Interim Agreement On The West Bank and The Gaza Strip - History

History

It was first signed in Taba (in the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt) by Israel and the PLO on September 24, 1995 and then four days later on September 28, 1995 by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and witnessed by US President Bill Clinton as well as by representatives of Russia, Egypt, Jordan, Norway, and the European Union in Washington, D.C. Yet the 1995 Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement which created the PA established a fundamental principle: “Neither side shall initiate or take any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the Permanent Status negotiations.”

The agreement, in effect a component of a comprehensive peace treaty, built on the foundations of the initial Oslo Accords, formally known as the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements which had been formally signed on September 13, 1993 by Israel and the PLO, with Prime Minister Rabin and Chairman Arafat in Washington, D.C. shaking hands, and officially witnessed by the United States and Russia.

It specifically supersedes three earlier agreements:

• the Gaza–Jericho Agreement of 29 April 1994 or 4 May 1994, including the Protocol on Economic Relations
• the Agreement on Preparatory Transfer of Powers and Responsibilities Between Israel and the PLO at Erez Crossing of 29 August 1994, also known as the Early Empowerment Agreement
• the Protocol on Further Transfer of Powers and Responsibilities at Cairo of 27 August 1995, also known as the Further Transfer Protocol

The Interim Agreement of 1995 became the basis for subsequent negotiations and agreements such as the Hebron Protocol of 1997 and the Wye River Memorandum of 1998 and it is a basis for the latter Road map for peace of 2002.