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The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is an ongoing military and political conflict about
land Land, also known as dry land, ground, or earth, is the solid terrestrial surface of Earth not submerged by the ocean or another body of water. It makes up 29.2% of Earth's surface and includes all continents and islands. Earth's land sur ...
and
self-determination Self-determination refers to a people's right to form its own political entity, and internal self-determination is the right to representative government with full suffrage. Self-determination is a cardinal principle in modern international la ...
within the territory of the former
Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine was a British Empire, British geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the Palestine (region), region of Palestine, and after 1922, under the terms of the League of Nations's Mandate for Palestine. After ...
. Key aspects of the conflict include the
Israeli occupation of the West Bank The West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has been under military occupation by Israel since 7 June 1967, when Israeli forces captured the territory, then ruled by Jordan, during the Six-Day War. The status of the West Bank as a militarily oc ...
and
Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip, also known simply as Gaza, is a small territory located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea; it is the smaller of the two Palestinian territories, the other being the West Bank, that make up the State of Palestine. I ...
, the
status of Jerusalem The status of Jerusalem has been described as "one of the most intractable issues in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict" due to the long-running territorial dispute between Israel and the Palestinians, both of which claim it as their capital ...
,
Israeli settlement Israeli settlements, also called Israeli colonies, are the civilian communities built by Israel throughout the Israeli-occupied territories. They are populated by Israeli citizens, almost exclusively of Israeli Jews, Jewish identity or ethni ...
s, borders, security, water rights, the permit regime in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian freedom of movement, and the
Palestinian right of return The Palestinian right of return is the political position or principle that Palestinian refugees, both Immigrant generations#First generation, first-generation refugees ( people still alive ) and their descendants ( people ), have a right to ...
. The conflict has its origins in the rise of
Zionism Zionism is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in History of Europe#From revolution to imperialism (1789–1914), Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the ...
in the late 19th century in Europe, a movement which aimed to establish a Jewish state through the
colonization 475px, Map of the year each country achieved List of sovereign states by date of formation, independence. Colonization (British English: colonisation) is a process of establishing occupation of or control over foreign territories or peoples f ...
of
Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...
, synchronously with the first arrival of Jewish settlers to
Ottoman Palestine The region of Palestine (region), Palestine is part of the wider region of the Levant, which represents the land bridge between Africa and Eurasia.Steiner & Killebrew, p9: "The general limits ..., as defined here, begin at the Plain of ' ...
in 1882. The Zionist movement garnered the support of an imperial power in the 1917
Balfour Declaration The Balfour Declaration was a public statement issued by the British Government in 1917 during the First World War announcing its support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, then an Ottoman regio ...
issued by Britain, which promised to support the creation of a " Jewish homeland" in Palestine. Following British occupation of the formerly Ottoman region during
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, Mandatory Palestine was established as a British mandate. Increasing Jewish immigration led to tensions between Jews and Arabs which grew into intercommunal conflict. In 1936, an Arab revolt erupted demanding independence and an end to British support for Zionism, which was suppressed by the British. Eventually tensions led to the
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...
adopting a partition plan in 1947, triggering a civil war. During the ensuing
1948 Palestine war The 1948 Palestine war was fought in the territory of what had been, at the start of the war, British-ruled Mandatory Palestine. During the war, the British withdrew from Palestine, Zionist forces conquered territory and established the Stat ...
, more than half of the mandate's predominantly Palestinian Arab population fled or were expelled by Israeli forces. By the
end End, END, Ending, or ENDS may refer to: End Mathematics *End (category theory) * End (topology) * End (graph theory) * End (group theory) (a subcase of the previous) * End (endomorphism) Sports and games *End (gridiron football) *End, a division ...
of the war,
Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...
was established on most of the former mandate's territory, and the
Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip, also known simply as Gaza, is a small territory located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea; it is the smaller of the two Palestinian territories, the other being the West Bank, that make up the State of Palestine. I ...
and the
West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
were controlled by
Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...
and
Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...
respectively. Since the 1967
Six-Day War The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states, primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10June ...
, Israel has been occupying the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, known collectively as the
Palestinian territories The occupied Palestinian territories, also referred to as the Palestinian territories, consist of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip—two regions of the former Mandate for Palestine, British Mandate for Palestine ...
. Two Palestinian uprisings against Israel and its occupation erupted in 1987 and 2000, the first and
second intifada The Second Intifada (; ), also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada, was a major uprising by Palestinians against Israel and its Israeli-occupied territories, occupation from 2000. Starting as a civilian uprising in Jerusalem and October 2000 prot ...
s respectively. Israel's occupation resulted in Israel constructing illegal settlements there, creating a system of institutionalized discrimination against Palestinians under its occupation called Israeli apartheid. This discrimination includes Israel's denial of Palestinian refugees from their right of return and right to their lost properties. Israel has also drawn international condemnation for violating the human rights of the Palestinians. The international community, with the exception of the United States and Israel, has been in consensus since the 1980s regarding a settlement of the conflict on the basis of a
two-state solution The two-state solution is a proposed approach to resolving the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, by creating two states on the territory of the former Mandatory Palestine. It is often contrasted with the one-state solution, which is the esta ...
along the
1967 borders The Green Line, or 1949 Armistice border, is the demarcation line set out in the 1949 Armistice Agreements between the armies of Israel and those of its neighbors (Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria) after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. It served ...
and a just resolution for Palestinian refugees. The United States and Israel have instead preferred bilateral negotiations rather than a resolution of the conflict on the basis of
international law International law, also known as public international law and the law of nations, is the set of Rule of law, rules, norms, Customary law, legal customs and standards that State (polity), states and other actors feel an obligation to, and generall ...
. In recent years, public support for a two-state solution has decreased, with Israeli policy reflecting an interest in maintaining the occupation rather than seeking a permanent resolution to the conflict. In 2007, Israel tightened its
blockade of the Gaza Strip The restrictions on movement and goods in Gaza imposed by Israel date to the early 1990s. After Hamas took over in 2007, Israel significantly intensified existing movement restrictions and imposed a complete blockade on the movement of good ...
and made official its policy of isolating it from the West Bank. Since then, Israel has framed its relationship with Gaza in terms of the
laws of war The law of war is a component of international law that regulates the conditions for initiating war (''jus ad bellum'') and the conduct of hostilities (''jus in bello''). Laws of war define sovereignty and nationhood, states and territories, ...
rather than in terms of its status as an
occupying power Military occupation, also called belligerent occupation or simply occupation, is temporary hostile control exerted by a ruling power's military apparatus over a sovereign territory that is outside of the legal boundaries of that ruling pow ...
. In a July 2024 ruling, the
International Court of Justice The International Court of Justice (ICJ; , CIJ), or colloquially the World Court, is the only international court that Adjudication, adjudicates general disputes between nations, and gives advisory opinions on International law, internation ...
(ICJ) rebuffed Israel's stance, determining that the Palestinian territories constitute one political unit and that Israel continues to illegally occupy the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The ICJ also determined that Israeli policies violate the
International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) is a United Nations convention. A third-generation human rights instrument, the Convention commits its members to the elimination of racial discri ...
. Since 2006, Hamas and Israel have fought several wars. Attacks by Hamas-led armed groups in October 2023 in Israel were followed by another war. Israel's actions in Gaza since the start of the war have been described by international law experts, genocide scholars and human rights organizations as
genocidal Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" b ...
.


History

The Israeli–Palestinian conflict began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with the development of political Zionism and the arrival of Zionist settlers to Palestine. During the early 20th century, Arab nationalism also grew within the
Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...
. To gain support from the Arab nationalists in the war against the Ottoman Empire, Great Britain promised support for the formation of an independent Arab state in Palestine in the
McMahon–Hussein correspondence The McMahon–Hussein correspondence is a series of letters that were exchanged during World War I, in which the government of the United Kingdom agreed to recognize Arab independence in a large region after the war Quid pro quo, in exchange ...
. The
British Empire The British Empire comprised the dominions, Crown colony, colonies, protectorates, League of Nations mandate, mandates, and other Dependent territory, territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It bega ...
supplied a large amount of weapons to the
Arab revolt The Arab Revolt ( ), also known as the Great Arab Revolt ( ), was an armed uprising by the Hashemite-led Arabs of the Hejaz against the Ottoman Empire amidst the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I. On the basis of the McMahon–Hussein Co ...
1916-1918. With support from the
Arab revolt The Arab Revolt ( ), also known as the Great Arab Revolt ( ), was an armed uprising by the Hashemite-led Arabs of the Hejaz against the Ottoman Empire amidst the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I. On the basis of the McMahon–Hussein Co ...
the British Empire defeated the Ottoman's forces and took control of Palestine, Jordan and Syria. It later transpired that the British and French governments had secretly made the Sykes-Picot Agreement in 1916 not to allow the formation of an independent Arab state. In July 1920, the short-lived
Arab Kingdom of Syria The Syrian Arab Kingdom (, ') was a self-proclaimed, unrecognized monarchy existing briefly in the territory of Bilad al-Sham, historical Syria. It was announced on 5 October 1918 as a fully independent Arab constitutional government with the perm ...
, with Emir Faisal (one of the leaders of the Arab Revolt) as king and tolerated by Britain, was crushed by French armed forces, equipped with modern artillery. While Jewish colonization began during this period, it was not until the arrival of more ideologically Zionist immigrants in the decade preceding the First World War that the landscape of Ottoman Palestine would start to significantly change. Land purchases, the eviction of tenant Arab peasants and armed confrontation with Jewish para-military units would all contribute to the Palestinian population's growing fear of territorial displacement and dispossession. From early on, the leadership of the Zionist movement had the idea of "transferring" (a euphemism for
ethnic cleansing Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making the society ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal such as deportation or population transfer, it ...
) the Arab Palestinian population out of the land for the purpose of establishing a Jewish demographic majority. According to the Israeli historian
Benny Morris Benny Morris (; born 8 December 1948) is an Israeli historian. He was a professor of history in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Beersheba, Israel. Morris was initially associated with the ...
the idea of transfer was "inevitable and inbuilt into Zionism". The Arab population felt this threat as early as the 1880s with the arrival of the first aliyah.
Chaim Weizmann Chaim Azriel Weizmann ( ; 27 November 1874 – 9 November 1952) was a Russian-born Israeli statesman, biochemist, and Zionist leader who served as president of the World Zionist Organization, Zionist Organization and later as the first pre ...
's efforts to build British support for the Zionist movement would eventually secure the
Balfour Declaration The Balfour Declaration was a public statement issued by the British Government in 1917 during the First World War announcing its support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, then an Ottoman regio ...
, a public statement issued by the British government in 1917 during the First World War announcing support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine.


1920s

With the creation of the British Mandate in Palestine after the end of the first world war, large-scale Jewish immigration began accompanied by the development of a separate Jewish-controlled sector of the economy supported by foreign capital. The more ardent Zionist ideologues of the
Second Aliyah The Second Aliyah () was an aliyah (Jewish immigration to the Land of Israel) that took place between 1904 and 1914, during which approximately 35,000 Jews, mostly from Russia, with some from Yemen, immigrated into Ottoman Palestine. The Sec ...
would become the leaders of the
Yishuv The Yishuv (), HaYishuv Ha'ivri (), or HaYishuv HaYehudi Be'Eretz Yisra'el () was the community of Jews residing in Palestine prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. The term came into use in the 1880s, when there were about 2 ...
starting in the 1920s and believed in the separation of Jewish and Arab societies.
Amin al-Husseini Mohammed Amin al-Husseini (; 4 July 1974) was a Palestinian Arab nationalist and Muslim leader in Mandatory Palestine. was the scion of the family of Jerusalemite Arab nobles, who trace their origins to the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Hussein ...
, appointed as
Grand Mufti of Jerusalem The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem is the Sunni Muslim cleric in charge of Jerusalem's Islamic holy places, including Al-Aqsa. The position was created by the British military government led by Ronald Storrs in 1918.See Islamic Leadership in Jerusa ...
by the British High Commissioner Herbert Samuel, immediately marked Jewish national movement and Jewish immigration to Palestine as the sole enemy to his cause,
He usseiniincited and headed anti-Jewish riots in April 1920. ... He promoted the Muslim character of Jerusalem and ... injected a religious character into the struggle against
Zionism Zionism is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in History of Europe#From revolution to imperialism (1789–1914), Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the ...
. This was the backdrop to his agitation concerning Jewish rights at the Western (Wailing) Wall that led to the bloody riots of August 1929... was the chief organizer of the riots of 1936 and the rebellion from 1937, as well as of the mounting internal terror against Arab opponents.
initiating large-scale riots against the Jews as early as 1920 in Jerusalem and in 1921 in Jaffa. Among the results of the violence was the establishment of the Jewish paramilitary force
Haganah Haganah ( , ) was the main Zionist political violence, Zionist paramilitary organization that operated for the Yishuv in the Mandatory Palestine, British Mandate for Palestine. It was founded in 1920 to defend the Yishuv's presence in the reg ...
. In 1929, a series of violent
riots A riot or mob violence is a form of civil disorder commonly characterized by a group lashing out in a violent public disturbance against authority, property, or people. Riots typically involve destruction of property, public or private. The p ...
resulted in the deaths of 133 Jews and 116 Arabs, with significant Jewish casualties in
Hebron Hebron (; , or ; , ) is a Palestinian city in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Hebron is capital of the Hebron Governorate, the largest Governorates of Palestine, governorate in the West Bank. With a population of 201,063 in ...
and
Safed Safed (), also known as Tzfat (), is a city in the Northern District (Israel), Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of up to , Safed is the highest city in the Galilee and in Israel. Safed has been identified with (), a fortif ...
, and the evacuation of Jews from Hebron and Gaza.


