The State of Palestine is a partially recognized state in the Southern Levant region of West Asia, encompassing the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, both under Israeli military occupation, bordered mostly by Israel with the West Bank also bordering Jordan to the east and Gaza bordering Egypt to the southwest, and covering a total land area of 6,020 square kilometers. Jerusalem is Palestine's proclaimed capital, though Ramallah functions as the de facto administrative center, and Gaza was the largest city before the 2023 evacuations; the 2023 population estimate exceeded 5.48 million. The Palestine Liberation Organization declared independence in 1988, and the 1993 Oslo Accords established the Palestinian Authority with limited governance over parts of the West Bank and Gaza; the State of Palestine is recognized by 157 United Nations member states and holds permanent non-member observer status at the United Nations. It is governed as a unitary semi-presidential republic under provisional government status, with Mahmoud Abbas as president and Mohammad Mustafa as prime minister; Israel maintains a military occupation of the West Bank, with more than 737,000 settlers in built settlements, and has blockaded Gaza, where the October 2023 attacks and the subsequent Israeli military campaign produced a severe humanitarian crisis.
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