Editing Palestinian Authority (section)

====Palestinian Authority passport====
{{main|Palestinian Authority passport}}
In April 1995, the Palestinian Authority, pursuant to the Oslo Accords with the State of Israel, started to issue passports to Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip and West Bank. The appearance of the passport and details about its issuance are described in Appendix C of Annex II (Protocol Concerning Civil Affairs) of the Gaza-Jericho Agreement signed by Israel and the PLO on 4 May 1994. The Palestinian Authority does not issue the passports on behalf of the proclaimed State of Palestine.<ref name=Kapitanp231>{{Cite book
|editor-last=Kapitan|editor-first=Tomis
|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kvExBpKOVFMC&pg=PA231
| first = Jerome M. | last = Segal
| chapter= The State of Palestine: The Question of Existence
| pages =221–243
|title=Philosophical Perspectives on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict|date=1997|publisher=M.E. Sharpe|isbn=978-0-7656-3944-8}}</ref>{{rp|231}} The passports bear the inscription: "''This passport/travel document is issued pursuant to the Palestinian Self Government Agreement according to Oslo Agreement signed in Washington on 13/9/1993''".<ref>"United States Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, Palestine/Occupied Territories: Information On Passports Issued By The Palestine National Authority, 17 December 1998, PAL99001.ZCH, available at: [http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3df0b9914.html] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110811031142/http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3df0b9914.html|date=11 August 2011}}" . Retrieved 24 August 2010.</ref> By September 1995, the passport had been recognised by 29 states, some of them (e.g. the United States) recognise it only as a travel document (see further details below): Algeria, Bahrain, Bulgaria, People's Republic of China, Cyprus, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, India, Iran, Jordan, Malta, Morocco, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tunisia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States.<ref name=Eurp933>Eur, 2004, p. 933.</ref>

While the U.S. Government recognises Palestinian Authority passports as travel documents, it does not view them as conferring citizenship, since they are not issued by a government that they recognise. Consular officials representing the Governments of Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, when asked by the Resource Information Center of [[UNHCR]] in May 2002, would not comment on whether their governments viewed PA passports as conferring any proof of citizenship or residency, but did say that the passports, along with valid visas or other necessary papers, would allow their holders to travel to their countries.<ref name=UNHCR>{{cite web|url=http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/pdfid/402d150c4.pdf|title=Palestinian Territory, Occupied|date=20 May 2002|author=INS Resource Information Center|publisher=United Nations High Commission for Refugees|access-date=24 January 2009}}</ref>

The Palestinian Authority has said that anyone born in Palestine carrying a birth certificate attesting to that can apply for a PA passport. Whether or not Palestinians born outside Palestine could apply was not clear to the PA Representative questioned by UNHCR representatives in May 2002. The PA representative also said even if those applying met the PA's eligibility criteria, the Israeli government placed additional restrictions on the actual issuance of passports.<ref name=UNHCR/>

In October 2007, a Japanese Justice Ministry official said, "Given that the Palestinian Authority has improved itself to almost a full-fledged state and issues its own passports, we have decided to accept the Palestinian nationality." The decision followed a recommendation by a ruling party panel on nationality that Palestinians should no longer be treated as stateless.<ref>{{Cite press release 
| agency= Kuwait News Agency 
| date = 5 October 2007
|title=Japan to recognize Palestinian nationality
|url=https://www.kuna.net.kw/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=1846153&language=en|access-date=2023-02-20}}{{pb}}{{ cite news
| via=Japan News Review
| newspaper= Yomiuri Shimbun
| title=Government to recognize Palestinian 'nationality'
| date = 6 October 2007 |url=http://www.japannewsreview.com/society/national/20071006page_id=2302 
 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110718101636/http://www.japannewsreview.com/society/national/20071006page_id%3D2302 |archive-date=18 July 2011}}
</ref>