1936–1939 Arab revolt

In the early 1930s, the Arab national struggle in Palestine had drawn many Arab nationalist militants from across the Middle East, such as Sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam from Syria, who established the Black Hand militant group and had prepared the grounds for the
1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine A popular uprising by Palestinian Arabs in Mandatory Palestine against the British administration, later known as the Great Revolt, the Great Palestinian Revolt, or the Palestinian Revolution, lasted from 1936 until 1939. The movement sought i ...
. Following the death of al-Qassam at the hands of the British in late 1935, tensions erupted in 1936 into the Arab general strike and general boycott. The strike soon deteriorated into violence, and the Arab revolt was bloodily repressed by the British assisted by the British armed forces of the Jewish Settlement Police, the
Jewish Supernumerary Police The Jewish Supernumerary Police (Hebrew: ''Shotrim Musafim''), sometimes referred to as Jewish Auxiliary Police, were a branch of the Guards ('' Notrim'') set up by the British in the British Mandate of Palestine in June 1936. The British autho ...
, and Special Night Squads. The suppression of the revolt would leave at least 10% of the adult male population killed, wounded, imprisoned or exiled. Between the expulsion of much of the Arab leadership and the weakening of the economy, the Palestinians would struggle to confront the growing Zionist movement. The cost and risks associated with the revolt and the ongoing inter-communal conflict led to a shift in British policies in the region and the appointment of the Peel Commission which recommended creation of a small Jewish country, which the two main Zionist leaders,
Chaim Weizmann Chaim Azriel Weizmann ( ; 27 November 1874 – 9 November 1952) was a Russian-born Israeli statesman, biochemist, and Zionist leader who served as president of the World Zionist Organization, Zionist Organization and later as the first pre ...
and
David Ben-Gurion David Ben-Gurion ( ; ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary List of national founders, national founder and first Prime Minister of Israel, prime minister of the State of Israel. As head of the Jewish Agency ...
, accepted on the basis that it would allow for later expansion. The subsequent
White Paper of 1939 The White Paper of 1939Occasionally also known as the MacDonald White Paper (e.g. Caplan, 2015, p.117) after Malcolm MacDonald, the British Colonial Secretary, who presided over its creation. was a policy paper issued by the British governmen ...
, which rejected a Jewish state and sought to limit Jewish immigration to the region, was the breaking point in relations between British authorities and the Zionist movement.


1940–1947

The renewed violence, which continued sporadically until the beginning of World War II, ended with around 5,000 casualties on the Arab side and 700 combined on the British and Jewish side total. With the eruption of
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, the situation in Mandatory Palestine calmed down. It allowed a shift towards a more moderate stance among Palestinian Arabs under the leadership of the Nashashibi clan and even the establishment of the Jewish–Arab Palestine Regiment under British command, fighting Germans in North Africa. The more radical exiled faction of al-Husseini, however, tended to cooperate with Nazi Germany, and participated in the establishment of a pro-Nazi propaganda machine throughout the Arab world. The defeat of Arab nationalists in Iraq and subsequent relocation of al-Husseini to Nazi-occupied Europe tied his hands regarding field operations in Palestine, though he regularly demanded that the Italians and the Germans bomb Tel Aviv. The
Jewish Agency for Palestine The Jewish Agency for Israel (), formerly known as the Jewish Agency for Palestine, is the largest Jews, Jewish non-profit organization in the world. It was established in 1929 as the operative branch of the World Zionist Organization (WZO). ...
and Palestinian National Defense Party called on Palestine's Jewish and Arab youth to volunteer for the British Army. 30,000 Palestinian Jews and 12,000 Palestinian Arabs enlisted in the British armed forces during the war, while a
Jewish Brigade The Jewish Infantry Brigade Group, more commonly known as the Jewish Brigade Group or Jewish Brigade, was a military formation of the British Army in the World War II, Second World War. It was formed in late 1944 and was recruited among Yishuv, Y ...
was created in 1944. By the end of World War II, a crisis over the fate of
Holocaust survivors Holocaust survivors are people who survived the Holocaust, defined as the persecution and attempted annihilation of the Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators before and during World War II in Europe and North Africa. There is no universall ...
from Europe led to renewed tensions between the
Yishuv The Yishuv (), HaYishuv Ha'ivri (), or HaYishuv HaYehudi Be'Eretz Yisra'el () was the community of Jews residing in Palestine prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. The term came into use in the 1880s, when there were about 2 ...
and Mandate authorities. By 1944, Jewish groups began to conduct military-style operations against the British, with the aim of persuading Great Britain to accept the formation of a Jewish state. This culminated in the
Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine The Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine, known in the United Kingdom as the Palestine Emergency, was a paramilitary campaign carried out by Zionist militias and underground groups—including Haganah, Lehi (militant group), Lehi, and Irgun ...
. This sustained Zionist paramilitary campaign of resistance against British authorities, along with the increased illegal immigration of Jewish refugees and 1947 United Nations partition, led to eventual withdrawal of the British from Palestine.


1947 United Nations partition plan

On 29 November 1947, the
General Assembly of the United Nations The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; , AGNU or AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as its main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ. Currently in its 79th session, its powers, ...
adopted Resolution 181(II) recommending the adoption and implementation of a plan to partition Palestine into an Arab state, a Jewish state and the City of Jerusalem.Baum, Noa
"Historical Time Line for Israel/Palestine."
UMass Amherst. 5 April 2005. 14 March 2013.
Palestinian Arabs were opposed to the partition. Zionists accepted the partition but planned to expand Israel's borders beyond what was allocated to it by the UN. On the next day, Palestine was swept by violence, igniting the first phase of the Palestine War. For four months, under continuous Arab provocation and attack, the Yishuv was usually on the defensive while occasionally retaliating. The
Arab League The Arab League (, ' ), officially the League of Arab States (, '), is a regional organization in the Arab world. The Arab League was formed in Cairo on 22 March 1945, initially with seven members: Kingdom of Egypt, Egypt, Kingdom of Iraq, ...
supported the Arab struggle by forming the volunteer-based Arab Liberation Army, supporting the Palestinian Arab
Army of the Holy War The Army of the Holy War or Holy War Army (; ''Jaysh al-Jihād al-Muqaddas'') was a Palestinian Arab irregular force in the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine led by Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni and Hasan Salama. The force has been de ...
, under the leadership of Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni and Hasan Salama. On the Jewish side, the civil war was managed by the major underground militias – the
Haganah Haganah ( , ) was the main Zionist political violence, Zionist paramilitary organization that operated for the Yishuv in the Mandatory Palestine, British Mandate for Palestine. It was founded in 1920 to defend the Yishuv's presence in the reg ...
,
Irgun The Irgun (), officially the National Military Organization in the Land of Israel, often abbreviated as Etzel or IZL (), was a Zionist paramilitary organization that operated in Mandatory Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of th ...
and Lehi – strengthened by numerous Jewish veterans of World War II and foreign volunteers. By spring 1948, it was already clear that the Arab forces were nearing a total collapse, while Yishuv forces gained more and more territory, creating a large scale refugee problem of Palestinian Arabs.


1948 Arab–Israeli War

Following the
Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel The Israeli Declaration of Independence, formally the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel (), was proclaimed on 14 May 1948 (5 Iyar 5708), at the end of the civil war phase and beginning of the international phase of the ...
on 14 May 1948, the Arab League decided to intervene on behalf of Palestinian Arabs, marching their forces into former British Palestine, beginning the main phase of the
1948 Arab–Israeli War The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, also known as the First Arab–Israeli War, followed the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, civil war in Mandatory Palestine as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. The civil war becam ...
. The overall fighting, leading to around 15,000 casualties, resulted in cease-fire and armistice agreements of 1949, with Israel holding much of the former Mandate territory, Jordan occupying and later annexing the
West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
and Egypt taking over the Gaza Strip, where the
All-Palestine Government The All-Palestine Government (, ') was established on 22 September 1948, during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, to govern the Egyptian-controlled territory in Gaza, which Egypt had on the same day declared as the All-Palestine Protectorate. It w ...
was declared by the Arab League on 22 September 1948. The 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine and 1948 Arab-Israeli War resulted in the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinian Arabs. In 1950, Israel passed the
Law of Return The Law of Return (, ''ḥok ha-shvūt'') is an Israeli law, passed on 5 July 1950, which gives Jews, people with one or more Jewish grandparent, and their spouses the right to Aliyah, relocate to Israel and acquire Israeli nationality law, Isra ...
, which allowed Jews and their spouses to become citizens with voting rights, even if they had never lived there before.


1956 Suez Crisis

Through the 1950s, Jordan and Egypt supported the
Palestinian Fedayeen Palestinian fedayeen () are militants or guerrillas of a nationalist orientation from among the Palestinian people. Most Palestinians consider the fedayeen to be Resistance movement, freedom fighters, while most Israelis consider them to be Pa ...
militants' cross-border attacks into Israel, while Israel carried out its own reprisal operations in the host countries. The 1956
Suez Crisis The Suez Crisis, also known as the Second Arab–Israeli War, the Tripartite Aggression in the Arab world and the Sinai War in Israel, was a British–French–Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956. Israel invaded on 29 October, having done so w ...
resulted in a short-term Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip and exile of the
All-Palestine Government The All-Palestine Government (, ') was established on 22 September 1948, during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, to govern the Egyptian-controlled territory in Gaza, which Egypt had on the same day declared as the All-Palestine Protectorate. It w ...
, which was later restored with Israeli withdrawal. The All-Palestine Government was completely abandoned by Egypt in 1959 and was officially merged into the
United Arab Republic The United Arab Republic (UAR; ) was a sovereign state in the Middle East from 1958 to 1971. It was initially a short-lived political union between Republic of Egypt (1953–1958), Egypt (including Occupation of the Gaza Strip by the United Ara ...
, to the detriment of the Palestinian national movement.
Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip, also known simply as Gaza, is a small territory located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea; it is the smaller of the two Palestinian territories, the other being the West Bank, that make up the State of Palestine. I ...
then was put under the authority of the Egyptian military administrator, making it a de facto military occupation. In 1964, however, a new organization, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), was established by Yasser Arafat. It immediately won the support of most Arab League governments and was granted a seat in the
Arab League The Arab League (, ' ), officially the League of Arab States (, '), is a regional organization in the Arab world. The Arab League was formed in Cairo on 22 March 1945, initially with seven members: Kingdom of Egypt, Egypt, Kingdom of Iraq, ...
.


1967 Six-Day War

In the 1967 Arab-Israel War, Israel occupied the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza Strip, Egyptian Sinai, Syrian Golan Heights, and two islands in the
Gulf of Aqaba The Gulf of Aqaba () or Gulf of Eilat () is a large gulf at the northern tip of the Red Sea, east of the Sinai Peninsula and west of the Arabian Peninsula. Its coastline is divided among four countries: Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. ...
. The war exerted a significant effect upon Palestinian nationalism, as the PLO was unable to establish any control on the ground and ultimately established its headquarters in Jordan, from where it supported the Jordanian army during the
War of Attrition The War of Attrition (; ) involved fighting between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and their allies from 1967 to 1970. Following the 1967 Six-Day War, no serious diplomatic efforts were made to resolve t ...
. However, the Palestinian base in Jordan collapsed with the Jordanian–Palestinian civil war in 1970, after which the PLO was forced to relocate to South Lebanon. In the mid-1970s, the international community converged on a framework to resolve the conflict through the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. This "
land for peace Land for peace is a legalistic interpretation of UN Security Council Resolution 242 which has been used as the basis of subsequent Arab–Israeli peace making. The name ''Land for Peace'' is derived from the wording of the resolution's first ope ...
" proposal was endorsed by the
ICJ The International Court of Justice (ICJ; , CIJ), or colloquially the World Court, is the only international court that Adjudication, adjudicates general disputes between nations, and gives advisory opinions on International law, internation ...
and UN.


1973 Yom Kippur War

On 6 October 1973, a coalition of Arab forces consisting of mainly Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack against Israel on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur. Despite this, the war concluded with an Israeli victory, with both sides suffering tremendous casualties. Following the end of the war, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 338 confirming the land-for-peace principle established in Resolution 242, initiating the Middle East peace process. The Arab defeat would play an important role in the PLO's willingness to pursue a negotiated settlement to the conflict, while many Israelis began to believe that the area under Israeli occupation could not be held indefinitely by force. The Camp David Accords, agreed upon by Israel and Egypt in 1978, primarily aimed to establish a peace treaty between the two countries. The accords also proposed the creation of a "Self-Governing Authority" for the Arab population in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, excluding Jerusalem, under Israeli control. A peace treaty based on these accords was signed in 1979, leading to Israel's withdrawal from the occupied Egyptian Sinai Peninsula by 1982.


1982 Lebanon War

During the
Lebanese Civil War The Lebanese Civil War ( ) was a multifaceted armed conflict that took place from 1975 to 1990. It resulted in an estimated 150,000 fatalities and led to the exodus of almost one million people from Lebanon. The religious diversity of the ...
, Palestinian militants continued to launch attacks against Israel while also battling opponents within Lebanon. In 1978, the Coastal Road massacre led to the Israeli full-scale invasion known as
Operation Litani The 1978 South Lebanon conflict, also known as the First Israeli invasion of Lebanon and codenamed Operation Litani by Israel, began when Israel invaded southern Lebanon up to the Litani River in March 1978. It was in response to the Coas ...
. This operation sought to dislodge the from Lebanon while expanding the area under the control of the Israeli allied Christian militias in southern Lebanon. The operation succeeded in leaving a large portion of the south in control of the Israeli proxy which would eventually form the
South Lebanon Army The South Lebanon Army or South Lebanese Army (SLA; , ), also known as the Lahad Army () or as the De Facto Forces (DFF), was a Christianity in Lebanon, Christian-dominated militia in Lebanon. It was founded by Lebanese military officer Saad H ...
. Under United States pressure, Israeli forces would eventually withdraw from Lebanon. In 1982, Israel, having secured its southern border with Egypt, sought to resolve the Palestinian issue by attempting to dismantle the military and political power of the PLO in Lebanon. The goal was to establish a friendly regime in Lebanon and continue its policy of settlement and annexation in occupied Palestine.: "The real driving force behind Israel's invasion of Lebanon, however, was Ariel Sharon, whose aims were much more ambitious and far-reaching. From his first day at the Defense Ministry, Sharon started planning the invasion of Lebanon. He developed what came to be known as the "big plan" for using Israel's military power to establish political hegemony in the Middle East. The first aim of Sharon's plan was to destroy the PLO's military infrastructure in Lebanon and to undermine it as a political organization. The second aim was to establish a new political order in Lebanon by helping Israel's Maronite friends, headed by Bashir Gemayel, to form a government that would proceed to sign a peace treaty with Israel. For this to be possible, it was necessary, third, to expel the Syrian forces from Lebanon or at least to weaken seriously the Syrian presence there. In Sharon's big plan, the war in Lebanon was intended to transform the situation not only in Lebanon but in the whole Middle East. The destruction of the PLO would break the backbone of Palestinian nationalism and facilitate the absorption of the West Bank into Greater Israel. The resulting influx of Palestinians from Lebanon and the West Bank into Jordan would eventually sweep away the Hashemite monarchy and transform the East Bank into a Palestinian state. Sharon reasoned that Jordan's conversion into a Palestinian state would end international pressures on Israel to withdraw from the West Bank. Begin was not privy to all aspects of Sharon's ambitious geopolitical scenario, but the two men were united by their desire to act against the PLO in Lebanon." The PLO had observed the latest ceasefire with Israel and shown a preference for negotiations over military operations. As a result, Israel sought to remove the PLO as a potential negotiating partner. Most Palestinian militants were defeated within several weeks, Beirut was captured, and the PLO headquarters were evacuated to Tunisia in June by Yasser Arafat's decision.


