Area A, Area B, and Area C

The Israeli–Palestinian Interim Agreement of 28 September 1995 (“Oslo II”) carved the West Bank into three zones as a temporary arrangement pending a final-status settlement due within five years. Area A, roughly 18 percent of the territory, comprised the main Palestinian cities, where the new Palestinian Authority (PA) assumed civil and security control. Area B, roughly 22 percent, covered most Palestinian towns and villages, where the PA ran civil affairs while Israel retained overriding security control. Area C — everything else, about 60 percent, including all Israeli settlements, the Jordan Valley, and most open land — remained under full Israeli civil and military control.

In Area C, Israel controls planning, construction, water, and natural resources. Palestinian construction there requires Israeli permits that are rarely granted, and homes, wells, and other structures built without them are subject to demolition; UN monitors describe the resulting displacement pressure as a “coercive environment.” Most settlement blocs, military firing zones, and nature reserves — categories from which Palestinians are largely excluded — also lie in Area C.

The zone system was designed to dissolve into final-status negotiations by 1999, but those talks never concluded. A quarter-century later the Areas still structure daily life: Israel’s fragmented enclaves of PA rule in Areas A and B are surrounded by an ever more consolidated Area C, which critics describe as de facto annexation, while successive Israeli governments have treated the division as a durable framework rather than a transitional one.

Sources

• Area C — B’Tselem
• West Bank — Area C: Key Humanitarian Concerns (PDF) — UN OCHA oPt, 2014