ABSTRACT
The Oslo interim agreements of 1993-1995 established a set of new political structures in the West Bank and Gaza, transforming the political mechanisms and institutions upon which the Palestinian people had relied since the mid1960s to lead their national liberation struggle. Through its agreement with Israel, the PLO, as the sole representative of the Palestinians and having drawn its political base and legitimacy from the support of the Palestinian population both inside and outside the oPt, established the Palestinian Authority (PA). Yasser Arafat, the leader of Fatah (the largest faction in the PLO) and his supporters moved from their headquarters in Tunis to Gaza City in July 1994 to become the ruling elite of this new administration. The PA was conceived as an inherently transient institution (the time of the interim period until final status negotiations), limited spatially (full control over Area A and partially over Area B) and circumscribed in the powers it could exercise in the non-contiguous areas which it was created to administer: the PA did not have control over its internal and external borders, airspace, sea access, defence and foreign policy, and key natural resources such as land and water. As described previously, it also lacked an autonomous fiscal and monetary base, and trade and the movement of goods and people to the outside world, between and within the autonomous areas were wholly dependent on Israel.