First Intifada (1987–1993)

The first Palestinian uprising began in 1987 as a response to Israel's military occupation, escalating attacks on Palestinians, and policies of settlement building and collective punishment. The uprising largely consisted of nonviolent acts of civil disobedience and protest, and was largely led by grassroots popular, youth, and women's committees. By the early 1990s, the conflict, termed the
First Intifada The First Intifada (), also known as the First Palestinian Intifada, was a sustained series of Nonviolent resistance, non-violent protests, acts of civil disobedience, Riot, riots, and Terrorism, terrorist attacks carried out by Palestinians ...
, was the focus of international settlement efforts, in part motivated by the success of the Egyptian–Israeli peace treaty of 1982. Eventually the
Israeli–Palestinian peace process Intermittent discussions are held by various parties and proposals put forward in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict through a peace process. Since the 1970s, there has been a parallel effort made to find terms upon which ...
led to the
Oslo Accords The Oslo Accords are a pair of interim agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO): the Oslo I Accord, signed in Washington, D.C., in 1993; and the Oslo II Accord, signed in Taba, Egypt, in 1995. They marked the st ...
of 1993, allowing the PLO to relocate from Tunisia and take ground in the
West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
and
Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip, also known simply as Gaza, is a small territory located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea; it is the smaller of the two Palestinian territories, the other being the West Bank, that make up the State of Palestine. I ...
, establishing the
Palestinian National Authority The Palestinian Authority (PA), officially known as the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), is the Fatah-controlled government body that exercises partial civil control over the Palestinian enclaves in the Israeli-occupied West Bank as a c ...
. The peace process also had significant opposition among elements of Palestinian society, such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, who immediately initiated a campaign of attacks targeting Israelis. Following hundreds of casualties and a wave of anti-government propaganda, Israeli Prime Minister Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli far-right extremist who objected to the peace initiative. This struck a serious blow to the peace process, which in 1996 led to the newly elected government of Israel backing off from the process, to some degree.


Second Intifada (2000–2005)

Following several years of unsuccessful negotiations, the conflict re-erupted as the
Second Intifada The Second Intifada (; ), also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada, was a major uprising by Palestinians against Israel and its Israeli-occupied territories, occupation from 2000. Starting as a civilian uprising in Jerusalem and October 2000 prot ...
in September 2000. The violence, escalating into an open conflict between the
Palestinian National Security Forces The Palestinian National Security Forces (NSF; ) are the paramilitary security forces of the Palestinian National Authority. The name may either refer to all National Security Forces, including some special services but not including the Inter ...
and the
Israel Defense Forces The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the State of Israel. It consists of three service branches: the Israeli Ground Forces, the Israeli Air Force, and ...
, lasted until 2004/2005 and led to thousands of fatalities. In 2005, Israeli Prime Minister Sharon ordered the removal of Israeli settlers and soldiers from Gaza. Israel and its Supreme Court formally declared an end to occupation, saying it "had no effective control over what occurred" in Gaza. However, the
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...
,
Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Headquartered in New York City, the group investigates and reports on issues including War crime, war crimes, crim ...
and many other international bodies and
NGOs A non-governmental organization (NGO) is an independent, typically nonprofit organization that operates outside government control, though it may get a significant percentage of its funding from government or corporate sources. NGOs often focus ...
continue to consider Israel to be the occupying power of the Gaza Strip as Israel controls Gaza Strip's airspace, territorial waters and controls the movement of people or goods in or out of Gaza by air or sea.


Fatah–Hamas split (2006–2007)

In 2006, Hamas won a plurality of 44% in the Palestinian parliamentary election. Israel responded it would begin
economic sanctions Economic sanctions or embargoes are Commerce, commercial and Finance, financial penalties applied by states or institutions against states, groups, or individuals. Economic sanctions are a form of Coercion (international relations), coercion tha ...
unless Hamas agreed to accept prior Israeli–Palestinian agreements, forswear violence, and recognize Israel's right to exist, all of which Hamas rejected. After internal Palestinian political struggle between Fatah and Hamas erupted into the 2007 Battle of Gaza, Hamas took full control of the area. In 2007, Israel imposed a naval blockade on the Gaza Strip, and cooperation with Egypt allowed a ground blockade of the Egyptian border. The tensions between Israel and Hamas escalated until late 2008, when Israel launched operation Cast Lead upon Gaza, resulting in thousands of civilian casualties and billions of dollars in damage. By February 2009, a ceasefire was signed with international mediation between the parties, though the occupation and small and sporadic eruptions of violence continued. In 2011, a Palestinian Authority attempt to gain UN membership as a fully sovereign state failed. In Hamas-controlled Gaza, sporadic rocket attacks on Israel and Israeli air raids continued to occur. In November 2012, Palestinian representation in the UN was upgraded to a non-member observer state, and its mission title was changed from "Palestine (represented by PLO)" to "
State of Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...
". In 2014, another war broke out between Israel and Gaza, resulting in over 70 Israeli and over 2,000 Palestinian casualties.


2023–present Gaza war

After the 2014 war and 2021 crisis, Hamas began planning an attack on Israel. In 2022, Netanyahu returned to power while headlining a hardline
far-right Far-right politics, often termed right-wing extremism, encompasses a range of ideologies that are marked by ultraconservatism, authoritarianism, ultranationalism, and nativism. This political spectrum situates itself on the far end of the ...
government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive (government), execu ...
, which led to greater political strife in Israel and clashes in the Palestinian territories. This culminated in a surprise attack launched by Hamas-led militant groups on southern Israel from the Gaza Strip on 7 October 2023, in which more than 1,200 Israeli civilians and military personnel were killed, and around 250 were taken hostage into Gaza. The Israeli military retaliated by declaring war on Hamas and conducting an extensive aerial bombardment campaign on Gaza, followed by a large-scale ground invasion with the stated goal of destroying Hamas, freeing hostages, and controlling security in Gaza afterwards. Israel killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, including civilians and combatants and displaced almost two million people. South Africa accused Israel of
genocide Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...
at the
International Court of Justice The International Court of Justice (ICJ; , CIJ), or colloquially the World Court, is the only international court that Adjudication, adjudicates general disputes between nations, and gives advisory opinions on International law, internation ...
and called for an immediate ceasefire.ALT Link
/ref> The court issued an order requiring Israel to take all measures to prevent any acts contrary to the 1948 Genocide Convention, but did not order Israel to suspend its military campaign. The war spilled over, with Israel engaging in clashes with local militias in the
West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
,
Hezbollah Hezbollah ( ; , , ) is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and paramilitary group. Hezbollah's paramilitary wing is the Jihad Council, and its political wing is the Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc party in the Lebanese Parliament. I ...
in
Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...
and northern Israel, and other Iranian-backed militias in Syria. Iranian-backed militias also engaged in clashes with the United States, while the
Houthis The Houthis, officially known as Ansar Allah, is a Zaydism, Zaydi Shia Islamism, Shia Islamist political and military organization that emerged from Yemen in the 1990s. It is predominantly made up of Zaydi Shias, with their namesake leadersh ...
blockaded the Red Sea in protest, to which the United States responded with airstrikes in
Yemen Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in West Asia. Located in South Arabia, southern Arabia, it borders Saudi Arabia to Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, the north, Oman to Oman–Yemen border, the northeast, the south-eastern part ...
, Iraq, and Syria.


Attempts to reach a peaceful settlement

The PLO's participation in diplomatic negotiations was dependent on its complete disavowal of terrorism and recognition of Israel's "right to exist." This stipulation required the PLO to abandon its objective of reclaiming all of historic Palestine and instead focus on the 22 percent which came under Israeli military control in 1967. By the late 1970s, Palestinian leadership in the occupied territories and most Arab states supported a two-state settlement. In 1981, Saudi Arabia put forward a plan based on a two-state settlement to the conflict with support from the Arab League. Israeli analyst Avner Yaniv describes Arafat as ready to make a historic compromise at this time, while the Israeli cabinet continued to oppose the existence of a Palestinian state. Yaniv described Arafat's willingness to compromise as a "peace offensive" which Israel responded to by planning to remove the PLO as a potential negotiating partner in order to evade international diplomatic pressure. Israel would invade Lebanon the following year in an attempt to undermine the PLO as a political organization, weakening Palestinian nationalism and facilitating the annexation of the West Bank into Greater Israel. While the PLO had adopted a program of pursuing a Palestinian state alongside Israel since the mid-1970s, the 1988
Palestinian Declaration of Independence The Palestinian Declaration of Independence formally established the State of Palestine, and was written by Palestinians, Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish and proclaimed by Yasser Arafat on 15 November 1988 (5 Rabi' al-Thani, Rabiʽ al-Thani 1409 ...
formally consecrated this objective. This declaration, which was based on resolutions from the Palestine National Council sessions in the late 1970s and 1980s, advocated for the creation of a Palestinian state comprising the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem, within the borders set by the 1949 armistice lines prior to 5 June 1967. Following the declaration, Arafat explicitly denounced all forms of terrorism and affirmed the PLO's acceptance of UN Resolutions 242 and 338, as well as the recognition of Israel's right to exist. All the conditions defined by Henry Kissinger for US negotiations with the PLO had now been met. Then-Israeli prime minister
Yitzhak Shamir Yitzhak Shamir (, ; born Yitzhak Yezernitsky; October 22, 1915 – June 30, 2012) was an Israeli politician and the seventh prime minister of Israel, serving two terms (1983–1984, 1986–1992). Before the establishment of the State of Israel, ...
stood behind the stance that the PLO was a terrorist organization. He maintained a strict stance against any concessions, including withdrawal from occupied Palestinian territories, recognition of or negotiations with the PLO, and especially the establishment of a Palestinian state. Shamir viewed the U.S. decision to engage in dialogue with the PLO as a mistake that threatened the existing territorial status quo. He argued that negotiating with the PLO meant accepting the existence of a Palestinian state and hence was unacceptable.


The peace process

The term "peace process" refers to the step-by-step approach to resolving the conflict. Having originally entered into usage to describe the US mediated negotiations between Israel and surrounding Arab countries, notably Egypt, the term "peace-process" has grown to be associated with an emphasis on the negotiation process rather than on presenting a comprehensive solution to the conflict. As part of this process, fundamental issues of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict such as borders, access to resources, and the Palestinian right of return, have been left to "final status" talks. Such "final status" negotiations along the lines discussed in Madrid in 1991 have never taken place. The Oslo Accords of 1993 and 1995 built on the incremental framework put in place by the 1978 Camp David negotiations and the 1991 Madrid and Washington talks. The motivation behind the incremental approach towards a settlement was that it would "build confidence", but the eventual outcome was instead a dramatic decline in mutual confidence. At each incremental stage, Israel further entrenched its occupation of the Palestinian territories, despite the PA upholding its obligation to curbing violent attacks from extremist groups, in part by cooperating with Israeli forces.: "On the contrary, in August 1996 the PLO honored its commitment to revoke its original charter, which had denied the legitimacy of Israel and called for the armed liberation of all of Palestine. As well, by 1996 the PA and its police forces had become increasingly successful in their efforts to end the terrorism of Hamas and other Islamic extremists, even cooperating with the Israeli forces. As a result, there were now far fewer terrorist attacks than in the preceding few years." Meron Benvenisti, former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, observed that life became harsher for Palestinians during this period as state violence increased and Palestinian land continued to be expropriated as settlements expanded. Israeli foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami described the Oslo Accords as legitimizing "the transformation of the West Bank into what has been called a 'cartographic cheeseboard'."


Creation of the Palestinian Authority and security cooperation

Core to the Oslo Accords was the creation of the Palestinian Authority and the security cooperation it would enter into with the Israeli military authorities in what has been described as the "outsourcing" of the occupation to the PA. Just before signing the Oslo accord, Rabin described the expectation that the "Palestinians will be better at establishing internal security than we were, because they will allow no appeals to the Supreme Court and will prevent uman rights groupsfrom criticizing the conditions there." Along these lines, Ben-Ami, who participated in the Camp David 2000 talks, described this process: "One of the meanings of Oslo was that the PLO was eventually Israel's collaborator in the task of stifling the Intifada and cutting short what was clearly an authentically democratic struggle for Palestinian independence." The Wye River Memorandum agreed on by the PA and Israel introduced a "zero tolerance" policy for "terror and violence." This policy was uniformly criticised by human rights organizations for its "encouragement" of human rights abuses.
Dennis Ross Dennis B. Ross (born November 26, 1948) is an American diplomat and author. He served as the Director of Policy Planning in the State Department under President George H. W. Bush, the special Middle East coordinator under President Bill Clinton ...
describes the Wye as having successfully reduced both violent and non-violent protests, both of which he considers to be "inconsistent with the spirit of Wye." Watson claims that the PA frequently violated its obligations to curb incitement and its record on curbing terrorism and other security obligations under the Wye River Memorandum was, at best, mixed.


