Israel-Palestine conflict explainer

The region of Palestine has been in conflict since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. What follows is a brief overview of the conflict as a whole. For more information on various events, people, and places, follow the included links to explore Encyclopædia Britannica’s articles. [1]

The land in question: Palestine

Contributors to Encyclopædia Britannica explain that Palestine is the

region of Southwest Asia along the eastern Mediterranean, generally regarded as consisting of the southern coastal area between Egypt, where Asia meets Africa, and Tyre, which in ancient times was the most prominent of the Phoenician city-states. [2]

The region is about the size of Massachusetts and has strategic importance as a gateway to Syria from Egypt and from the Mediterranean to beyond the Jordan River. The land is bordered by Lebanon to the north, Syria and Jordan to the east, the Red Sea to the south, Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula to the southwest, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. [1] [2]

However, Palestine historically has had imprecise boundaries, with the eastern border being “especially fluid,” according to the late William Charles Brice and Rashid Ismail Khalidi, of Victoria University of Manchester and Columbia University, respectively. Britannica editors further explain that “today the State of Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip are located within this area.” [2]

Furthermore, three of the five major religions refer to the area as the “Holy Land.” Christians hold the land as the birthplace and resurrection location of Jesus Christ, Jews as the land promised to them by God in the Hebrew Bible, and Muslims as the site of Muhammad’s ascension to heaven. [2]

The Ottoman Empire

One of the most powerful 15th- and 16th-century forces in the world, the Ottoman Empire was created by Turkish tribes in Anatolia at the end of the 13th century. Malcolm Edward Yapp and Jay Shaw, the late emeritus professors of the University of London and the University of California, Los Angeles, respectively, and Britannica editors explain:

At its height the [Ottoman] empire encompassed most of southeastern Europe to the gates of Vienna, including present-day Hungary, the Balkan region, Greece, and parts of Ukraine; portions of the Middle East now occupied by Iraq, Syria, Israel, [the West Bank, the Gaza Strip,] and Egypt; North Africa as far west as Algeria; and large parts of the Arabian Peninsula. [3]

In 1516 the Ottoman Empire defeated the Mamluk dynasty, allowing the Ottomans to claim the region of Palestine, which they held until 1917. Reorganized several times under Ottoman rule, the coastal land from Latakia (in what is now Syria) to Jaffa (today part of Tel Aviv–Yafo, Israel) was parceled into administrative divisions for the last time in 1888. In doing so the empire established the vilayet (governorate) of Beirut. South of the vilayet was the sanjak (district) of Jerusalem, which was also under Ottoman rule. [1] [2] [4]

The Ottoman Empire enjoyed power for more than 600 years; it began to decline in the late 16th century and was ultimately dismantled piece by piece—including its territories in the region of Palestine—from 1807 through 1924. [3]

Much of the conflict over Palestine began with the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.

Sykes-Picot Agreement

In May 1916 Great Britain and France finalized the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement, named for chief British and French negotiators, Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot, respectively. The agreement was made on the assumption that the global powers would defeat the Ottoman Empire in World War I (1914–18) and then split the conquered land among themselves. Russia and Italy both signed on to the agreement but were excluded after events of the war negated their claims. [5]

According to Encyclopædia Britannica, the Sykes-Picot Agreement had six provisions:

1. “Russia should acquire the Armenian provinces of Erzurum, Trebizond (Trabzon), Van, and Bitlis, with some Kurdish territory to the southeast.”

   • This provision was negated when Russia exited the war after the second 1917 Russian Revolution via the March 3, 1918, Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. [5] [6]
2. “France should acquire Lebanon and the Syrian littoral [coastline], Adana, Cilicia, and the hinterland adjacent to Russia’s share, that hinterland including Ayıntab, Urfa (Şanlıurfa), Mardin, Diyarbakır, and Mosul.”

   • France was granted control over Lebanon and Syria in July 1922, when the League of Nations approved the French Mandate for Syria and Lebanon.
   • France withdrew from Cilicia (and thus the Cilician city of Adana) per the terms of the Treaty of Ankara (October 1921).
   • France ceded Ayıntab, Urfa (Şanlıurfa), Mardin, and Diyarbakır to Turkey in the Treaty of Ankara (October 1921), which created Turkey’s modern boundaries.
   • Mosul was ceded to Britain in the San Remo Agreement (April 1920) in exchange for oil rights for the French. [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]
3. “Great Britain should acquire southern Mesopotamia, including Baghdad, and also the Mediterranean ports of Haifa and Acre.”

   • This provision was fully realized through the British mandates for Iraq and Palestine, both granted at the April 1920 San Remo Conference. [13]
4. “Between the French and the British acquisitions there should be a confederation of Arab states or a single independent Arab state, divided into French and British spheres of influence.”

