The sections of the Green Line that delineate the boundaries between Israel, the West Bank and
Gaza run through heavily populated regions. The Line corresponds to the military front of the 1948 War, and while the considerations dictating its placement were primarily military, it soon became clear that in many places it divided towns and villages, and separated farmers from their fields. Consequently, the Green Line underwent various slight adjustments, and special arrangements were made for limited movement in certain areas.
Jerusalem was divided in half, into
East and
West Jerusalem. The village of
Barta'a, partially due to errors on the map, was left with one third of its area on the Israeli side and two thirds outside of it.
Jewish population During the war in 1947–48, Jews residing east of what subsequently became the Line, including the
Jewish Quarter of the
Old City, were taken prisoner by the Jordanians. All but a few of the
Gush Etzion defenders were massacred. The prisoners were returned to Israel after the war. From August to September 2005, Israel implemented a
unilateral disengagement plan in which the entire Jewish population of the
Gaza Strip was evacuated. In 2006,
Ehud Olmert proposed a
convergence plan that called for Israel to disengage, unilaterally, if necessary, from much of the West Bank (east of the line).
Arab population The majority of
Palestinian Arabs on the Israeli side of the Line
fled or were expelled during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War (around 720,000). Those who remained became Israeli citizens and now comprise approximately 20 per cent of Israel's total citizenry. The
Umm al-Fahm–
Baqa al-Gharbiyye–
Tira area, known as the "
Triangle," was originally designated to fall under
Jordanian jurisdiction, but Israel insisted on having it within its side of the Green Line side due to military and strategic reasons. To achieve this, a territorial swap was negotiated, ceding to Jordan the Israeli territory in the southern hills of
Hebron in exchange for the Triangle villages in
Wadi Ara. The Green Line remained the administrative border between these territories (with the exception of Jerusalem) and the areas on the Israeli side of the Green Line. In 1967, Israel annexed East Jerusalem and gave its Arab inhabitants
permanent residency status. They were also entitled to apply for Israeli citizenship. Domestically, Israel attempted to emphasize the status of East Jerusalem as part of Israel by its 1980 Jerusalem Law.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 478 deemed the law null and void, and this status has not been recognised by any other nation. In 1981, the
Knesset enacted the
Golan Heights Law, ostensibly as a reaction to Syrian provocations. This extended the Israeli
rule of law to the Golan Heights. (It was also thought to have been motivated by the recent US AWACS sale to Saudi Arabia.) This act was widely considered an informal annexation. It was criticized by the United States as a violation of the Camp David Accords
Official maps In October and November 1967, the Israeli security cabinet passed resolutions to remove the Green Line from official maps. The decision was classified "top secret" and a media blackout was imposed. In 2022, the
Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality sent maps to its schools that indicated the Green Line contrary to usual practice. The mayor explained the decision as "It's important to us that students know Israel's sovereign borders and the complex reality in areas where Jewish citizens of Israel and Arabs under the Palestinian Authority's control live side by side". However, the
Education Ministry told the municipality that the maps must not be used "even as a poster on the wall". ==Israeli–Palestinian conflict==