Hundreds of thousands of European Jews emigrated to Palestine between 1896 and 1948. After World War I, the British were given control of the area – home to a Jewish minority and Arab majority – after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire.
The Arab population saw this as part of the “European colonial movement.” This belief has carried forward today, and even in the current conflict, you will hear Israel and Israelis referred to as colonizers and settlers.
Extensive violence led to a United Nations vote to split Palestine into two countries in 1947. The Jewish population (about 650,000 people) went into the blue section of the map below, and the two times larger Arab population went into the orange section.
This division gave 56% of British Palestine to the Jewish residents who accepted it, but the Arab residents did not accept it. This led to ongoing conflicts over land, territory and statehood. The British rulers left in 1948, unable to reach an agreement on the division of the land.
Throughout the decades, numerous skirmishes, battles and wars have been fought. This list highlights the major events.
Israel declared independence in May 1948, and the next day, a war began after a coalition of neighboring Arab states and Palestinian factions attacked. After the ceasefire in 1949, Israel controlled 77% of the former British Palestine land mass. Jordan controlled the West Bank and the eastern quarter of Jerusalem, and Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip. Palestinians were left stateless. Palestinians refer to this forced displacement of 700,000 Palestinians as “the Nakba,” which means “catastrophe” in Arabic.
URNWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, says the term “Palestine refugee” was “defined in 1952 [by the UN] as any person whose ‘normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948 and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict.’ Palestine refugees are persons who fulfil the above definition and descendants of fathers fulfilling the definition.”
Today, there are nearly 6 million Palestinian refugees, including the original displaced refugees and their descendants. They primarily live in Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.
The 1956 Suez Crisis was a British-French battle with Egypt after the Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal Company in July 1956. This company was a “joint British-French enterprise which had owned and operated the Suez Canal since its construction in 1869.”
Between August and October 1956, the U.S. government engaged the parties in negotiations and discussions, hoping to avoid a war in the region. Israel joined forces with the British and French and attacked through the Sinai Peninsula on Oct. 29, 1956. President Eisenhower “pressured Britain and France to accept a United Nations ceasefire on November 6. Moreover, the United States voted for U.N. resolutions publicly condemning the invasion and approving the creation of a U.N. peacekeeping force.” This was the first time a UN peacekeeping force was used. The Suez Canal reopened in March 1957.
In 1967, the Six-Day War was a conflict between Israel and the Arab countries of Egypt, Syria and Jordan. Israel took East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan. It also took the 23,500-square-mile Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, as well as the Golan Heights from Syria.
BBC says, “Most Palestinian refugees and their descendants live in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as in neighbouring Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Neither they nor their descendants have been allowed by Israel to return to their homes – Israel says this would overwhelm the country and threaten its existence as a Jewish state.”
In 1973, another war occurred on Oct. 6, during Yom Kippur, a Jewish high holiday, with a coalition of Arab states led by Syria and Egypt invading Israel. They hoped to win back land lost to Israel in the Six-Day War. This was the fourth of the “Arab-Israeli Wars.”
The History Channel says, “Egyptian troops swept deep into the Sinai Peninsula, while Syria struggled to throw occupying Israeli troops out of the Golan Heights. Israel counterattacked and recaptured the Golan Heights.”
The United States supported Israel, while the Soviet Union supported the Arab states. The war ended on Oct. 25, 1973, when Egypt and Israel agreed to a UN-secured ceasefire, which resulted in Syria suffering a massive defeat, losing even more of Golan Heights territory. Between 1974 and 1982, various peace treaties and discussions led to the return of Sinai to Egypt.
Although Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005, the UN still considers the Gaza Strip an occupied territory. MSF says, “In international law, a territory is considered ‘occupied’ when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army.”
There are several rules and guidelines in place for what happens when a territory is occupied, and Israel is currently not in compliance with international humanitarian law because of its actions.
In 2006, Hamas, a militant group deemed by the U.S. and many other nations to be a terrorist group, won the Palestinian election.
The United States Institute for Peace says, “Palestinian politics have been rife with divisions since the pursuit of an independent state began in the 1960s. But the national movement formally split—politically, geographically and strategically—after Hamas, an Islamist party, beat Fatah, a secular movement, in the 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council elections. Factional fighting erupted after the two parties failed to reach a power-sharing agreement. Hundreds died. The Palestinian Territories divided into two polities: Hamas ruled Gaza, and Fatah led the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank.”
Numerous attempts at reconciliation have failed, and there have been several wars and conflicts between Israel and Gaza. From 2008 to 2023 (before the start of this conflict), there have been 308 Israeli deaths and more than 6,400 Palestinian deaths because of the fighting. Additionally, at least 152,560 Palestinians and 6,307 Israelis have been injured.
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