Israeli Settlements: A History | Page 6

attacks on its civilian population , as had been the case before the 1967 war ; the international community still widely regards it as occupied . Israel has established settlements and military bases in the Golan . In 2000 , then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered to return virtually all of the Golan Heights , an offer that was rejected by Syrian President Bashar Assad . Any talk of Israel returning the Golan to Syria has died down , a casualty of the bloody civil war that has been sweeping Syria since 2011 .
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The Gaza Strip Between 1967 and 2005 , Israel established settlements in the Gaza Strip . In 2005 , when Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered the unilateral disengagement from Gaza , around 8,500 Israeli citizens were removed from the territory . Israel maintains no military or civilian presence , and no longer considers itself an occupying power in the Gaza Strip , though its continued
4 control of the airspace and territorial waters of the Strip , coupled with its armed control of the borders , have led others to continue to refer to Gaza as occupied territory .
The West Bank
There are 500,000 Jewish Israelis living beyond the Green Line , which had been drawn as an armistice line in 1949 and was never intended to be a permanent border . This number includes more than 250,000 Jewish Israelis living in East Jerusalem , which is considered by Israel to be a part of its capital city and not West Bank territory .
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