   • This provision was overridden by the French and British mandates mentioned above. [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13]
5. “Alexandretta (İskenderun) should be a free port.”

   • This provision was overridden by the French and British mandates mentioned above. The area was given to Turkey in 1939 by France. [14]
6. “And Palestine, because of the holy places, should be under an international regime.”

   • This provision was not followed; Palestine, instead, was placed under a British mandate. [5]

The Balfour Declaration

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Further complicating the political landscape, Arthur James Balfour, the British foreign secretary, issued a statement of British support for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” in a letter dated November 2, 1917, to Lionel Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild (of Tring), a leader of the Anglo-Jewish community. [15] [16]

The Balfour Declaration contradicted both the Sykes-Picot Agreement and the Hussein-McMahon correspondence, but was nonetheless included in the July 24, 1922, British mandate over Palestine. [16]

Hussein-McMahon correspondence

The Sykes-Picot Agreement was kept a secret until November 23, 1917, when the Soviet Russian government published the full texts in Izvestia and Pravda. The Manchester Guardian then reprinted the agreement on November 26 in English. Arabs were “scandalized,” according to Britannica editors, because the secret agreement directly contradicted agreements for an independent Arab state in the Hussein-McMahon correspondence. [5] [18]

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Britannica editors explain that the correspondence consisted of

letters exchanged in 1915–16, during World War I, between Hussein ibn Ali, emir of Mecca, and Sir Henry McMahon, the British high commissioner in Egypt. In general terms, the correspondence effectively traded British support of an independent Arab state for Arab assistance in opposing the Ottoman Empire. [19]

Britannica editors conclude, “It is certain that the Arabs achieved far less from the ambiguous arrangement than they had anticipated.” [19]

1920 San Remo Conference

A series of armistices in late 1918 between the Allies (primarily Great Britain, France, the United States, and Italy) and their adversaries ended fighting. The Allies met first at the Paris Peace Conference (1919–20), where the League of Nations was established. The League of Nations is the precursor to the United Nations (UN), and when the former was dissolved in 1946, its assets were absorbed by the UN. [20] [21] [22]

Attended by the prime ministers of Great Britain, France, and Italy and representatives of Japan, Greece, and Belgium, the 1920 San Remo Conference established two League of Nations “A” mandates from the dissolved Ottoman Empire, according to Britannica editors:

the northern half (Syria and Lebanon) was mandated to France, the southern half (Palestine) to Great Britain. The province of Mesopotamia (Iraq) was also mandated to Great Britain. Under the terms of an “A” mandate the individual countries were deemed independent but subject to a mandatory power until they reached political maturity. When King Fayṣal of Damascus opposed the French mandate over Syria, he was expelled by the French Army. [13]

British mandate of Palestine

As mentioned above, the Balfour Declaration, in which a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine was promised, contradicted both the Sykes-Picot Agreement and the Hussein-McMahon correspondence but was nonetheless included in the League of Nations’ 1922 “Mandate for Palestine Together with a Note by the Secretary General Relating to Its Application to Territory Known as Trans-Jordan.” [24]

Britannica editors highlight three articles of the mandate:

Article 2 made the mandatory power responsible for placing the country under such “political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish National Home…and the development of self-governing institutions.” Article 4 allowed for the establishment of a Jewish Agency to advise and cooperate with the Palestine administration in matters affecting the Jewish national home. Article 6 required that the Palestine administration, “while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced,” under suitable conditions should facilitate Jewish immigration and close settlement of Jews on the land. [2]

The editors note, however, that while Transjordan (the land east of the Jordan River) was part of the British mandate of Palestine, the land was excluded from the articles establishing a Jewish national home. Thus, when the mandate came into effect on September 29, 1923, Palestine became “a distinct political entity for the first time in centuries.” And both Palestinian Arabs and Zionists noted future problems:

Both communities realized that by the end of the mandate period the region’s future would be determined by size of population and ownership of land. Thus, the central issues throughout the mandate period were Jewish immigration and land purchases, with the Jews attempting to increase both and the Arabs seeking to slow down or halt both. Conflict over these issues often escalated into violence, and the British were forced to take action—a lesson not lost on either side. [2]

Furthermore, British rule in Palestine was mainly concerned with putting in place administrative and municipal services (transportation, electricity, water pipelines, and port and railway line expansions) and quelling violence involving Palestinian Arabs, Jews, and British authorities. [2]

The aims of the three factions were proving incompatible. Tensions rose as Jewish immigration increased when the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933 and persecuted European Jews throughout central and eastern Europe. The number of Jews who immigrated to Palestine more than doubled from 1933 (30,000) to 1935 (61,000), making the Jewish population of Palestine about 400,000 in 1936, or about a third of Palestine’s total population. [2]