Oslo Accords (1993, 1995)

In 1993, Israeli officials led by
Yitzhak Rabin Yitzhak Rabin (; , ; 1 March 1922 – 4 November 1995) was an Israeli politician, statesman and general. He was the prime minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, 1974–1977, and from 1992 until Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, his ass ...
and Palestinian leaders from the
Palestine Liberation Organization The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO; ) is a Palestinian nationalism, Palestinian nationalist coalition that is internationally recognized as the official representative of the Palestinians, Palestinian people in both the occupied Pale ...
led by
Yasser Arafat Yasser Arafat (4 or 24 August 1929 – 11 November 2004), also popularly known by his Kunya (Arabic), kunya Abu Ammar, was a Palestinian political leader. He was chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from 1969 to 2004, Presid ...
strove to find a peaceful solution through what became known as the Oslo peace process. A crucial milestone in this process was Arafat's letter of recognition of Israel's right to exist. Emblematic of the asymmetry in the Oslo process, Israel was not required to, and did not, recognize the right of a Palestinian state to exist. In 1993, the Declaration of Principles (or Oslo I) was signed and set forward a framework for future Israeli–Palestinian negotiations, in which key issues would be left to "final status" talks. The stipulations of the Oslo agreements ran contrary to the international consensus for resolving the conflict; the agreements did not uphold Palestinian self-determination or statehood and repealed the internationally accepted interpretation of UN Resolution 242 that land cannot be acquired by war. With respect to access to land and resources, Noam Chomsky described the Oslo agreements as allowing "Israel to do virtually what it likes." The Oslo process was delicate and progressed in fits and starts. The process took a turning point at the
assassination of Yitzhak Rabin Yitzhak Rabin, the prime minister of Israel, was assassinated on 4 November 1995 at 21:30, at the end of a rally in support of the Oslo Accords at the Kings of Israel Square in Tel Aviv. The assailant was Yigal Amir, an Israeli law student and u ...
in November 1995 and the election of Netanyahu in 1996, finally unraveling when Arafat and
Ehud Barak Ehud Barak ( ; born Ehud Brog; 12 February 1942) is an Israeli former general and politician who served as the Prime Minister of Israel, prime minister from 1999 to 2001. He was leader of the Israeli Labor Party, Labor Party between 1997 and 20 ...
failed to reach an agreement at Camp David in July 2000 and later at Taba in 2001. The interim period specified by Oslo had not built confidence between the two parties; Barak had failed to implement additional stages of the interim agreements and settlements expanded by 10% during his short term. The disagreement between the two parties at Camp David was primarily on the acceptance (or rejection) of international consensus. For Palestinian negotiators, the international consensus, as represented by the yearly vote in the UN General Assembly which passes almost unanimously, was the starting point for negotiations. The Israeli negotiators, supported by the American participants, did not accept the international consensus as the basis for a settlement. Both sides eventually accepted the Clinton parameters "with reservations" but the talks at Taba were "called to a halt" by Barak, and the peace process itself came to a stand-still. Ben-Ami, who participated in the talks at Camp David as Israel's foreign minister, would later describe the proposal on the table: "The Clinton parameters... are the best proof that Arafat was right to turn down the summit's offers".


Camp David Summit (2000)

In July 2000, US President Bill Clinton convened a peace summit between Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Barak reportedly put forward the following as "bases for negotiation", via the US to the Palestinian President: a non-militarized Palestinian state split into 3–4 parts containing 87–92% of the West Bank after having already given up 78% of historic Palestine. Thus, an Israeli offer of 91 percent of the West Bank (5,538km2 of the West Bank translates into only 86 percent from the Palestinian perspective), including Arab parts of East Jerusalem and the entire Gaza Strip, as well as a stipulation that 69 Jewish settlements (which comprise 85% of the West Bank's Jewish settlers) would be ceded to Israel, no right of return to Israel, no sovereignty over the Temple Mount or any core East Jerusalem neighbourhoods, and continued Israel control over the Jordan Valley. Arafat rejected this offer, which Palestinian negotiators, Israeli analysts and Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami described as "unacceptable". According to the Palestinian negotiators the offer did not remove many of the elements of the Israeli occupation regarding land, security, settlements, and Jerusalem. After the Camp David summit, a narrative emerged, supported by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and his foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami, as well as US officials including Dennis Ross and Madeleine Albright, that Yasser Arafat had rejected a generous peace offer from Israel and instead incited a violent uprising. This narrative suggested that Arafat was not interested in a two-state solution, but rather aimed to destroy Israel and take over all of Palestine. This view was widely accepted in US and Israeli public opinion. Nearly all scholars and most Israeli and US officials involved in the negotiations have rejected this narrative. These individuals include prominent Israeli negotiators, the IDF chief of staff, the head of the IDF's intelligence bureau, the head of the Shin Bet as well as their advisors.: "After Camp David, a new mythology emerged perpetrated by Barak and his foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami, with the support of Dennis Ross, Clinton's secretary of state Madeleine Albright, and to a considerable extent Clinton himself. The mythology holds that at Camp David, Barak made a generous and unprecedented offer to the Palestinians, only to be met by a shocking if not perverse rejection by Arafat who then ordered a violent uprising at just the moment when the chances for peace had never been greater. For example, shortly after the conclusion of Camp David, Ben-Ami gave a long interview with Haaretz, claiming that Arafat did not go to Camp David to reach a compromise settlement but rather treated the negotiations as "a huge camouflage net behind which he sought to undermine the very idea of two states for two nations. ... Camp David collapsed over the fact that he Palestiniansrefused to get in the game. They refused to make a counterproposal ... and didn't succeed in conveying ... that at some point the demands would have an end." The implied premise of Barak and Ben-Ami was that Arafat thought the Palestinians held all the cards, so that if he held out long enough, he would eventually reach his goal: the destruction of Israel in stages and the takeover of all of historic Palestine. This view became widely accepted in US and Israeli public opinion... This and other Camp David mythologies have been rejected, both at the time and in retrospect, by nearly all scholars and knowledgeable journalists and by most Israeli and US officials who participated in the negotiations. In particular, they were challenged in interviews and memoirs by the leading Israeli negotiators, among them Ron Pundak, Yossi Beilin, Oden Era, Shaul Arieli, Yossi Ginosser, Moshe Amirav, and General Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, chief of staff of the IDF in 1995–1998. As well, the mythologies were strongly—and subsequently, publicly—rejected by Israel's leading military intelligence officials, including Ami Ayalon, the 2000 head of Shin Bet, and Matti Steinberg, his chief advisor—and by Amos Malka, head of the IDF's military intelligence bureau, and his second in command, Ephraim Lavie." No tenable solution was crafted which would satisfy both Israeli and Palestinian demands, even under intense US pressure. Clinton has long blamed Arafat for the collapse of the summit. In the months following the summit, Clinton appointed former US Senator
George J. Mitchell George John Mitchell Jr. (born August 20, 1933) is an American politician, diplomat, and lawyer. A leading member of the Democratic Party, he served as a United States senator from Maine from 1980 to 1995, and as Senate Majority Leader from 19 ...
to lead a fact-finding committee aiming to identify strategies for restoring the peace process. The committee's findings were published in 2001 with the dismantlement of existing Israeli settlements and Palestinian crackdown on militant activity being one strategy.


Developments following Camp David

Following the failed summit Palestinian and Israeli negotiators continued to meet in small groups through August and September 2000 to try to bridge the gaps between their respective positions. The United States prepared its own plan to resolve the outstanding issues. Clinton's presentation of the US proposals was delayed by the advent of the
Second Intifada The Second Intifada (; ), also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada, was a major uprising by Palestinians against Israel and its Israeli-occupied territories, occupation from 2000. Starting as a civilian uprising in Jerusalem and October 2000 prot ...
at the end of September. Clinton's plan, eventually presented on 23 December 2000, proposed the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and 94–96 percent of the West Bank plus the equivalent of 1–3 percent of the West Bank in land swaps from pre-1967 Israel. On Jerusalem, the plan stated that "the general principle is that Arab areas are Palestinian and that Jewish areas are Israeli." The holy sites were to be split on the basis that Palestinians would have sovereignty over the Temple Mount/Noble sanctuary, while the Israelis would have sovereignty over the Western Wall. On refugees the plan suggested a number of proposals including financial compensation, the right of return to the Palestinian state, and Israeli acknowledgment of suffering caused to the Palestinians in 1948. Security proposals referred to a "non-militarized" Palestinian state, and an international force for border security. Both sides accepted Clinton's plan and it became the basis for the negotiations at the Taba Peace summit the following January.


Taba Summit (2001)

The Israeli negotiation team presented a new map at the
Taba Summit The Taba Summit (also known as Taba Talks, Taba Conference or shortened to Taba) were talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, held from 21 to 27 January 2001 in Taba, Egypt. The talks took place during a political transition period � ...
in Taba, Egypt, in January 2001. The proposition removed the "temporarily Israeli controlled" areas, and the Palestinian side accepted this as a basis for further negotiation. With Israeli elections looming the talks ended without an agreement but the two sides issued a joint statement attesting to the progress they had made: "The sides declare that they have never been closer to reaching an agreement and it is thus our shared belief that the remaining gaps could be bridged with the resumption of negotiations following the Israeli elections." The following month the
Likud Likud (, ), officially known as Likud – National Liberal Movement (), is a major Right-wing politics, right-wing, political party in Israel. It was founded in 1973 by Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon in an alliance with several right-wing par ...
party candidate
Ariel Sharon Ariel Sharon ( ; also known by his diminutive Arik, ; 26 February 192811 January 2014) was an Israeli general and politician who served as the prime minister of Israel from March 2001 until April 2006. Born in Kfar Malal in Mandatory Palestin ...
defeated Ehud Barak in the Israeli elections and was elected as Israeli prime minister on 7 February 2001. Sharon's new government chose not to resume the high-level talks.


Road map for peace (2002–2003)

One peace proposal, presented by the
Quartet In music, a quartet (, , , , ) is an ensemble of four singers or instrumental performers. Classical String quartet In classical music, one of the most common combinations of four instruments in chamber music is the string quartet. String quar ...
of the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States on 17 September 2002, was the Road Map for Peace. This plan did not attempt to resolve difficult questions such as the fate of Jerusalem or Israeli settlements, but left that to be negotiated in later phases of the process. The proposal never made it beyond the first phase, whose goals called for a halt to both Israeli settlement construction and Israeli–Palestinian violence. Neither goal has been achieved as of November 2015. The Annapolis Conference was a Middle East
peace conference A peace conference is a diplomatic meeting where representatives of states, armies, or other warring parties converge to end hostilities by negotiation and signing and ratifying a peace treaty. Significant international peace conferences in ...
held on 27 November 2007, at the
United States Naval Academy The United States Naval Academy (USNA, Navy, or Annapolis) is a United States Service academies, federal service academy in Annapolis, Maryland. It was established on 10 October 1845 during the tenure of George Bancroft as United States Secre ...
in
Annapolis, Maryland Annapolis ( ) is the capital of the U.S. state of Maryland. It is the county seat of Anne Arundel County and its only incorporated city. Situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, south of Baltimore and about east ...
, United States. The conference aimed to revive the
Israeli–Palestinian peace process Intermittent discussions are held by various parties and proposals put forward in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict through a peace process. Since the 1970s, there has been a parallel effort made to find terms upon which ...
and implement the ''" Roadmap for peace"''. The conference ended with the issuing of a joint statement from all parties. After the Annapolis Conference, the negotiations were continued. Both Mahmoud Abbas and Ehud Olmert presented each other with competing peace proposals. Ultimately no agreement was reached.''Joint Understanding Read by President Bush at Annapolis Conference''
. Memorial Hall,
United States Naval Academy The United States Naval Academy (USNA, Navy, or Annapolis) is a United States Service academies, federal service academy in Annapolis, Maryland. It was established on 10 October 1845 during the tenure of George Bancroft as United States Secre ...
, Annapolis, Maryland; 27 November 2007


Arab Peace Initiative (2002, 2007, 2017)

The Arab Peace Initiative ( ''Mubādirat as-Salām al-ʿArabīyyah''), also known as the Saudi Initiative, was first proposed by Crown Prince
Abdullah of Saudi Arabia Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (, ; 1 August 1924 – 23 January 2015) was King of Saudi Arabia, King and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia from 1 August 2005 until his death in 2015. Prior to his accession, he was Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia si ...
at the 2002 Beirut summit. The initiative is a proposed solution to the Arab–Israeli conflict as a whole, and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in particular. The initiative was initially published on 28 March 2002, at the Beirut summit, and agreed upon again at the 2007 Riyadh summit. Unlike the Road Map for Peace, it spelled out "final solution" borders based on the UN borders established before the 1967
Six-Day War The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states, primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10June ...
. It offered full normalization of relations with Israel, in exchange for the withdrawal of its forces from all the occupied territories, including the
Golan Heights The Golan Heights, or simply the Golan, is a basaltic plateau at the southwest corner of Syria. It is bordered by the Yarmouk River in the south, the Sea of Galilee and Hula Valley in the west, the Anti-Lebanon mountains with Mount Hermon in t ...
, to recognize "an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital" in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as a "just solution" for the Palestinian refugees. The
Palestinian Authority The Palestinian Authority (PA), officially known as the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), is the Fatah-controlled government body that exercises partial civil control over the Palestinian enclaves in the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, ...
led by
Yasser Arafat Yasser Arafat (4 or 24 August 1929 – 11 November 2004), also popularly known by his Kunya (Arabic), kunya Abu Ammar, was a Palestinian political leader. He was chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from 1969 to 2004, Presid ...
immediately embraced the initiative. His successor
Mahmoud Abbas Mahmoud Abbas (; born 15 November 1935), also known by the Kunya (Arabic), kunya Abu Mazen (, ), is a Palestinian politician who has been serving as the second president of Palestine and the President of the Palestinian National Authority, P ...
also supported the plan and officially asked U.S. President
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...
to adopt it as part of his Middle East policy. Islamist political party
Hamas The Islamic Resistance Movement, abbreviated Hamas (the Arabic acronym from ), is a Palestinian nationalist Sunni Islam, Sunni Islamism, Islamist political organisation with a military wing, the Qassam Brigades. It has Gaza Strip under Hama ...
, the elected government of the
Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip, also known simply as Gaza, is a small territory located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea; it is the smaller of the two Palestinian territories, the other being the West Bank, that make up the State of Palestine. I ...
, was deeply divided, with most factions rejecting the plan. Palestinians have criticised the Israel–United Arab Emirates normalization agreement and another with Bahrain signed in September 2020, fearing the moves weaken the Arab Peace Initiative, regarding the UAE's move as "a betrayal." The Israeli government under
Ariel Sharon Ariel Sharon ( ; also known by his diminutive Arik, ; 26 February 192811 January 2014) was an Israeli general and politician who served as the prime minister of Israel from March 2001 until April 2006. Born in Kfar Malal in Mandatory Palestin ...
rejected the initiative as a "non-starter" because it required Israel to withdraw to pre-June 1967 borders. After the renewed Arab League endorsement in 2007, then-Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert Ehud Olmert (; , ; born 30 September 1945) is an Israeli politician and lawyer who served as the prime minister of Israel from 2006 to 2009. The son of a former Herut politician, Olmert was first elected to the Knesset for Likud in 1973, at th ...
gave a cautious welcome to the plan. In 2015, Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu Benjamin Netanyahu (born 21 October 1949) is an Israeli politician who has served as the prime minister of Israel since 2022, having previously held the office from 1996 to 1999 and from 2009 to 2021. Netanyahu is the longest-serving prime min ...
expressed tentative support for the Initiative, but in 2018, he rejected it as a basis for future negotiations with the Palestinians.


