What are Areas A, B and C of the occupied West Bank?

The 1995 Oslo II Peace Accord split the territory into three areas, but those lines have become increasingly blurred

An Israeli soldier stands amidst smoke rising from burning tires during a Palestinian protest against the nearby Jewish settlement of Qadomem, in the village of Kofr Qadom in the Israeli-occupied West Bank August 2, 2019. ReutersShow less

The Palestinians have threatened to treat the entirety of the occupied West Bank as if it was "Area A" after Israel, which controls "Area C," demolished Palestinian homes in "Area A". But what do these "areas" and letters mean?

After Israel and the Palestinians sealed the Oslo II Peace Accord in 1995, the Israeli-occupied West Bank was divided into three administrative areas – A, B and C – pending a final status agreement between the two sides that have been at war since the creation of Israel in 1948 and fighting over the West Bank since Israel occupied it in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.

Area A, around 18 per cent of the West Bank, was placed into the hands of the full security and administrative control of Palestinian Authority, which was created in the 1994 Cairo Agreement and operates from the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.

Area B, around 22 per cent of the territory, is controlled by both the PA and Israel.

Area C, approximately 60 per cent of the West Bank, is fully controlled by Israel and is the area of the territory where the majority of Israel's settlements are located. Hundreds of thousands of ultra-religious Israeli settlers live here and Palestinians are anxious that Israel's extreme-right government will seek to annex the entire territory.

Almost 2.8 million Palestinians live in Areas A and B.

But Area C has proven most controversial. Israel controls law enforcement, construction and planning in the area. It has moved to erode Palestinians communities and replace them with Israeli settlements. It regularly refuses to issue construction permits to Palestinians in Area C and has moved to demolish Palestinian structures built without permits.

The UN said that such they have resulted in "displacement and disruption of livelihoods, the entrenchment of poverty and increased aid dependency".

Recent Palestinian anger has derived from Israel moving to demolish a cluster of homes in Wadi Hummus near the separation wall in the occupied West Bank that sits in Area A, under Palestinian jurisdiction, and that had all of the correct building permits.