The Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate (Arabic: محافظة رام الله والبيرةMuḥāfaẓat Rām Allāh wa l Bīra) is one of 16 governorates of Palestine. It covers a large part of the central West Bank, on the northern border of the Jerusalem Governorate. Its district capital or muhfaza (seat) is the city of al-Bireh.[2][3]
Ramallah and Al-Bireh Governorate (Arabic: محافظة رام الله والبيرة) is an administrative division based on the fact that the two sister cities Ramallah and Al-Bireh are so adjacent that they appear as one city. This governorate is one of the sixteen governorates under the Palestinian Authority. The governorate center is located in the city of Al-Bireh and the governor is Dr. Laila Ghanem (Arabic: ليلى غنام). It is the closest city in the West Bank to the Jerusalem Governorate. According to statistics,[5] the population of the governorate is 590,401 people.
Cities and villages
According to PCBS, the governorate has 78 localities, including s, in its jurisdiction. 13 localities have the status of municipality.
This unification has a story that took place in the sixteenth century, when the Christian Haddadin clan (Arabic: عشيرة الحدادين), headed by its sheikh Rashid Haddadin, migrated in 1550 from Shobak in the Karak region west to a ruin called Ramallah in the lands of Al-Bireh. According to Bedouin customs, they entered under the protection of the Muslim Al-Bira clans at that time. Over time, Ramallah grew into what it is today. The people of Ramallah consider themselves one large family of one origin.[6]
Israeli settlements
Israel has built population centers and transferred residents to settlements throughout the occupied West Bank, which is in violation of international law. The area of settlements in the governorate in 2004 amounted to 30.3 thousand square kilometers, and the number of official settlements in the Ramallah governorate at the end of 2004 amounted to twenty-four settlements.[7]
Some of the Israeli settlements established on the lands of the Ramallah and Al-Bireh governorate:
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