Current status


Apartheid

In July 2024, the
International Court of Justice The International Court of Justice (ICJ; , CIJ), or colloquially the World Court, is the only international court that Adjudication, adjudicates general disputes between nations, and gives advisory opinions on International law, internation ...
determined that Israeli policies violate the
International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) is a United Nations convention. A third-generation human rights instrument, the Convention commits its members to the elimination of racial discri ...
.Aeyal Gross
'The ICJ Just Demolished One of Israel's Key Defenses of the Occupation,'
Haaretz ''Haaretz'' (; originally ''Ḥadshot Haaretz'' – , , ) is an List of newspapers in Israel, Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel. The paper is published in Hebrew lan ...
19 July 2024.
As of 2022, all the major Israeli and international human rights organizations were in agreement that Israeli actions constituted the
crime of apartheid The crime of apartheid is defined by the 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as inhumane acts of a character similar to other crimes against humanity "committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppres ...
. In April 2021,
Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Headquartered in New York City, the group investigates and reports on issues including War crime, war crimes, crim ...
released its report ''A Threshold Crossed'', describing the policies of Israel towards Palestinians living in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza constituted the
crime of apartheid The crime of apartheid is defined by the 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as inhumane acts of a character similar to other crimes against humanity "committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppres ...
. A further report titled ''Israel's Apartheid Against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime Against Humanity'' was released by
Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says that it has more than ten million members a ...
on 1 February 2022. In 2018, the
Knesset The Knesset ( , ) is the Unicameralism, unicameral legislature of Israel. The Knesset passes all laws, elects the President of Israel, president and Prime Minister of Israel, prime minister, approves the Cabinet of Israel, cabinet, and supe ...
passed the Nation-State law which the Israeli legal group Adalah nicknamed the "Apartheid law." Adalah described the Nation-State law as "constitutionally enshrining Jewish supremacy and the identity of the State of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people." The Nation-State law is a
Basic Law A basic law is either a codified constitution, or in countries with uncodified constitutions, a law designed to have the effect of a constitution. The term ''basic law'' is used in some places as an alternative to "constitution" and may be inte ...
, meaning that it has "quasi-constitutional status," and states that the right to exercise national self-determination in Israel is "unique to the Jewish people".


Occupied Palestinian territory

Israel has occupied the
Palestinian territories The occupied Palestinian territories, also referred to as the Palestinian territories, consist of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip—two regions of the former Mandate for Palestine, British Mandate for Palestine ...
, which comprise the
West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
(including
East Jerusalem East Jerusalem (, ; , ) is the portion of Jerusalem that was Jordanian annexation of the West Bank, held by Jordan after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, as opposed to West Jerusalem, which was held by Israel. Captured and occupied in 1967, th ...
) and the
Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip, also known simply as Gaza, is a small territory located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea; it is the smaller of the two Palestinian territories, the other being the West Bank, that make up the State of Palestine. I ...
, since the 1967 Six-Day War, making it the longest military occupation in modern history. In 2024, the
International Court of Justice The International Court of Justice (ICJ; , CIJ), or colloquially the World Court, is the only international court that Adjudication, adjudicates general disputes between nations, and gives advisory opinions on International law, internation ...
determined that the Palestinian territories constitute one political unit and that Israel's occupation since 1967, and the subsequent creation of
Israeli settlements Israeli settlements, also called Israeli colonies, are the civilian communities built by Israel throughout the Israeli-occupied territories. They are populated by Israeli citizens, almost exclusively of Jewish identity or ethnicity, and hav ...
and exploitation of natural resources, are illegal under international law. The court also ruled that Israel should pay full reparations to the
Palestinian people Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous ...
for the damage the occupation has caused. Some Palestinians say they are entitled to all of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. Israel says it is justified in not ceding all this land, because of security concerns, and also because the lack of any valid diplomatic agreement at the time means that ownership and boundaries of this land is open for discussion. Palestinians claim any reduction of this claim is a severe deprivation of their rights. In negotiations, they claim that any moves to reduce the boundaries of this land is a hostile move against their key interests. Israel considers this land to be in dispute and feels the purpose of negotiations is to define what the final borders will be. In 2017 Hamas announced that it was ready to support a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders "without recognising Israel or ceding any rights".


Israeli settlements

The international community considers Israeli settlements to be illegal under international law, but Israel disputes this. Those who justify the legality of the settlements use arguments based upon Articles 2 and 49 of the Fourth
Geneva Convention upright=1.15, The original document in single pages, 1864 The Geneva Conventions are international humanitarian laws consisting of four treaties and three additional protocols that establish international legal standards for humanitarian t ...
, as well as
UN Security Council Resolution 242 United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 (S/RES/242) was adopted unanimously by the UN Security Council on November 22, 1967, in the aftermath of the Six-Day War. It was adopted under Chapter VI of the UN Charter. The resolution was spons ...
. The expansion of settlements often involves the confiscation of Palestinian land and resources, leading to displacement of Palestinian communities and creating a source of tension and conflict. Settlements are often protected by the Israeli military and are frequently flashpoints for violence against Palestinians. Furthermore, the presence of settlements and Jewish-only bypass roads creates a fragmented Palestinian territory, seriously hindering economic development and freedom of movement for Palestinians. Amnesty International reports that Israeli settlements divert resources needed by Palestinian towns, such as arable land, water, and other resources; and, that settlements reduce Palestinians' ability to travel freely via local roads, owing to security considerations. As of 2023, there were about 500,000 Israeli settlers living in the West Bank, with another 200,000 living in East Jerusalem. In February 2023, Israel's Finance Minister
Bezalel Smotrich Bezalel Yoel Smotrich (; born 27 February 1980) is an Israeli far-right politician and lawyer who has served as the Minister of Finance since 2022. The leader of the National Religious Party–Religious Zionism, he previously served as a Kn ...
took charge of most of the Civil Administration, obtaining broad authority over civilian issues in the West Bank. In the first six months of 2023, 13,000 housing units were built in settlements, which is almost three times more than in the whole of 2022.


Israeli military police

In a report published in February 2014 covering incidents over the three-year period of 2011–2013,
Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says that it has more than ten million members a ...
stated that Israeli forces employed reckless violence in the West Bank, and in some instances appeared to engage in wilful killings which would be tantamount to
war crimes A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hos ...
. Besides the numerous fatalities, Amnesty said at least 261 Palestinians, including 67 children, had been gravely injured by Israeli use of live ammunition. In this same period, 45 Palestinians, including 6 children had been killed. Amnesty's review of 25 civilians deaths concluded that in no case was there evidence of the Palestinians posing an imminent threat. At the same time, over 8,000 Palestinians suffered serious injuries from other means, including rubber-coated metal bullets. Only one IDF soldier was convicted, killing a Palestinian attempting to enter Israel illegally. The soldier was demoted and given a 1-year sentence with a five-month suspension. The IDF answered the charges stating that its army held itself "to the highest of professional standards", adding that when there was suspicion of wrongdoing, it investigated and took action "where appropriate".


Separation of the Gaza Strip

Since 2006, Israel has enforced an official and explicit policy of enforcing "separation" between the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This separation policy has involved strict restrictions on imports, exports and travel to and from the Gaza Strip. This policy began to develop as early as the 1950s, but was further formalized with the implementation of an Israeli closure regime in 1991, where Israel began requiring Gazans to obtain permits to exit the Gaza Strip and to enter the West Bank (cancelling the "general exit permit"). By treating the Gaza Strip as a separate entity, Israel has aimed to increase its control over the West Bank while avoiding a political resolution to the conflict. The lack of territorial contiguity between Gaza and the West Bank and the absence of any "safe passage" explain the success of Israel's policy of separation. Harvard political economist Sara Roy describes the separation policy as motivated by Israeli rejection of territorial compromise, fundamentally undermining Palestinian political and economic cohesion and weakening national unity among Palestinians. The severing of Gaza from the West Bank hinterland reflects a paradigm shift in the framing of the conflict. After Hamas assumed power in 2007, Israel declared Gaza a "hostile territory," preferring to frame its obligations towards Gaza in terms of the law of armed conflict, over what it presented as a border dispute, as opposed to those of military occupation (this framing was rebuffed by the ICJ in 2024 when the court stated that Israel continued to occupy the Gaza Strip even after the 2005 disengagement). Indeed, the intensified blockade policy was presented by Israeli officials as "economic warfare" intended to "keep the Gazan economy on the brink of collapse" at the "lowest possible level." Roy cites an Israeli Supreme Court's decision approving fuel cuts to Gaza as emblematic of the disabling of Gaza; the court deemed the fuel cuts permissible on the basis that they would not harm the population's "essential humanitarian needs." The executive director of the Israeli human rights organization Gisha described Israeli policy towards Gaza between 2007 and 2010 as "explicitly punitive," controlling the entry of food based on calculated calorie needs to limit economic activity and enforce "economic warfare." These restrictions included allowing only small packets of margarine to prevent local food production. Gaza's GDP dramatically declined during this period as a result of these measures. Indeed, by April 2010 Israel restricted the entry of commercial items to Gaza to a list of 73 products, compared with 4,000 products which had previously been approved. The result was the virtual collapse of Gaza's private sector, which Roy describes as largely completed after the 2008 Israeli
Operation Cast Lead Operation or Operations may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * ''Operation'' (game), a battery-operated board game that challenges dexterity * Operation (music), a term used in musical set theory * ''Operations'' (magazine), Multi-Man ...
in Gaza. According to Gisha, travel restrictions from the Gaza Strip are not based on individual security concerns, rather, the general rule is that travel to Israel or the West Bank from Gaza is not permitted other than in "exceptional" cases.GISHA, A Guide to the Gaza Closure: In Israel's own words Israeli imposed travel restrictions aim in particular to prevent Gazans from living in the West Bank. Indeed, Israeli policy treats the Gaza Strip as a "terminus" station, with family reunification between the West Bank and Gaza Strip only possible if the family agrees to permanently relocate to the Gaza Strip. The Israeli officials described the blockade as serving limited security value, instead referring to these restrictions as motivated by "political-security."


Blockade of the Gaza Strip

Although closure has a long history in Gaza dating back to 1991 when it was first imposed, it was made more acute after 2000 with the start of the second intifada. Closure was tightened further after the 2005 disengagement and then again in 2006, after Hamas's electoral victory. Heightened restrictions were imposed on imports and exports as well as on the movement of people, including Gaza's labor force. The total siege of Gaza that was imposed following the Hamas led attack on Israel during 7 October 2023, was part of that same policy of separation and closure, characterized by the destruction of Gaza's infrastructure (especially housing) and the denial of food, water, electricity, and fuel to its population. On 9 October 2023, Israel declared war on Hamas and tightened its blockade of the Gaza Strip. Israeli Defense Minister
Yoav Gallant Yoav Gallant (; born 8 November 1958) is an Israeli politician and former military officer who served as Ministry of Defense (Israel), minister of defense between 2022 and 2024. Gallant was an officer in the Southern Command (Israel), Southern ...
declared, "There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly." Since its initiation, blockade has had a detrimental impact on the private sector in Gaza, the primary driver of economic growth in Gaza. Prior to the blockade, Gaza imported 95% of its inputs for manufacturing and exported 85% of the finished products (primarily to Israel and the West Bank). Employment in this sector dropped to 4% by 2010, with an overall unemployment rate of 40% at this time and 80% of the population living on less than 2 dollars a day. Fewer than 40 commercial items were allowed in to the Gaza Strip by 2009, compared to a list of 4,000 items before the start of the blockade. Fuel imports were restricted such that 95% of Gaza's industrial operations were forced to close, with the rest operating far below capacity. In aggregate, 100,000 out of the 120,000 employed in the private sector lost their jobs as a result of the blockade. Most critically for the economy has been the near complete ban on exports from the Gaza Strip. The number of truckloads carrying exports fell to 2% their pre-blockade numbers. Only exports to the European market were allowed, a far less profitable market for Gazans than Israel and the West Bank. The products approved for export were primarily flowers and strawberries. The first export to the West Bank or Israel did not happen until 2012 and only in very limited quantities: up to four truckloads of furniture manufactured in Gaza were allowed through Israel for an exhibition in Amman. Even in the early years of Israeli imposed closure, the associated increased cost of doing business had a detrimental impact on trade. Goods transferred between the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel were required to be loaded onto Palestinian trucks initially and then off loaded onto Israeli trucks at the border even for distances of 50–100 miles. These increased costs include the costs for security checks, clearance, storage, and spoilage, as well as increased transportation costs. The
Military Advocate General The Military Advocate General (MAG Corps') (, ''HaPraklitut HaTzva'it'') is responsible for implementing the rule of law within the Israel Defense Forces. The unit's objectives include integrating the rule of law amongst IDF commanders and soldie ...
of Israel said that Israel is justified under international law to impose a blockade on an enemy for security reasons as Hamas "turned the territory under its de facto control into a launching pad of mortar and rocket attacks against Israeli towns and villages in southern Israel." Media headlines have described a United Nations commission as ruling that Israel's blockade is "both legal and appropriate." However, Amnesty International has stated that this is "completely false," and that the cited UN report made no such claim. The Israeli Government's continued land, sea and air blockage is tantamount to
collective punishment Collective punishment is a punishment or sanction imposed on a group or whole community for acts allegedly perpetrated by a member or some members of that group or area, which could be an ethnic or political group, or just the family, friends a ...
of the population, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. In January 2008, the Israeli government calculated how many calories per person were needed to prevent a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, and then subtracted eight percent to adjust for the "culture and experience" of the Gazans. Details of the calculations were released following Israeli human rights organization
Gisha Gisha or Guisha (, also called Kuy-e Nasr, ), originally Kisha (from the names of its two founders, "Keynejad" and "Shapourian"), is a neighborhood in Tehran, Iran. The neighborhood was known as a center for youth recreation, shopping, and dating. ...
's application to the high court. Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, who drafted the plan, stated that the scheme was never formally adopted, this was not accepted by Gisha. On 20 June 2010, in response to the
Gaza flotilla raid Ships of Gaza flotilla raid, Six civilian ships of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla were raided by Israel on 31 May 2010 in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea. Nine of the flotilla passengers were killed during the raid, with thirty woun ...
, Israel's Security Cabinet approved a new system governing the blockade that would allow practically all non-military or dual-use items to enter the Gaza Strip. According to a cabinet statement, Israel would "expand the transfer of construction materials designated for projects that have been approved by the Palestinian Authority, including schools, health institutions, water, sanitation and more—as well as (projects) that are under international supervision." Despite the easing of the land blockade, Israel will continue to inspect all goods bound for Gaza by sea at the port of
Ashdod Ashdod (, ; , , or ; Philistine language, Philistine: , romanized: *''ʾašdūd'') is the List of Israeli cities, sixth-largest city in Israel. Located in the country's Southern District (Israel), Southern District, it lies on the Mediterranean ...
. Despite these announcements, the economic situation did not substantially change and the virtual complete ban on exports remained in place. Only some consumer products and material for donor-sponsored projects was allowed in.


