Triangle (Israel)
concentration of Israeli Arab towns and villages adjacent to the Green Line
The Triangle (Hebrew: המשולש, HaMeshulash; Arabic: المثلث, al-Muthallath), formerly referred to as the Little Triangle, is a concentration of Israeli Arab towns and villages adjacent to the Green Line, located in the eastern Sharon plain among the Samarian foothills; this area is located within the easternmost boundaries of both the Central District and Haifa District. The eleven towns are home to approximately 250,000 Arab citizens of Israel, representing between 10 and 15% of Israel's Palestinian Arab population.
The Triangle is further divided into the "Northern Triangle" or Wadi Ara (around Kafr Qara, Ar'ara, Baqa al-Gharbiyye, Zemer and Umm al-Fahm) and the "Southern Triangle" (around Qalansawe, Tayibe, Kafr Qasim, Tira, Kafr Bara and Jaljulia). Umm al-Fahm and Tayibe are the social, cultural and economic centers for Arab residents of the region. The Triangle is a stronghold of the Islamic Movement in Israel and Raed Salah, the current leader of the movement's northern faction, is a former mayor of Umm al-Fahm.
History and status
Prior to the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and Israel's establishment and sovereignty over the Kafr Qasim, Jaljulia and Kafr Bara area, it was referred to as the "Little Triangle".
The region was originally designated to fall under Jordanian jurisdiction, but while negotiating the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Israel insisted on having it within its side of the Green Line, for military and strategic reasons. To achieve this, a territorial swap was negotiated, ceding the Israeli territory in the southern hills of Hebron in exchange for the Triangle villages in Wadi Ara. The term was later expanded to include the entire area around Wadi Ara (the Northern Triangle of today) and the "Little" appendage quickly fell out of common use.
Populations as of 2024 are as follows:
Umm al-Fahm: 60,209
Tayibe: 46,870
Baqa al-Gharbiyye: 31,275
Ar'ara: 20,734
Kafr Qasim: 27,996
Qalansawe: 25,167
Kafr Qara: 21,066
Jaljulia: 10,992
Zemer: 7,953
Kafr Bara: 3,962
Involuntary loss of citizenship
The concept of stripping the citizens of the area of their citizenship of Israel has been mooted.
“Triangle (Israel)” enters the record as concentration of Israeli Arab towns and villages adjacent to the Green Line. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Triangle, Israel and concentration can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1611002. Authority coordinates are 32.254, 34.994. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1948, 1949 and 2024.
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This entry incorporates text from “Triangle (Israel)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.