Population: 3,433,000 (2002)
Land Area: 6,220 SQ KM
Capital: Jerusalem (Al-Quds Ash Sharif)
Language: Arabic
ENVIRONMENT
In terms of international law ‘Palestine’ is the 27,000 sq km territory west of the Jordan River which the League of Nations handed over to Britain's ‘mandatory’ power in 1918. This territory comprises: the area occupied by Israel before 1967, 20,073 sq km; Jerusalem and its surroundings, 70 sq km; the West Bank area, 5,879 sq km and the Gaza Strip, 378 sq km. It is a land of temperate Mediterranean climate, fertile on the coast and in the Jordan Valley. It is surrounded in the south and the northeast by the Sinai and Syrian deserts respectively. The Gaza region suffers from a severe scarcity of water. The accumulation of waste water and refuse make the refugee camps highly contaminated. Soil erosion and deforestation are also serious problems.
SOCIETY
Peoples: Palestinians are an Arab people. In 1997 estimates put nearly seven million Palestinians living in Palestine and abroad. There are 700,000 in Israel; 1,500,000 on the West Bank; 800,000 in the Gaza Strip, and the rest spread in Middle Eastern (Jordan 2,170,000; Lebanon 395,000; Syria 360,000; other Arab countries 517,000) and European countries. 33 per cent of the inhabitants of the occupied territories live in refugee camps. There are large Palestinian populations in US, Chile, Brazil and other countries.
Religions: Muslim (mostly Sunni) 97 per cent; Christians of the Eastern Orthodox 3 per cent.
Languages: Palestinians speak Arabic and often also use Hebrew in the occupied territories, a language with the same Semitic root which is more similar to Arabic than to the European languages of immigrants.
Political parties: The main political organization represented in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is the Al-Fatah National Liberation Movement, founded in 1965 by Yasser Arafat. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the second largest party, founded in 1967 by George Habash, with a Marxist-Leninist orientation like the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), led by Nayef Hawatmeth. Al-Saika (Sa‘iqa), pan-Arabist, founded in 1966, led by ‘Isam al-Qadi (Secretary General from 1979), has brought in the Palestinians who support the Syrian Ba'ath Party; the Arab Liberation Front, (Current Secretary General is Rakad Salem), pan-Arabist, have close links with the Iraqi Ba'ath Party; The General Command (al-Qiyada al-'amma)-DFLP, split from the DFLP, led by Talal Naji (Deputy secretary-general); The Palestinian People's Party (PPP-Hizb al-Sha‘b, previously Palestine Communist Party) led by Mustafa Barghuthi, Hana Amira and ‘Abd al-Majid Hamdan; The Palestinian Revolutionary Communist Party (al-Hizb al-Shuyu‘i al-Thawri al-Filastini), led by ‘Arabi ‘Awwad. The Hamas group, very influential in Gaza and the West Bank, is opposed to Oslo process and autonomy agreements, led by Khalid Misha'al (president of Hamas Political Bureau), Abdel Aziz Rantisi (Hamas spokesman in Gaza), Abu Marzuq (member of Hamas Political Bureau), Ibrahim Ghousheh (Hamas spokesman), Jamal Mansour (Hamas leader in the West Bank). Islamic Jihad (Al-Jihad al-Islami), led by Jamal Amar, Ramadan Shallah, Ziyad Nahala, Ibrahim Shihada and Ahmad Muhana.
Social organizations: Palestinian Labor Federation; General Union of Palestine Women; Addamir (prisoners' association).
THE STATE
Official name: As-Sulta Al-Watania Al-Filistiniya.
Capital: Jerusalem (Al-Quds Ash Sharif), 668,000 people (1999), has traditionally been the capital of Palestine; the Palestine National Authority (PNA) is in Jericho, 14,744 people (1997).
Government: Yasser Arafat, President of the Palestine National Authority since July 1994, re-elected in January 1996. The Autonomous Council acts as a Parliament.
Armed forces: there are no official data available.
STATISTICS
DEMOGRAPHY
Population: 3,433,000 (2002)
Annual growth: 3.9 % (1985-2000)
Estimates for year 2015: 5,317,000 (2000)
Annual growth to year 2015: 3.4 % (2000)
Children per woman: 5.8 (2000)
HEALTH
Life expectancy at birth: 72 years (2000-2005)
male: 71 years (2000-2005)
female: 74 years (2000-2005)
Infant mortality: 0 per 1,000 (2000)
Under-5 child mortality: 25 per 1,000 (2000)
Safe water: 86 % (2000)
School enrolment (net):
Primary total: 94 % (1994/2000)
ECONOMY
Annual growth: -10.3 % (2000)
Exports: $ 604 million (2000)
Imports: $ 3,085 million (2000)