United Nations and recognition of Palestinian statehood

The PLO have campaigned for full member status for the state of Palestine at the UN and for recognition on the 1967 borders. This campaign has received widespread support. The UN General Assembly votes every year almost unanimously in favor of a resolution calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders. The US and Israel instead prefer to pursue bilateral negotiation rather than resolving the conflict on the basis of international law. Netanyahu has criticized the Palestinians of purportedly trying to bypass direct talks, whereas Abbas has argued that the continued construction of Israeli-Jewish settlements is "undermining the realistic potential" for the two-state solution. Although Palestine has been denied full member status by the UN
Security Council The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, an ...
, in late 2012 the
UN General Assembly The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; , AGNU or AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as its main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ. Currently in its 79th session, its powers, ...
overwhelmingly approved the ''de facto'' recognition of sovereign Palestine by granting non-member state status.


Incitement

Following the Oslo Accords, which was to set up regulative bodies to rein in frictions, Palestinian incitement against Israel, Jews, and Zionism continued, parallel with Israel's pursuance of settlements in the Palestinian territories, though under Abu Mazen it has reportedly dwindled significantly. Charges of incitement have been reciprocal, both sides interpreting media statements in the Palestinian and Israeli press as constituting incitement. Schoolbooks published for both Israeli and Palestinian schools have been found to have encouraged a one-sided narrative and at times hatred of the other side.Report on Palestinian Textbooks
Georg Eckert Institute (2019–2021)
Perpetrators of murderous attacks, whether against Israelis or Palestinians, often find strong vocal support from sections of their communities despite varying levels of condemnation from politicians. Both parties to the conflict have been criticized by third-parties for teaching incitement to their children by downplaying the other side's historical ties to the area, teaching propagandist maps, or indoctrinating their children to one day join the armed forces.


Issues in dispute

The core issues of the conflict are borders, the status of
Israeli settlement Israeli settlements, also called Israeli colonies, are the civilian communities built by Israel throughout the Israeli-occupied territories. They are populated by Israeli citizens, almost exclusively of Israeli Jews, Jewish identity or ethni ...
s in the West Bank, the status of Jerusalem, the right of return for Palestinian refugees, and security. With the PLO's recognition of Israel's "right to exist" in 1982, the international community with the main exception of the United States and Israel has been in consensus on a framework for resolving the conflict on the basis of international law. Various UN bodies and the ICJ have supported this position; every year, the UN General Assembly votes almost unanimously in favor of a resolution titled "Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine." This resolution consistently affirms the illegality of the Israeli settlements, the annexation of East Jerusalem, and the principle of the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war. It also emphasizes the need for an Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 and the need for a just resolution to the refugee question on the basis of UN resolution 194. Unilateral strategies and the rhetoric of hardline political factions, coupled with violence, have fostered mutual embitterment and hostility and a loss of faith in the possibility of reaching a peaceful settlement. Since the break down of negotiations, security has played a less important role in Israeli concerns, trailing behind employment, corruption, housing and other pressing issues. Israeli policy had reoriented to focus on managing the conflict and the associated occupation of Palestinian territory, rather than reaching a negotiated solution. The expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank has led the majority of Palestinians to believe that Israel is not committed to reaching an agreement, but rather to a pursuit of establishing permanent control over this territory in order to provide that security.


Status of Jerusalem

In 1967, Israel unilaterally annexed East Jerusalem, in violation of international law. Israel seized a significant area further east of the city, eventually creating a barrier of Israeli settlements around the city, isolating Jerusalem's Palestinian population from the West Bank. Israel's policy of constructing sprawling Jewish neighborhoods surrounding the Palestinian sections of the city were aimed at making a repartition of the city almost impossible. In a further effort to change the demography of Jerusalem in favor of a Jewish majority, Israel discouraged Palestinian presence in the city while encouraging Jewish presence, as a matter of policy. Specifically, Israel introduced policies restricting the space available for the construction of Palestinian neighborhoods, delaying or denying building permits and raising housing demolition orders. Tensions in Jerusalem are primarily driven by provocations by Israeli authorities and Jewish extremists against Arabs in the city. The Israeli government, including the
Knesset The Knesset ( , ) is the Unicameralism, unicameral legislature of Israel. The Knesset passes all laws, elects the President of Israel, president and Prime Minister of Israel, prime minister, approves the Cabinet of Israel, cabinet, and supe ...
and
Supreme Court In most legal jurisdictions, a supreme court, also known as a court of last resort, apex court, high (or final) court of appeal, and court of final appeal, is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
, is located in the "new city" of West Jerusalem and has been since Israel's founding in 1948. After Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1967, it assumed complete administrative control of East Jerusalem. Since then, various UN bodies have consistently denounced Israel's control over East Jerusalem as invalid. In 1980, Israel passed the
Jerusalem Law Jerusalem Law (, ) is a common name of Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Israel passed by the Knesset on 30 July 1980. Although the law did not use the term, the Israeli Supreme Court interpreted the law as an effective annexation of East Jeru ...
declaring "Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel.""Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Israel (Unofficial translation)"
. ''www.knesset.gov.il''. Passed by the Knesset on the 17th Av, 5740 (30 July 1980).
Many countries do not recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, with exceptions being the United States, and Russia. The majority of UN member states and most international organisations do not recognise Israel's claims to East Jerusalem which occurred after the 1967 Six-Day War, nor its 1980 Jerusalem Law proclamation. The International Court of Justice in its 2004 Advisory opinion on the "Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory" described East Jerusalem as "occupied Palestinian territory". Reprinted from: Rüdiger Wolfrum (Ed.), The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, online 2008–, print 2011).
The three largest
Abrahamic religions The term Abrahamic religions is used to group together monotheistic religions revering the Biblical figure Abraham, namely Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The religions share doctrinal, historical, and geographic overlap that contrasts them wit ...
Judaism Judaism () is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic, Monotheism, monotheistic, ethnic religion that comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Jews, Jewish people. Religious Jews regard Judaism as their means of o ...
,
Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...
, and
Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...
—hold Jerusalem as an important setting for their religious and historical narratives. Jerusalem is the holiest city in Judaism, being the former location of the Jewish temples on the
Temple Mount The Temple Mount (), also known as the Noble Sanctuary (Arabic: الحرم الشريف, 'Haram al-Sharif'), and sometimes as Jerusalem's holy esplanade, is a hill in the Old City of Jerusalem, Old City of Jerusalem that has been venerated as a ...
and the capital of the ancient Israelite kingdom. For Muslims, Jerusalem is the third holiest site, being the location of the
Isra' and Mi'raj The Israʾ and Miʿraj (, ') are the names given to the narrations that the prophet Muhammad ascended to the sky during a night journey, saw Allah and the afterlife, and returned. It is believed that expressions without a subject in verses 1-18 of ...
event, and the
Al-Aqsa Mosque The Aqsa Mosque, also known as the Qibli Mosque or Qibli Chapel is the main congregational mosque or Musalla, prayer hall in the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in the Old City (Jerusalem), Old City of Jerusalem. In some sources the building is also n ...
. For Christians, Jerusalem is the site of Jesus' crucifixion and the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, also known as the Church of the Resurrection, is a fourth-century church in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, Old City of Jerusalem. The church is the seat of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchat ...
.


Holy sites and the Temple Mount

Since the early 20th century, the issue of
holy places A sacred space, sacred ground, sacred place, sacred temple, holy ground, holy place or holy site is a location which is regarded to be sacred or hallowed. The sacredness of a Sacred natural site, natural feature may accrue through tradition or ...
and particularly the sacred places in Jerusalem has been employed by nationalist politicians. Israelis did not have access to the holy places in East Jerusalem during the period of Jordanian rule. Since 1975, Israel has banned Muslims from worshiping at
Joseph's Tomb Joseph's Tomb (, ''Qever Yosef''; , ''Qabr Yūsuf'') is a funerary monument located in Balata village at the eastern entrance to the valley that separates Mounts Gerizim and Ebal, northwest of Jacob's Well, on the outskirts of the West Ban ...
, a shrine considered sacred by both Jews and Muslims. Settlers established a yeshiva, installed a Torah scroll and covered the
mihrab ''Mihrab'' (, ', pl. ') is a niche in the wall of a mosque that indicates the ''qibla'', the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca towards which Muslims should face when praying. The wall in which a ''mihrab'' appears is thus the "''qibla'' wall". ...
. During the Second Intifada Palestinian protesters looted and burned the site. Israeli security agencies routinely monitor and arrest Jewish extremists that plan attacks, though many serious incidents have still occurred. Israel has allowed almost complete autonomy to the Muslim trust (
Waqf A (; , plural ), also called a (, plural or ), or ''mortmain'' property, is an Alienation (property law), inalienable charitable financial endowment, endowment under Sharia, Islamic law. It typically involves donating a building, plot ...
) over the Temple Mount. Palestinians have voiced concerns regarding the welfare of Christian and Muslim holy places under Israeli control. Additionally, some Palestinian advocates have made statements alleging that the Western Wall Tunnel was re-opened with the intent of causing the mosque's collapse.


Palestinian refugees

Palestinian refugees are people who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab–Israeli conflict and the 1967
Six-Day War The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states, primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10June ...
. The number of Palestinians who were expelled or fled from Israel was estimated at 711,000 in 1949. The descendants of all refugees (not just Palestinian refugees) are considered by the UN to also be refugees. As of 2010 there are 4.7 million Palestinian refugees. Between 350,000 and 400,000 Palestinians were displaced during the 1967 Arab–Israeli war. A third of the refugees live in recognized refugee camps in
Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...
,
Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...
,
Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...
, the
West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
and the
Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip, also known simply as Gaza, is a small territory located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea; it is the smaller of the two Palestinian territories, the other being the West Bank, that make up the State of Palestine. I ...
. The remainder live in and around the cities and towns of these host countries. Most Palestinian refugees were born outside Israel and are not allowed to live in any part of historic Palestine. Israel has since 1948 prevented the return of Palestinian refugees and refused any settlement permitting their return except in limited cases. On the basis of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the Human rights, rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN Drafting of the Universal D ...
and
UN General Assembly Resolution 194 The United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 is a resolution adopted near the end of the 1947–1949 Palestine war. The Resolution defines principles for reaching a final settlement and returning Palestine refugees to their homes. Article ...
, Palestinians claim the right of refugees to return to the lands, homes and villages where they lived before being driven into exile in 1948 and 1967. Arafat himself repeatedly assured his American and Israeli interlocutors at Camp David that he primarily sought the principle of the right of return to be accepted, rather than the full right of return, in practice. Palestinian and international authors have justified the right of return of the Palestinian refugees on several grounds: Several scholars included in the broader New Historians argue that the Palestinian refugees fled or were chased out or expelled by the actions of the
Haganah Haganah ( , ) was the main Zionist political violence, Zionist paramilitary organization that operated for the Yishuv in the Mandatory Palestine, British Mandate for Palestine. It was founded in 1920 to defend the Yishuv's presence in the reg ...
, Lehi and
Irgun The Irgun (), officially the National Military Organization in the Land of Israel, often abbreviated as Etzel or IZL (), was a Zionist paramilitary organization that operated in Mandatory Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of th ...
, Zionist paramilitary groups. A number have also characterized this as an ethnic cleansing. The New Historians cite indications of Arab leaders' desire for the Palestinian Arab population to stay put. The Israeli
Law of Return The Law of Return (, ''ḥok ha-shvūt'') is an Israeli law, passed on 5 July 1950, which gives Jews, people with one or more Jewish grandparent, and their spouses the right to Aliyah, relocate to Israel and acquire Israeli nationality law, Isra ...
that grants citizenship to people of Jewish descent has been described as discriminatory against other ethnic groups, especially Palestinians that cannot apply for such citizenship under the law of return, to the territory which they were expelled from or fled during the course of the 1948 war. According to the UN Resolution 194, adopted in 1948, "the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible." UN Resolution 3236 "reaffirms also the inalienable right of the Palestinians to return to their homes and property from which they have been displaced and uprooted, and calls for their return". Resolution 242 from the UN affirms the necessity for "achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem"; however, Resolution 242 does not specify that the "just settlement" must or should be in the form of a literal Palestinian right of return. Historically, there has been debate over the relative impact of the causes of the 1948 Palestinian exodus, although there is a wide consensus that violent expulsions by Zionist and Israeli forces were the main factor. Other factors include psychological warfare and Arab sense of vulnerability. Notably, historian
Benny Morris Benny Morris (; born 8 December 1948) is an Israeli historian. He was a professor of history in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Beersheba, Israel. Morris was initially associated with the ...
states that most of Palestine's 700,000 refugees fled because of the "flail of war" and expected to return home shortly after a successful Arab invasion. He documents instances in which Arab leaders advised the evacuation of entire communities as happened in Haifa although recognizes that these were isolated events. In his later work, Morris considers the displacement the result of a national conflict initiated by the Arabs themselves. In a 2004 interview with Haaretz, he described the exodus as largely resulting from an atmosphere of transfer that was promoted by Ben-Gurion and understood by the military leadership. He also claimed that there "are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing". He has been criticized by political scientist
Norman Finkelstein Norman Gary Finkelstein ( ; born December 8, 1953) is an American political scientist and activist. His primary fields of research are the politics of the Holocaust and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Finkelstein was born in New York Cit ...
for having seemingly changed his views for political, rather than historical, reasons. Although Israel accepts the right of the
Palestinian Diaspora The Palestinian diaspora (, ''al-shatat al-filastini''), part of the wider Arab diaspora, are Palestinian people living outside the region of Palestine and Israel. There are about 6.1 million members of the Palestinian Diaspora, most of whom live ...
to return into a new Palestinian state, Israel insists that the return of this population into the current state of Israel would threaten the stability of the Jewish state; an influx of Palestinian refugees would lead to the end of the state of Israel as a Jewish state since a demographic majority of Jews would not be maintained.


