Israel–Palestine conflict

The Israel–Palestine conflict (also called the Israeli–Palestinian conflict) is a decades-long dispute between the State of Israel and the State of Palestine alongside Hamas, Iran and the people of Palestine. It is a dispute over who controls the Land of Israel, an area in the Middle East also known as Palestine (region). It also involves disputes about security, access to water, and whether Palestinians can return to their homes.

The conflict began before the State of Israel was created in 1948. It is part of the wider Arab–Israeli conflict and continues today.

 Overview 
A big part of the Israel–Palestine conflict is about who controls the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. This area used to be Mandatory Palestine. Both Israelis and Palestinians claim to own this land. Israelis also want to keep their country safe and Palestinians want their rights to be respected.

When agreements are proposed, the two sides do not always trust each other.

 A two-state solution 
The two-state solution is by far the most common proposed solution to the conflict. It would mean dividing the land to form an independent Palestinian state, finally giving both the Israeli and Palestinian people self-determination with states of their own.The American Jewish Cocoon September 26, 2013 New York Review of Books Most Palestinians view the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem as the area of the future Palestine.Dershowitz, Alan. The Case for Peace: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Can Be Resolved. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2005 

In the early 2000s, polls showed that the vast majority of Arabs and Jews believed a two-state solution was the best way to end the conflict."America through Arab eyes ". By Rami G. Khouri. International Herald Tribune. Published April 21, 2008.

 The latest survey, conducted in March, covered a representative sample of over 4,000 people in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Charlie and lola and the United Arab Emirates (1.6 percent margin of error) ... A majority of Arabs continues to support the two-state solution based on the 1967 borders, though an increasing majority is pessimistic about its prospects."Just another forgotten peace summit ." Haaretz.com. By Prof. Ephraim Yaar and Prof. Tamar Hermann. Published 11/12/2007.
On top of that, a majority of the common Jewish people see the Palestinians' demand for an independent state as just, and thinks Israel can agree to the creation of such a state.

 A one-state solution 
Few scholars suggest a one-state solution. This is plan seemingly alleges as possible a bi-national state (a country for both Israeli and Palestinians) out of all of Israel, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The proposed new country would have equal rights for all.Israel: The Alternative, The New York Review of Books, Volume 50, Number 16, October 23, 2003Virginia Tilley, The One-State Solution, University of Michigan Press (May 24, 2005),  

 History 
 Mandatory Palestine 
The British had promised the land of Mandatory Palestine to two groups of people. They had promised it to the local Arabs and also to Jews in the area and in Europe. Arabs were the majority at the time but more Jews were starting to move there. Both the Arabs and the Jews wanted independence – to rule themselves. Arabs had been under the control of the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire and then the British. They felt they were going to lose their jobs and their homes now too. Many Jews had escaped violence and antisemitism in Europe and the Middle East, and now felt they needed a safe country of their own. This created unrest and tension in Mandatory Palestine.: "Additionally, a separate Jewish-controlled sector of the economy was created through the exclusion of Arab labor from Jewish-owned firms under the slogan of "Avoda ivrit," Hebrew labor, and the injection of truly massive amounts of capital from abroad."He [Husseini] incited 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. This was the backdrop to his agitation concerning Jewish rights at the Western (Wailing) Wall that led to the bloody riots of August 1929...[H]e 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.  Jews generally supported the plans.

Rising conflict
Throughout the 1920s, violence often broke out between Arabs and Jews in Mandatory Palestine. To protect itself, the Jews formed their own paramilitary (an unauthorized private army), called the Haganah. 

