Outline of the State of Palestine
Palestine- country in the middle east, is politically under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian government and the Hamas Government in Gaza. Since the Palestinian Declaration of Independence in 1988 and the consequent admission into UN as an observer state in 2012, Palestine is today recognized by three-quarters of the world's countries. Its claimed capital is East Jerusalem, although Ramallah is its internationally recognised capital. Although recently promoted to a non-member state status in the UN, the State of Palestine does not exert full control of its territory and has historically turbulent relations with Israel and much of of the west."Note:" West Bank includes the northern portion of the Dead Sea with a shoreline.
Regions of the State of Palestine
Ramallah
Yasser Arafat established his West Bank headquarters, the Mukataa, in Ramallah. Although considered an interim solution, Ramallah became the "de facto" capital of the Palestinian Authority, now officially known as the State of Palestine. It hosts almost all governmental headquarters. In December 2001, Arafat held meetings at the Mukataa, but lived with his wife and daughter in Gaza City. After suicide bombings in Haifa, Arafat was confined to the Ramallah compound. In 2002, the compound was partly demolished by the Israeli Defense Forces and Arafat's building was cut off from the rest of the compound.
On November 11, 2004 Arafat died at the Percy training hospital of the Armies near Paris. He was buried in the courtyard of the Mukataa on November 12, 2004. The site still serves as the Ramallah headquarters of the Palestinian Authority, as well the official West Bank office of Mahmoud Abbas. Throughout 2005, while the Disengagement Plan was underway, some US government officials suggested to the Palestinian leadership to move the provisional capital back to Gaza, where it had been when the Palestinian Aurhority was first established in 1994. President Abbas, however, refrained from doing so, arguing that at this point, it was important to keep the administrative center in the West Bank in order to remind the international community that the West Bank was still awaiting territorial solution.