Israel

Israel is a country of 7 million people in the eastern Mediterranean littoral. It is bounded by the Sinai desert on the south, the Jordan River valley on the east, and Lebanon on the north, although its exact borders have been the subject of both war and political negotiations. Since 1967, Israel has occupied the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights, which it conquered in the Six Day War. Nonstate entities exercise some level of control over the occupied territories—Hamas over the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian Authority over the West Bank—so the borders between Israel and these areas are not international in nature. In addition, Israel has extended administrative rule to the Golan Heights and has [Page 720]annexed East Jerusalem, a ...