Arab nationalists from other countries entered Palestine in the 1930s to engage in violence. The local Arabs organized protests and boycotts. Many of them had lost their jobs and homes, or were evicted from their land. In response, the British set up special teams of Jewish police and soldiers to help them manage the unrest. These teams were called the Notrim. In 1936, Arab protests grew into a revolt. The Arabs wanted the British to leave Palestine and to stop supporting plans to build a Jewish country there. The British stopped the revolt by force. : "The repression of the revolt had an impact not only on the populace, but also on the Palestinians' ability to fight thereafter, and on the already fractured capabilities of their national leadership. A high proportion of the Arab casualties included the most experienced military cadres and enterprising fighters.6 By the end of the revolt, most of the top Arab political leaders and thousands of other cadres, militants, and fighters were imprisoned, interned by the British in the Seychelles, in exile, or dead. The British also confiscated large quantities of arms and ammunition from the Arabs during the revolt, and continued to do so during later years. By the end of the revolt, existing political divisions within the Palestinian polity had become envenomed, leading to profound rifts between the majority supporting the revolt and a minority that had become alienated from the leadership: the consequence was assassinations, infighting, and further weakening of the Palestinian position. The impact of the revolt on the Palestinian economy was also severe, although some of that damage was self-inflicted, as a boycott of British and Jewish goods and of the mandatory government during the strike and the revolt simply opened up opportunities for the already larger Jewish-controlled sector of the economy of Palestine to expand further." At least 10% of the adult population were killed, hurt, jailed or forced to leave the country. Many Arab leaders were also ejected from the country in violent clashes over the year. The economy was struggling with so much change.: "Of all the services Britain provided to the Zionist movement before 1939, perhaps the most valuable was the armed suppression of Palestinian resistance in the form of the revolt. The bloody war waged against the country's majority, which left 10 percent of the adult male Arab population killed, wounded, imprisoned, or exiled,55 was the best illustration of the unvarnished truths uttered by Jabotinsky about the necessity of the use of force for the Zionist project to succeed. To quash the uprising, the British Empire brought in two additional divisions of troops, squadrons of bombers, and all the paraphernalia of repression that it had perfected over many decades of colonial wars.": "IN SPITE OF the sacrifices made—which can be gauged from the very large numbers of Palestinians who were killed, wounded, jailed, or exiled—and the revolt's momentary success, the consequences for the Palestinians were almost entirely negative. The savage British repression, the death and exile of so many leaders, and the conflict within their ranks left the Palestinians divided, without direction, and with their economy debilitated by the time the revolt was crushed in the summer of 1939. This put the Palestinians in a very weak position to confront the now invigorated Zionist movement, which had gone from strength to strength during the revolt, obtaining lavish amounts of arms and extensive training from the British to help them suppress the uprising."

At this point, the British decided to ban Jewish immigration to Palestine. p.48 This was very unpopular with the Jews in Palestine and those in Europe.: "A white paper of 17 May 1939 abruptly reversed British support for Zionism and for a Jewish state."


The situation appeared to settle down during World War II. Moderate Arab leaders were popular during this time. Arabs and Jews fought together in the Jewish–Arab Palestine Regiment, commanded by the British. But the Holocaust created a crisis for European Jews. By 1947, more and more Jews were entering Palestine illegally. The British now found themselves facing armed Jewish groups as a result. They started to plan their withdrawal from Mandatory Palestine.

Partition
The UN voted to separate Mandatory Palestine into one country for the Arabs and another for the Jews. Jerusalem would be an international city, run by UN forces and open for all.Baum, Noa. "Historical Time Line for Israel/Palestine."  UMass Amherst. 5 April 2005. 14 March 2013. Jews comprised 37% of the population but would get 55% of the land. Arabs opposed the plan since Jews only owned 7% of the land at the time. Jewish leaders planned to take the rest of the land later.