Israeli security concerns

Throughout the conflict, Palestinian violence has been a concern for Israelis. Security concerns have historically been a key driver in Israeli political decision making, often expanding in scope and taking precedence over other considerations such as international law and Palestinian human rights. The occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem and the continued expansion of settlements in those areas have been justified on security grounds. Israel, along with the United States and the European Union, refer to any use of force by Palestinian groups as terroristic and criminal. The United Nations General Assembly resolution A/RES/45/130 reflects an international consensus (113 out of 159 voting nations voted in favor, 13 voted against) affirming Palestinians' legitimacy, as a people under foreign occupation, to use armed struggle to resist said occupation. In Israel, Palestinian suicide bombers have targeted civilian buses, restaurants, shopping malls, hotels and marketplaces. From 1993 to 2003, 303 Palestinian suicide bombers attacked Israel. In 1994, Hamas initiated their first lethal suicide attack in response to the cave of the Patriarchs massacre where American-Israeli physician
Baruch Goldstein Baruch Kopel Goldstein (; born Benjamin Carl Goldstein; December 9, 1956 – February 25, 1994) was an American and Israeli physician and religious extremist who, in 1994, murdered 29 Palestinian people in Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West ...
opened fire in a mosque, killing 29 people and injuring 125. The Israeli government initiated the construction of a security barrier following scores of suicide bombings and terrorist attacks in July 2003. Israel's coalition government approved the security barrier in the northern part of the green line between Israel and the West Bank. According to the IDF, since the erection of the fence, terrorist acts have declined by approximately 90%. The decline in attacks can also be attributed to the permanent presence of Israeli troops inside and around Palestinian cities and increasing security cooperation between the IDF and the Palestinian Authority during this period. The barrier followed a route that ran almost entirely through land occupied by Israel in June 1967, unilaterally seizing more than 10% of the West Bank, including whole neighborhoods and settlement blocs, while splitting Palestinian villages in half with immediate effects on Palestinian's freedom of movement. The barrier, in some areas, isolated farmers from their fields and children from their schools, while also restricting Palestinians from moving within the West Bank or pursuing employment in Israel. In 2004 the
International Court of Justice The International Court of Justice (ICJ; , CIJ), or colloquially the World Court, is the only international court that Adjudication, adjudicates general disputes between nations, and gives advisory opinions on International law, internation ...
ruled that the construction of the barrier violated the Palestinian right to self-determination, contravened the Fourth Geneva Convention, and could not be justified as a measure of Israeli self-defense. The ICJ further expressed that the construction of the wall by Israel could become a permanent fixture, altering the status quo. Israel's High Court, however, disagreed with the ICJ's conclusions, stating that they lacked a factual basis. Several human rights organizations, including B'Tselem, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International, echoed the ICJ's concerns. They suggested that the wall's route was designed to perpetuate the existence of settlements and facilitate their future annexation into Israel, and that the wall was a means for Israel to consolidate control over land used for illegal settlements. The sophisticated structure of the wall also indicated its likely permanence. Since 2001, the threat of
Qassam rocket The Qassam rocket ( ; also ''Kassam'') is a simple, steel artillery rocket developed and deployed by the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military arm of Hamas. These rockets cannot be fired to target specific military objectives in or near ci ...
s fired from Palestinian territories into Israel continues to be of great concern for Israeli defense officials. In 2006—the year following Israel's disengagement from the Gaza Strip—the Israeli government claimed to have recorded 1,726 such launches, more than four times the total rockets fired in 2005. As of January 2009, over 8,600 rockets have been launched, causing widespread psychological trauma and disruption of daily life. As a result of these attacks, Israelis living in southern Israel have had to spend long periods in bomb shelters. The relatively small payload carried on these rockets, Israel's advanced early warning system, American-supplied anti-missile capabilities, and network of shelters made the rockets rarely lethal. In 2014, out of 4,000 rockets fired from the Gaza Strip, only six Israeli civilians were killed. For comparison, the payload carried on these rockets is smaller than Israeli tank shells, of which 49,000 were fired in Gaza in 2014. There is significant debate within Israel about how to deal with the country's security concerns. Options have included military action (including
targeted killing Targeted killing is a form of assassination carried out by governments Extrajudicial killing, outside a judicial procedure or a battlefield. Since the late 20th century, the legal status of targeted killing has become a subject of contention wit ...
s and house demolitions of terrorist operatives), diplomacy, unilateral gestures toward peace, and increased security measures such as checkpoints, roadblocks and security barriers. The legality and the wisdom of all of the above tactics have been called into question by various commentators. Since mid-June 2007, Israel's primary means of dealing with security concerns in the West Bank has been to cooperate with and permit United States-sponsored training, equipping, and funding of the Palestinian Authority's security forces, which with Israeli help have largely succeeded in quelling West Bank supporters of Hamas.


Water resources

In the Middle East,
water resources Water resources are natural resources of water that are potentially useful for humans, for example as a source of drinking water supply or irrigation water. These resources can be either Fresh water, freshwater from natural sources, or water produ ...
are of great political concern. Since Israel receives much of its water from two large underground
aquifer An aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing material, consisting of permeability (Earth sciences), permeable or fractured rock, or of unconsolidated materials (gravel, sand, or silt). Aquifers vary greatly in their characteristics. The s ...
s which continue under the Green Line, the use of this water has been contentious in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Israel withdraws most water from these areas, but it also supplies the West Bank with approximately 40million cubic metres annually, contributing to 77% of Palestinians' water supply in the West Bank, which is to be shared for a population of about 2.6 million. While Israel's consumption of this water has decreased since it began its occupation of the West Bank, it still consumes the majority of it: in the 1950s, Israel consumed 95% of the water output of the Western Aquifer, and 82% of that produced by the Northeastern Aquifer. Although this water was drawn entirely on Israel's own side of the pre-1967 border, the sources of the water are nevertheless from the shared groundwater basins located under both West Bank and Israel. In the
Oslo II Accord The Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, commonly known as Oslo II or Oslo 2, was a key and complex agreement in the Israeli–Palestinian peace process. Because it was signed in Taba, Egypt, it is sometimes called the Taba Agre ...
, both sides agreed to maintain "existing quantities of utilization from the resources." In so doing, the Palestinian Authority established the legality of Israeli water production in the West Bank, subject to a Joint Water Committee (JWC). Moreover, Israel obligated itself in this agreement to provide water to supplement Palestinian production, and further agreed to allow additional Palestinian drilling in the Eastern Aquifer, also subject to the Joint Water Committee. The water that Israel receives comes mainly from the Jordan River system, the Sea of Galilee and two underground sources. According to a 2003 BBC article the Palestinians lack access to the Jordan River system. According to a report of 2008 by the
Food and Agriculture Organization The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations; . (FAO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger and improve nutrition and food security. Its Latin motto, , translates ...
of the United Nations, water resources were confiscated for the benefit of the Israeli settlements in the Ghor. Palestinian irrigation pumps on the Jordan River were destroyed or confiscated after the 1967 war and Palestinians were not allowed to use water from the Jordan River system. Furthermore, the authorities did not allow any new irrigation wells to be drilled by Palestinian farmers, while it provided fresh water and allowed drilling wells for irrigation purposes at the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. A report was released by the UN in August 2012 and Max Gaylard, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in the occupied Palestinian territory, explained at the launch of the publication: "Gaza will have half a million more people by 2020 while its economy will grow only slowly. In consequence, the people of Gaza will have an even harder time getting enough drinking water and electricity, or sending their children to school". Gaylard present alongside Jean Gough, of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), and Robert Turner, of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). The report projects that Gaza's population will increase from 1.6 million people to 2.1 million people in 2020, leading to a density of more than 5,800 people per square kilometre.


Future and financing

Numerous foreign nations and international organizations have established bilateral agreements with the Palestinian and Israeli water authorities. It was estimated that a future investment of about US$1.1bn for the West Bank and $0.8bn for the Gaza Strip Southern Governorates was needed for the planning period from 2003 to 2015. In late 2012, a donation of $21.6 million was announced by the Government of the Netherlands—the Dutch government stated that the funds would be provided to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), for the specific benefit of Palestinian children. An article, published by the UN News website, stated that: "Of the $21.6 million, $5.7 will be allocated to UNRWA's 2012 Emergency Appeal for the occupied Palestinian territory, which will support programmes in the West Bank and Gaza aiming to mitigate the effects on refugees of the deteriorating situation they face."


Agricultural rights

The conflict has been about land since its inception. When
Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...
became a state after the war in 1948, 77% of Palestine's land was used for the creation on the state. The majority of those living in Palestine at the time became refugees in other countries and this first land crisis became the root of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Because the root of the conflict is with land, the disputes between Israel and Palestine are well-manifested in the agriculture of Palestine. In Palestine, agriculture is a mainstay in the economy. The production of agricultural goods supports the population's sustenance needs and fuels Palestine's export economy. According to the Council for European Palestinian Relations, the agricultural sector formally employs 13.4% of the population and informally employs 90% of the population. Over the past 10 years, unemployment rates in Palestine have increased and the agricultural sector became the most impoverished sector in Palestine. Unemployment rates peaked in 2008 when they reached 41% in Gaza. Palestinian agriculture suffers from numerous problems including Israeli military and civilian attacks on farms and farmers, blockades to exportation of produce and importation of necessary inputs, widespread confiscation of land for nature reserves as well as military and settler use, confiscation and destruction of wells, and physical barriers within the West Bank.


Israel's West Bank barrier

With the construction of the
separation barrier A separation barrier or separation wall is a Barricade, barrier, wall or fence, constructed to limit the movement of people across a certain line or border, or to ethnic segregation, separate peoples or cultures. A separation barrier that runs a ...
, the Israeli state promised free movement across regions. However, border closures, curfews, and checkpoints has significantly restricted Palestinian movement. In 2012, there were 99 fixed check points and 310 flying checkpoints. The border restrictions impacted the imports and exports in Palestine and weakened the industrial and agricultural sectors because of the constant Israeli control in the West Bank and Gaza. In order for the Palestinian economy to be prosperous, the restrictions on Palestinian land must be removed. According to ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' and a report for
World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and Grant (money), grants to the governments of Least developed countries, low- and Developing country, middle-income countries for the purposes of economic development ...
, the Palestinian economy lost $3.4bn (%35 of the annual GDP) to Israeli restrictions in the West Bank alone.


Palestinian violence outside of Israel

Some Palestinians have committed violent acts over the globe on the pretext of a struggle against Israel. During the late 1960s, groups affiliated with the PLO became increasingly infamous for its use of international terror. In 1969 alone, these groups were responsible for hijacking 82 planes. El Al Airlines became a regular hijacking target. The hijacking of
Air France Air France (; legally ''Société Air France, S.A.''), stylised as AIRFRANCE, is the flag carrier of France, and is headquartered in Tremblay-en-France. The airline is a subsidiary of the Air France-KLM Group and is one of the founding members ...
Flight 139 by the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP; ) is a secular Palestinian Marxist–Leninist organization founded in 1967 by George Habash. It has consistently been the second-largest of the groups forming the Palestine Liberation ...
culminated during a hostage-rescue mission, where Israeli special forces successfully rescued the majority of the hostages. One of the most well-known and notorious terrorist acts was the capture and eventual murder of 11 Israeli athletes by the
Black September Organization The Black September Organization (BSO; ) was a Palestinians, Palestinian militant organization, which was founded in September 1970. Besides other actions, the group was responsible for the Assassination of Wasfi Al-Tal, assassination of the Jo ...
during the
1972 Summer Olympics The 1972 Summer Olympics (), officially known as the Games of the XX Olympiad () and officially branded as Munich 1972 (; ), were an international multi-sport event held in Munich, West Germany, from 26 August to 11 September 1972. It was the ...
.


Palestinian-on-Palestinian violence

Fighting among rival Palestinian and Arab movements has played a crucial role in shaping Israel's security policy towards Palestinian militants, as well as in the Palestinian leadership's own policies. As early as the 1930s revolts in Palestine, Arab forces fought each other while also skirmishing with Zionist and British forces, and internal conflicts continue to the present day. In the
First Intifada The First Intifada (), also known as the First Palestinian Intifada, was a sustained series of Nonviolent resistance, non-violent protests, acts of civil disobedience, Riot, riots, and Terrorism, terrorist attacks carried out by Palestinians ...
, more than a thousand Palestinians were killed in a campaign initiated by the
Palestine Liberation Organization The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO; ) is a Palestinian nationalism, Palestinian nationalist coalition that is internationally recognized as the official representative of the Palestinians, Palestinian people in both the occupied Pale ...
to crack down on suspected Israeli security service informers and collaborators. The
Palestinian Authority The Palestinian Authority (PA), officially known as the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), is the Fatah-controlled government body that exercises partial civil control over the Palestinian enclaves in the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, ...
was strongly criticized for its treatment of alleged collaborators, rights groups complaining that those labeled collaborators were denied fair trials. According to a report released by the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, less than 45 percent of those killed were actually guilty of informing for Israel.


