civilian control over Palestinian rural areas. The remainder of the territories, including Israeli settlements, the Jordan Valley region and bypass roads between Palestinian communities, were to remain under Israeli control. East Jerusalem was excluded from the Accords. Over time, political change has meant that the areas governed by the Authority have also changed. Negotiations with several Israeli governments had resulted in the Authority gaining further control of some areas, but control was then lost in some areas when the Israel Defense Forces retook several strategic positions during the Second Intifada. In 2005, after the Second Intifada, Israel withdrew unilaterally from its settlements in the Gaza Strip, thereby expanding Palestinian control to the entire strip.
(via Freebase)
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