Independence and Arab–Israeli War

A civil war broke out. For the first four months, Arab forces mostly attacked the local Jews. Then the tide began to turn. Much of the local Arab leadership had been defeated the decade before and support from neighboring Arab nations did little to help. The Jewish paramilitaries were more organized and were taking more and more land. They enacted Operation Dalet to conquer as much land as they could.Morris (2004), p.13: "The Haganah stayed on the defensive, wishing not to annoy the British while it re-organised and armed for war; it knew that the real challenge would be posed not by the Palestinians but by the armies of the surrounding states. Until the end of January 1948, neither side had the upper hand. But in February and March, Arab ambushers inflicted major defeats on Haganah convoys along the roads, especially between Tel Aviv and (Jewish West) Jerusalem. It appeared to the Yishuv’s leaders that, besieged, Jewish Jerusalem – with a population of 100,000 – might fall; there were similar fears regarding several clusters of Jewish rural settlements around Jerusalem and in western Galilee. The defeats and significant casualties suffered caused the Yishuv to rethink its strategy. At the beginning of April, the Haganah switched to the offensive, at last unleashing a series of major counter-attacks." Morris (2004), p.163: "The British evacuation, which would remove the last vestige of law and order in the cities and on the roads, was only weeks away, and the neighbouring Arab states were mobilising to intervene. The Yishuv was struggling for its life; an invasion by the Arab states could deliver the coup de grâce. It was with this situation and prospect in mind that the Haganah chiefs, in early March, produced ‘Tochnit Dalet’ (Plan D), a blueprint for securing the emergent Jewish state and the blocs of settlements outside the state’s territory against the expected invasion on or after 15 May."

A second stage of the war began after Britain withdrew and Israel declared its independence on May 14, 1948. Around this time, half the Palestinian Arabs were forced or intimidated out of their homes – first by Jewish paramilitaries and then Israel Defence Force. Some scholars have accused Israel of ethnic cleansing,Shavit, Ari. "Survival of the Fittest? An Interview with Benny Morris" . Logos. Winter 2004 although some disagree.Benny Morris (21 February 2008). "Benny Morris on fact, fiction, & propaganda about 1948". The Irish Times, reported by Jeff Weintraub  Events that caused this included people being forced to leave by Israeli forces, the destruction of Arab villages, spreading information designed to cause fear, terrorism, mass killings such as the widely publicized Deir Yassin massacre burning of crops, disease from well-poisoning,Benny Morris, Benjamin Z. Kedar, 'Cast thy bread': Israeli biological warfare during the 1948 War  Middle Eastern Studies 19 September 2022, pages =1-25 p.8:'The SHAI, in its report from the end of June 1948 on the causes of the Arab flight from Palestine, mentioned 'the typhus epidemic' as 'an exacerbating factor in the evacuation' in certain areas. 'More than the disease itself, it was the panic induced by the rumours of the spread of the disease in the area that was a factor in the evacuation', stated the report. In its site-by-site breakdown of the Arab flight, the report mentioned 'harassment [by the Haganah] and the typhus epidemic' as the causes of the partial exodus of the population from Acre on 6 May.' and the collapse of Palestinian leadership and the wealthier classes.J.P.D. Dunbabin, The Post-Imperial Age: The Great Powers and the Wider World,  Routledge 2014  pp.256-258. Many fled the country. Many more became refugees. 


The Arab League attacked the new country of Israel. There were 15,000 casualties but the fighting ended in 1949. Israel held almost 80% of what had been Mandatory Palestine. Jordan controlled the West Bank and Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip.

 Population shift 
Jewish population
The population of Jewish people in the Arab world has decreased dramatically since 1948. That year, there were between 758,000 and 881,000 Jews (see table below) living in communities throughout the Arab world. Today, there are fewer than 24,000. 

The Jewish community no longer exists in some Arab states, like Libya (which was previously around 3% Jewish). In other Arab countries, only a few hundred Jews remain. Many Jews in Asia, Africa, and Arabia have moved to Israel.