Overriding authority and international status

As far as Israel is concerned, the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority is derived from the
Oslo Accords The Oslo Accords are a pair of interim agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO): the Oslo I Accord, signed in Washington, D.C., in 1993; and the Oslo II Accord, signed in Taba, Egypt, in 1995. They marked the st ...
, signed with the PLO, under which it acquired control over cities in the Palestinian territories (Area A) while the surrounding countryside came either under Israeli security and Palestinian civil administration (Area B) or complete Israeli civil administration ( Area C). Israel has built additional highways to allow Israelis to traverse the area without entering Palestinian cities in Area A. The initial areas under Palestinian Authority control are diverse and non-contiguous. The areas have changed over time by subsequent negotiations, including Oslo II, Wye River and Sharm el-Sheik. According to Palestinians, the separated areas make it impossible to create a viable nation and fails to address Palestinian security needs; Israel has expressed no agreement to withdrawal from some Areas B, resulting in no reduction in the division of the Palestinian areas, and the institution of a safe pass system, without Israeli checkpoints, between these parts. Under the Oslo Accords, as a security measure, Israel has insisted on its control over all land, sea and air border crossings into the Palestinian territories, and the right to set import and export controls. This is to enable Israel to control the entry into the territories of materials of military significance and of potentially dangerous persons. The PLO's objective for
international recognition of the State of Palestine As of March 2025, the State of Palestine is recognized as a sovereign state by 147 of the 193 member states of the United Nations, or just over 75% of all UN members. It has been a non-member observer state of the United Nations General Asse ...
is considered by Israel as a provocative "unilateral" act that is inconsistent with the Oslo Accords.


Economic disputes and boycotts

In Gaza, the agricultural market suffers from economic boycotts and border closures and restrictions placed by Israel. The PA's Minister of Agriculture estimates that around US$1.2 billion were lost in September 2006 because of these security measures. This embargo was brought on by Hamas' refusal to recognize Israel's right to statehood. As a result, , the PA's 160,000 employees had not received their salaries in over one year.


Fatalities

Studies provide aggregated casualty data for the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. According to the
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) is an international institute based in Stockholm, Sweden. It was founded in 1966 and provides data, analysis and recommendations for armed conflict, military expenditure and arms trade a ...
, 13,000 Israelis and Palestinians were killed in the conflict between 1948 and 1997. Other estimates give 14,500 killed between 1948 and 2009. During the
1982 Lebanon War The 1982 Lebanon War, also called the Second Israeli invasion of Lebanon, began on 6 June 1982, when Israel invaded southern Lebanon. The invasion followed a series of attacks and counter-attacks between the Palestine Liberation Organization ...
, Israel killed an estimated 20,000 Palestinians and Lebanese, not including the 800–3,500 Palestinians killed in the Sabra-Shatila Massacre. According to B'tselem, during the
first intifada The First Intifada (), also known as the First Palestinian Intifada, was a sustained series of Nonviolent resistance, non-violent protests, acts of civil disobedience, Riot, riots, and Terrorism, terrorist attacks carried out by Palestinians ...
from 1987 until 2000, 1,551 Palestinians and 421 Israelis lost their lives. According to the database of the UNOffice for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – occupied Palestinian territory ( OCHAoPt), 6,407 Palestinians and 308 Israelis were killed in the conflict from 2008 to September 2023, before the
Gaza war The Gaza war is an armed conflict in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel fought since 7 October 2023. A part of the unresolved Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Israeli–Palestinian and Gaza–Israel conflict, Gaza–Israel conflicts dating ...
. Figures include both Israeli civilians and security forces casualties in
West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
, Gaza and
Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...
. All numbers refer to casualties of direct conflict between Israelis and Palestinians including in IDF military operations, artillery shelling, search and arrest campaigns, barrier demonstrations, targeted killings, settler violence etc. The figures do not include events indirectly related to the conflict such as casualties from unexploded ordnance, etc., or events when the circumstances remain unclear or are in dispute. The figures include all reported casualties of all ages and both genders."The Humanitarian Monitor."
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. December 2007. PDF. Tables on pages 5 and 7, all numbers refer to casualties of the direct conflict as defined therein (p. 23).
As reported by the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, from 29 September 2000 to the year 2010, a total of 7,454 Palestinian and Israeli individuals were killed due to the conflict. According to the report, 1,317 of the 6,371 Palestinians were minors, and at least 2,996 did not participate in fighting at the time of death. Palestinians killed 1,083 Israelis, including 741 civilians, of whom 124 were minors. On 7 October 2023, Hamas-led militant groups launched a surprise attack on Israel, in which 1,195 Israelis and foreign nationals, including 815 civilians, were killed, and 251 taken hostage. Since the start of
Gaza war The Gaza war is an armed conflict in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel fought since 7 October 2023. A part of the unresolved Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Israeli–Palestinian and Gaza–Israel conflict, Gaza–Israel conflicts dating ...
, over 52,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been reported as killed, over half of them
women A woman is an adult female human. Before adulthood, a female child or adolescent is referred to as a girl. Typically, women are of the female sex and inherit a pair of X chromosomes, one from each parent, and women with functional u ...
and
children A child () is a human being between the stages of childbirth, birth and puberty, or between the Development of the human body, developmental period of infancy and puberty. The term may also refer to an unborn human being. In English-speaking ...
, and more than 110,000 Palestinians have been injured. A study in ''
the Lancet ''The Lancet'' is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal, founded in England in 1823. It is one of the world's highest-impact academic journals and also one of the oldest medical journals still in publication. The journal publishes ...
'' estimated 64,260 deaths due to traumatic injuries by June 2024, while noting a larger potential death toll when "indirect" deaths are included. Israel's tightened blockade of Gaza cut off basic necessities, causing a severe hunger crisis with a high risk of famine persisting .


Criticism of casualty statistics

The Israeli-based International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) claimed that Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups overestimated the percentage of civilians killed since the IDF suspected many of those killed to be possible militants. During
Operation Cast Lead Operation or Operations may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * ''Operation'' (game), a battery-operated board game that challenges dexterity * Operation (music), a term used in musical set theory * ''Operations'' (magazine), Multi-Man ...
, Israeli figures reported the number of Palestinians killed at 1,166 Palestinian, 60 percent were classified as "terrorists" by Israeli officials. This discrepancy is partially due to Israel's classification of Gazan police, who did not take part in hostilities, as combatants. The broad consensus among human rights organizations is that these police were primarily civilians, as they did not actively participate in hostilities nor were they part of armed groups. The accuracy of Israeli casualty figures was further questioned based on the number of children killed. Israel reported 89 Palestinian minors killed, whereas the human rights organization B'Tselem reported 252, substantiating their figures with birth and death certificates and other documents in almost all cases. The Israeli figures also stand out against the figures published by the US Department of State, which reported the number killed "at close to 1,400 Palestinians, including more than 1,000 civilians."


Landmines and unexploded ordnance

A comprehensive collection mechanism to gather
land mine A land mine, or landmine, is an explosive weapon often concealed under or camouflaged on the ground, and designed to destroy or disable enemy targets as they pass over or near it. Land mines are divided into two types: anti-tank mines, wh ...
and explosive remnants of war (ERW) casualty data does not exist for the Palestinian territories. In 2009, the United Nations Mine Action Centre reported that more than 2,500 mine and explosive remnants of war casualties occurred between 1967 and 1998, at least 794 casualties (127 killed, 654 injured and 13 unknown) occurred between 1999 and 2008 and that 12 people had been killed and 27 injured since the
Gaza War The Gaza war is an armed conflict in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel fought since 7 October 2023. A part of the unresolved Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Israeli–Palestinian and Gaza–Israel conflict, Gaza–Israel conflicts dating ...
. The UN Mine Action Centre identified the main risks as coming from "ERW left behind by Israeli aerial and artillery weapon systems, or from militant caches targeted by the Israeli forces." There are at least 15 confirmed minefields in the West Bank on the border with Jordan. The
Palestinian National Security Forces The Palestinian National Security Forces (NSF; ) are the paramilitary security forces of the Palestinian National Authority. The name may either refer to all National Security Forces, including some special services but not including the Inter ...
do not have maps or records of the minefields.


See also

* Palestinian genocide accusation * Timeline of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict * Outline of the Gaza war * Bibliography of the Arab–Israeli conflict * Israeli–Palestinian conflict in video games *
Children in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict Children and children's rights have long been a focal point of the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict, dating as early as the 1929 Hebron massacre and the 1948 Deir Yassin massacre, both of which claimed the lives of children, precipitati ...
* Israeli war crimes *
Gaza genocide According to a United Nations Special Committee, Amnesty International, and other experts, Israel is committing genocide in Gaza against the Palestinian people during its ongoing invasion and bombing of the Gaza Strip as part of the Gaza w ...
*
Gaza–Israel conflict The Gaza–Israel conflict is a localized part of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict beginning in 1948, when about 200,000 of the more than 700,000 Nakba, Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes settled in the Gaza Strip as ref ...
*
History of the State of Palestine The history of the State of Palestine describes the creation and evolution of the State of Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. During the Mandatory Palestine, British mandate period, numerous plans of partition of Palestine were proposed ...
*
International law and the Arab–Israeli conflict The international law bearing on issues of Arab–Israeli conflict, which became a major arena of regional and international tension since the birth of Israel in 1948, history of the Arab–Israeli conflict, resulting in several disputes between a ...
* Israel–Palestine relations *
Israeli–Lebanese conflict The Israeli–Lebanese conflict, or the South Lebanon conflict,G. Rongxing. ''Territorial Disputes and Conflict Management: The Art of Avoiding War''. p71. is a long-running conflict involving Israel, Lebanon-based paramilitary groups, and som ...
* Israeli–Palestinian conflict in Hebron *
List of Middle East peace proposals This is a reversed chronological list of peace proposals in the Middle East, often abbreviated under the Mideast peace concept. Egyptian Crisis reconciliation *Egyptian constitutional referendum, 2012 *Egyptian constitutional referendum, 2014 S ...
*
List of modern conflicts in the Middle East This is a list of modern conflicts ensuing in the geographic and political region known as the Middle East. The "Middle East" is traditionally defined as the Fertile Crescent (Mesopotamia), Levant, and Egypt and neighboring areas of Arabia, An ...
*
Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel Since 2001, Palestinian militants have launched tens of thousands of rocket and mortar attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip as part of the continuing Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The attacks, widely condemned for targeting civilians, ...
*
Pan-Arabism Pan-Arabism () is a Pan-nationalism, pan-nationalist ideology that espouses the unification of all Arabs, Arab people in a single Nation state, nation-state, consisting of all Arab countries of West Asia and North Africa from the Atlantic O ...
* Peace Now * The Holocaust and the Nakba


Notes


References


Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


External links

United Nations
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – occupied Palestinian territory

United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East
Academic, news, and similar sites (excluding Israeli or Palestinian sources)
U.S. Attempts at Peace between Israel and Palestine
from th
Dean Peter Krogh Foreign Affairs Digital Archives

Gaza\Sderot : Life in spite of everything
– a web documentary produced by arte.tv, in which daily video-chronicles (2 min. each) show the life of 5 people (men, women, children) in Gaza and
Sderot Sderot (, , ; , sometimes Romanized as "Sederot") is a western Negev city and former development town in the Southern District (Israel), Southern District of Israel. In , it had a population of . Sderot is located less than a mile from Gaza St ...
, on both sides of the border.
Global Politician – Middle-East Section

Middle East Policy Council
!-- Couldn't get a quick handle on this, hope I've classified it correctly – User:Jmabel -->
Aix Group – Joint Palestinian-Israeli-international economic working group

Crash Course World History 223: Conflict in Israel and Palestine
– author and YouTube educator
John Green John Michael Green (born August 24, 1977) is an American author and YouTuber. His books have more than 50 million copies in print worldwide, including ''The Fault in Our Stars'' (2012), which is one of the List of best-selling books#Bet ...
gives a brief history lesson (13 minutes) on the conflict.
The Israeli–Palestinian Conflict
��An overview of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians from 1948 through the present day. From the History Guy Website.
The Media Line
– A non-profit news agency which provides credible, unbiased content, background and context from across the Middle East. Conflict resolution groups
OneVoice Movement – One Million Voices to End the Conflict

Seeking Common Ground
Human rights groups
Human Rights Watch: Israel/Palestine

B'Tselem – The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories

Al-Haq: Palestinian Human Rights Group
: West Bank affiliate of the
International Commission of Jurists The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) is an international human rights non-governmental organization. It is supported by an International Secretariat based in Geneva, Switzerland, and staffed by lawyers drawn from a wide range of jurisdi ...

Palestinian Centre for Human Rights PCHR
Gaza affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists
Gush-Shalom
Gush-Shalom Israeli Peace Movement Jewish and Israeli academic, news, and similar sites


Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs

Honest Reporting
monitoring mideast media
True Peace
Chabad-Lubavitch site
What the Fight in Israel Is All About
– The Media Line Jewish and Israeli "peace movement" news and advocacy sites

Published by Jews for Justice in the Middle East Other sites

Salom Now! and METalks are two experimental initiatives which sought to rewrite the script of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. However, such popular, grassroots action is held hostage by some common enemies: despair, hatred, antipathy and distrust. (Jan 2007)

Anat el-Hashahar, an Israeli and founder of METalks, debates the Arab–Israeli conflict – from Oslo to Lebanon – with Khaled Diab, an Egyptian journalist and writer.
Website with information (articles, reports, maps, books, links, etc.) on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Map of Palestinian Refugee Camps 1993 (UNRWA/C.I.A./Univ. of Texas, Austin)

Map of Israel 2008 (C.I.A./Univ. of Texas, Austin)

Map of Israeli Settlements in the West Bank Dec. 1993 (C.I.A./Univ. of Texas, Austin)

Map of Israeli Settlements in the Gaza Strip Dec. 1993 (C.I.A./Univ. of Texas, Austin)

Map of Jerusalem Mar. 1993 (C.I.A./Univ. of Texas, Austin)

Map of Jericho and Vicinity Jan. 1994 (C.I.A./Univ. of Texas, Austin)

Pew Global Research – worldwide public opinion

Policy publications on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the Berman Jewish Policy Archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Israeli-Palestinian Conflict - 20th-century conflicts 21st-century conflicts Islam-related controversies Israeli irredentism Jewish nationalism Palestinian nationalism Conflicts in the Middle East Guerrilla wars Insurgencies in Asia Ethnicity-based civil wars Religion-based civil wars - -