Fragmented Lives: Palestine
Humanitarian Overview 2011: Overall, while the Palestinian Authority’s state-building initiative continued in those parts of the West Bank which it controls, 2011 witnessed the continuing fragmentation of the occupied Palestinian territory. The Gaza Strip remains effectively isolated by the blockade, with the movement of people and goods highly restricted, particularly from the West Bank, counter to Israel’s commitment, under the Oslo Accords, to recognize the Gaza Strip and the West Bank as a ‘single territorial unit.’ East Jerusalem – which traditionally served as the focus of political, commercial, religious and cultural life for the entire Palestinian population of the oPt – is increasingly separated from the remainder of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as a result of policies and practices adopted by Israel following its unilateral annexation in 1967. The remainder of the West Bank is further subdivided by a complex system of physical and bureaucratic restrictions, centred round Palestinian inability to build or to develop land and water resources and the continuing expansion of settlements.