This table shows how many Jews are left in Muslim countries as of 2020:
Jewish Populations19482020-2021Afghanistan5,0000Algeria140,0000Bahrain550-60030 [2017]Bangladesh(Unknown)4 (2018)But despite this history, today, the Jewish population of Bangladesh is virtually non-existent. According to local sources, there are only 4 Jews living in Dhaka and they keep their identity private.What happened to the Jews of Bangladesh? - Foreign Policy ...foreignpolicyblogs.com/2018/04/30/what-happened-to-th]Egypt75,0003 Eritrea(Unknown)0 Note in 2018 it is reported the last Jew in Eritrea was shot and killed by an unknown person see last_eritrean_jew_shot_in_street posted 2018 accessed 19 March 2022Iran65,232 (1956)8,500 (2020)Ref: Jewish Population source Website:  Iraq135,0003Lebanon5,00029Libya35,0000Morocco250,0002,150Pakistan2,000-5,000>900 (2017)Sudan3500Syria15,0000Tunisia50,0001,050Turkey80,00015,000 (2020)Ref: Jewish Population source Website: https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/jewish-population-by-country/ Yemen and Aden45,000+1 In MArch 2022 the UN reports there is just 1 Jew left in Yemen Jewish Chronicle March 14,2021
Palestinian population

In the 1948 Palestine war, over 700,000 Palestinian Arabs were forced out of their homes or fled in fear. That was about half of Mandatory Palestine's population at the time. They initially were forced out or fled  The experience of being made or having to leave their homes and country led to the breakdown of Palestinian society, known as the Nakba.Honaida Ghanim, Poetics of Disaster: Nationalism, Gender, and Social Change Among Palestinian Poets in Israel After Nakba,  International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society March 2009 Vol. 22, No. 1 pp.23-39 p.37 Stern, Yoav (13 May 2008). "Palestinian refugees, Israeli left-wingers mark Nakba" . Haaretz. Nakba 60 , BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights; Cleveland, William L. A History of the Modern Middle East, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2004, p. 270.  Israeli military forces conducted dozens of massacres targeting Arabs. Between 400 and 600 Palestinian villages were destroyed. Village wells were poisoned and homes were looted to prevent refugees returning. Other sites had their names changed from Arabic to Hebrew to erase their Arab history.

The number of 700,000 Palestinian refugees is sometimes disputed, and does not include Arabs who uprooted within Israel itself.Masalha, Nur (1992). Expulsion of the Palestinians. Institute for Palestine Studies, this edition 2001, p. 175. When the British withdrew, 250,000–300,000 Palestinians had fled/been forced out. The  Arab League entered the country after this. This was partly to prevent the breakdown of Palestinian society and to prevent more refugees. This led to the 1948 Arab–Israeli War when the remaining refugees were forced out or escaped.Gelber 2006, p. 137: "Drawn into the war by the collapse of the Palestinians and the ALA, the Arab governments' primary goal was preventing the Palestinians' total ruin and the flooding of their own countries by more refugees." Afterwards, laws were quickly passed which prevented Arabs from going home or getting their property back. Many remain refugees.Kodmani-Darwish, p. 126; Féron, Féron, p. 94.Human Rights Watch. "A Threshold Crossed," 27 April 2021. A Threshold Crossed .Amnesty International. "Israel's Apartheid against Palestinians: A Cruel System of Domination and a Crime against Humanity," 1 February 2022. Israel's Apartheid against Palestinians .

The Six-Day War
In 1967, Israel defeated its Arab neighbors again. Israel gained control of several Arab territories. This included the Gaza Strip and West Bank. They also took parts of Egypt and Syria.

