Palestine,
1945–2026.
A dated record of proposed borders, territorial control, occupation, displacement and restrictions on movement.
These are different kinds of evidence. A proposal was not an established border. An area under an authority’s control was not empty of Palestinian residents.
Published
The turning points
People and land are separate measures
Palestinian Arabs made up about two-thirds of the population of British Mandate Palestine in the mid-1940s. That is a population figure. Mandate land records separately reported about 48% as Arab-owned and 6% as Jewish-owned; much of the rest was public, other or unresolved.
Sources: UN population record · UN land records, pp. 43–44
The UN proposes partition
UN General Assembly Resolution 181 proposed Arab and Jewish states and international administration for Jerusalem. Its proposed Jewish state covered just over half of Mandatory Palestine. The proposed borders did not come into force as drawn.
Source: UN partition plan and map
War, displacement and armistice lines
After the 1948 war, Israel controlled about 77% of former Mandatory Palestine. Around 750,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled. The West Bank came under Jordanian control and Gaza under Egyptian administration. These are measures of territorial control and displacement, not of who owned every parcel.
Sources: UN historical overview · UN refugee backgrounder
The West Bank and Gaza are occupied
Israeli forces captured the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. The UN estimates that about half a million Palestinians fled their homes during the war, including some people displaced in 1948. Occupation did not mean these territories had no Palestinian residents.
Sources: UN historical overview · ICJ case record on the occupation
Settlement locations multiply
In the UN OCHA point inventory used for the animation, 65 settlement locations have an establishment year of 1980 or earlier. A point marks a location. It does not show a settlement’s full area or all the land that Palestinians could no longer reach.
Oslo divides the West Bank
The Oslo arrangements divided the West Bank into Areas A, B and C. The Palestinian Authority took on civil affairs in Areas A and B, while Israel retained near-exclusive control over planning and construction in Area C. Area C covers more than 60% of the West Bank, and Palestinians live there too.
Sources: UN OCHA on Area C · UNICEF area layer
Withdrawal, then the Gaza blockade
Israel removed its settlements and permanent ground forces from inside Gaza in 2005. From 2007, the blockade and related restrictions severely constrained movement of people and goods. Gaza’s boundary did not shrink. The International Court of Justice later said Israel continued to exercise key forms of authority there.
Sources: UN OCHA on the 2005 withdrawal · UN OCHA crossings data · ICJ 2024 opinion
Settlements and outposts across the West Bank
The map’s dots show settlement and outpost locations recorded by UN OCHA. Some records have an establishment year and others do not. The dots do not represent land titles, settlement footprints or the full extent of access restrictions.
Source: UN OCHA point inventory
Displacement continues
In its report covering late September to mid-October 2026, UN OCHA said 133 Palestinian communities in the West Bank had experienced displacement due to settler attacks and related access restrictions since January 2023. It reported that 49 of those communities had been fully displaced. These are dated findings, not new land parcels drawn on the map.
Read the maps alongside the record
The animation connects dated maps visually. Shapes between dates are transitions, not reconstructed boundaries. The historical maps and methods explain what each colour and figure represents.