Yom Kippur War
In 1973, Israel resisted a surprise attack from its neighbors. Syria and Egypt attempted to take back their territory, but Israel won. The United Nations decide to create a new plan for peace. Israel would return Arab territories it had taken in the Six-Day War. In exchange, its Arab neighbors would recognize it as a legitimate state. Palestine would form its own country in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The large numbers of Palestinian refugees would be rehomed. p.216: "The disastrous defeat of the Arab states in the 1973 war also played a major role in convincing Arafat of the need for a compromise peace settlement. Arafat's decision to start peace negotiations with Israel led to the June 1974 PLO agreement to adopt a new strategy that called for a struggle for "every part of Palestine that is liberated" (emphasis added). Anziska writes that this constituted "an acceptance of a political solution on a limited piece of territory," the first step, however vague, that opened the door for a Palestinian acceptance of a two-state solution... In a recent major work, historian Seth Anziska writes that the 1973 war "launched a new phase in the PLO's struggle, oriented toward partition and the acknowledgment of Israel's presence. In the aftermath of the October War, the PLO sought a place within the comprehensive diplomatic negotiations, which required political compromise and the eventual embrace of a state on far less territory than historic Palestine" (Anziska, Preventing Palestine, Kindle 25). Similarly, Bird writes: "By mid-1974 the PLO was rapidly moving away from a strategy of armed struggle and morphing into a political movement seeking international legitimacy" based on a two-state solution (Bird, The Good Spy, Kindle location 2560–75). For similar assessments of the importance of the 1974 PLO program, see Hart, Arafat, 10–11; Weinberger, "The Palestinian National Security Debate"; Nofal, "Yasir Arafat: A Mixed Legacy"; Tessler, A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Kindle 483–84; and Elgindy, Blind Spot, Kindle 88." These plans were supported by the International Court of Justice and international human rights organizations.: "On the other hand, the war had given Israel a stinging slap in the face. The 1948, 1956, and 1967 wars had conditioned them to stunning victories over the Arabs and to Arab military (and political) incompetence; 1973 proved to be something else altogether. Many Israelis were now persuaded that the territories could not be held indefinitely by force and that continued occupation would necessarily lead to further bouts of painful warfare. At last, and for the first time since June 1967, most people were willing to contemplate giving up large chunks of land for peace.": "The 1973 war was a traumatic event that promoted the disintegration of Israeli politics and culture. The myth of Israeli invincibility was shattered, and while some saw this as a good reason to become more insistent in the search for peace, others turned to God, toughening their positions on peace and territorial compromise. What added to the confusion and the erosion of self-confidence was the high number of deaths, about 3,000, compared with the few hundred in the 1967 war. A general sense of grief fell on the country and affected the government's prestige." 

Egypt and Israel held the Camp David Accords in 1978 and 1979 to come to an agreement. The plan was that Israel would retain control over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, but Palestinians would gain autonomy. While Israel gained control of the land, Palestinian autonomy was not implemented.: "In addition to their central provision, for a peace treaty between the two countries, the Camp David Accords, agreed upon by Israel and Egypt under the aegis of the United States in 1978, called for negotiations for the establishment of a "Self-Governing Authority" (SGA) for the Arab population of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Jerusalem was to be excluded from its provisions. The accords stipulated "full autonomy for the inhabitants," but crucially, this did not apply to the land, which was to remain under full Israeli control. A bilateral peace treaty based on these accords was signed between Israel and Egypt in 1979, and Israel thereafter began a withdrawal of its forces from the occupied Egyptian Sinai Peninsula, which was completed in the spring of 1982. However, the modalities of the Palestinian-autonomy accords were a continuing source of dispute between the three signatories to the Camp David Accords, as well as with the Palestinians and other Arabs, and in the end they were never implemented.": "The Camp David Accords were signed in an impressive ceremony in the White House on 17 September 1978. The two accords were entitled "A Framework for Peace in the Middle East" and "A Framework for the Conclusion of a Peace Treaty between Israel and Egypt." The former stated in its preamble, "The agreed basis for a peaceful settlement of the conflict between Israel and its neighbours is UN Security Council Resolution 242 in all its parts." The framework dealt with the West Bank and Gaza and envisaged nothing less than "the resolution of the Palestinian problem in all its aspects." Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and the representatives of the Palestinian people were to participate in the negotiations, which were to proceed in three stages. In the first, the ground rules would be laid for electing a "self-governing authority" for the territories, and the powers of this authority would be defined. In the second stage, once the self-governing authority had been established, a transitional period would begin. Israel's military government and its civilian administration would be withdrawn; Israel's armed forces would also be withdrawn and the remaining forces redeployed into specified security locations. In the third stage, not later than the third year after the beginning of the transitional period, negotiations would take place to determine the final status of the West Bank and Gaza. These negotiations had to recognize "the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people and their just requirements."

The First Intifada
From 1987, unhappiness with Israel's control of the land increased. This often led to terror attacks on Jewish towns. By the 1990s, the unrest came to be known as the First Intifada.

The Oslo Accords
By 1993, the Israeli–Palestinian peace process led to the Oslo Accords. The Palestinian National Authority was formed to lead the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. These areas remained under Israeli military control. The peace process was unpopular among some Israelis at the time. The press often did not support the process. In 1995, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was killed by an Israeli who objected to the peace process. The new Israeli government was less interested in the peace process.

Second Intifada
By 2000, the conflict erupted again. Palestinian National Security Forces clashed with the Israel Defence Forces. Around 130 people died.

By 2005, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon withdrew Israeli soldiers from Gaza. He also ordered those civilians who had built their homes in Gaza (which was considered illegal by the international community) to leave. Israel declared it was no longer occupying the Gaza Strip.  It retained control of Gaza's borders, airspace, sea, imports and exports, and the people coming in and out of the area.

Rise of Hamas
In 2006, Hamas won a Palestinian election. Israel said that Hamas must agree to prior Israeli–Palestinian agreements, avoid all violence, and accept Israel's existence. It said it would impose sanctions otherwise. Hamas refused and the Battle of Gaza broke out between Hamas and its main political rival in 2007. The rival party, Fatah, lost. Hamas took full control of Gaza. In response, Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza. Egypt supported the blockade on land.

Operation Cast Lead
Tensions between Israel and Hamas quickly escalated. In 2008, Israel launched an attack on Gaza. Operation Cast Lead resulted in thousands of people killed or injured and billions of dollars of damage. A ceasefire was agreed in 2009, but small conflicts occasionally flared up.

UN recognition
In 2011, the Palestinian Authority attempted to become a member of the UN as a fully sovereign state (a country in control of all of its own laws, borders, etc). It failed, but it became a "non-member observer state". It also changed its name from "Palestine (represented by PLO)" to the State of Palestine.

In 2014, a war between Israel and Hamas killed over 70 Israelis and 2,000 Palestinians.

2023 Israel–Hamas War
Hamas had been planning an attack on Israel for some years.
 In 2022, Netanyahu returned to power leading a far-right government which supported more aggressive action against Palestinians. Benjamin Netanyahu returned as prime minister. Attacks and evictions in the West Bank increased. This caused political instability in Gaza and the West Bank.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas invaded Israel. This surprise attack killed 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians. Over 200 hostages were taken. Israel responded by bombing and then invading Gaza. Israel vowed to wipe out Hamas and take control of Gaza to prevent further attacks on Israel. During a short ceasefire, some of the hostages were returned but the war soon resumed.

As of 2024, over 40,000 Gazans have been killed, mostly civilians. Two million people have been displaced. South Africa accused Israel of genocide at the International Court of Justice and multiple countries called for a ceasefire. Israel said it will not agree to a ceasefire unless all the hostages are returned. ALT Link

The war has escalated to conflicts elsewhere in the Middle East. Clashes with Syrian and Lebanese groups have occurred. Yemen and Iran have also been involved. In 2024, conflict between Israel and Lebanon also escalated to war, but a ceasefire agreement was later reached. In February 2024, the United States also launched airstrikes in Iraq and Syria.

Israel has also supported Yasser Abu Shabab, the leader of the Popular Forces to counter Hamas, critics have nicknamed Abu Shabaab the "Pablo Escobar of Gaza".Euronews. "Exclusive: New Militia Emerges in Gaza to Challenge Hamas Control." *Euronews*, 10 July 2025, https://www.euronews.com/2025/07/10/exclusive-new-militia-emerges-in-gaza-to-challenge-hamas-control.

 Related pages
List of ongoing armed conflicts
Zionism
Arab–Israeli conflict
Gaza war (2023-present)

 References 

 Bibliography 





















Other websites
The Israel-Palestine conflict: a brief, simple history, Vox Media LLC on YouTube

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Category:Politics of Palestine
Category:Palestinian territories
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Category:Nationalism
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