The Arab Revolt and Peel Commission

Though violence between the Arab and Jewish populations had been escalating for some time, the Arab Revolt of 1936–39 was the first sustained violent uprising of Palestinian Arabs in more than a century. The revolt began as a general strike against the British support of Zionist policies. The Arab population demanded that Jewish immigration cease, that sales of land to Jews be banned, and that the British grant independence. [2] [26]

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Headed by Robert Peel, the Peel Commission was tasked by the British government with investigating the causes of violence in Palestine. The Peel Commission released a report in July 1937 stating that “Partition [is] the only method we are able to propose for dealing with the root of the trouble.” Calling “the situation in Palestine” a “deadlock,” the commission suggested that the only solution was to split Palestine into three zones: an Arab state, a Jewish state, and a neutral territory containing the holy places. [26] [27] [28]

The suggestion once again split the factions, according to Encyclopædia Britannica contributors:

The Zionist attitude toward partition, though ambivalent, was overall one of cautious acceptance. For the first time a British official body explicitly spoke of a Jewish state. The commission not only allotted to this state an area that was immensely larger than the existing Jewish landholdings but recommended the forcible transfer of the Arab population from the proposed Jewish state. The Zionists, however, still needed mandatory protection for their further development and left the door open for an undivided Palestine. The Arabs were horrified by the idea of dismembering the region and particularly by the suggestion that they be forcibly transferred (to Transjordan). [2]

As a result, the violence of the Arab Revolt intensified after the report was released. The British declared martial law in September 1937, but violence continued. In May 1939 the British released a white paper that restricted Jewish immigration and land transfer to Jews and would consider an independent Palestine. But, again, neither side was happy: the Arabs because they distrusted the British government, and the Jews because the white paper ended the immigration program that would protect Jewish people from increasing European persecution. The violence was quashed in 1939, despite dissatisfaction on all sides. [2]

World War II

World War II (1939–45) brought the conflict between the new British policy of Jewish immigration limits and the needs of Jewish refugees into stark relief. The conflict led to the sinking of two ships carrying Jewish refugees, killing about 966 of 1,495 refugees on both ships. The SS Patria was sunk in November 1940 by Jewish paramilitaries attempting to prevent the deportation of Jews to Mauritius. The SS Struma was mistakenly torpedoed and sunk in February 1942 by the Soviets after the ship arrived in Istanbul on the way to Palestine. [29] [30] [31]

At the height of the Holocaust, Jewish outrage against the British immigration policy shifted from diplomatic negotiations to active confrontation, including terrorism in some cases. The violence reached a crescendo even as Britain maintained immigration restrictions despite more than 250,000 Jewish survivors of concentration camps remaining displaced in European refugee camps. As a result, in 1946, the Irgun Zvai Leumi (a Revisionist Zionist underground organization) bombed the King David Hotel, the British administrative and military headquarters in Jerusalem, killing 91 people. [2] [32]

The Palestinian Arabs, meanwhile, held meetings with Arab countries and adopted secret resolutions against the United States and the United Kingdom if the two countries continued to dismiss Palestinian Arab autonomy. [2]

The United Nations and Civil War

The British, exasperated, set an end date for the mandate and turned over Palestine to the United Nations (UN) in February 1947. Britain would remain the legal mandatory power over Palestine during the transition. In July 1947 the British intercepted the SS Exodus, which was carrying 4,500 Holocaust survivors. Global outrage resulted when Britain returned the survivors to European refugee camps, prompting the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) to investigate the incident and recommend solutions to the larger problem of Palestine. [15] [55]

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The result of UNSCOP’s investigation was United Nations Resolution 181, adopted on November 29, 1947. It called for the termination of the British mandate and recommended the partition of Palestine into an Arab state, a Jewish state, and Jerusalem as a corpus separatum (“separate body”) under international governance. The resolution was passed with 33 votes in favor, 13 against, and 10 abstentions. [33]

The Zionists approved of the proposal because a Jewish state would be recognized and would be allotted about half of Palestine. The Arabs once again opposed the partition proposal, especially one that would place a significant Arab population in the Jewish state. Britannica editors explain:

The largest urban concentrations of Palestinian Arabs, Jaffa (today part of [Tel Aviv–Yafo]) and Haifa, were separated from the Arab state that was envisioned by the plan: Jaffa would be a small enclave surrounded by the Jewish state, and Haifa would become a part of the Jewish state. [34]

As a result, civil war broke out and intensified as the United States expressed opposition to a forcible partition in March 1948. The Zionist forces prevailed, leading the British to declare an end to the mandate on May 15, 1948. [2]

The State of Israel and First Arab-Israeli War

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The day before the British ended their mandate for Palestine, the Jewish state of Israel was declared, prompting attacks by Arab forces from Egypt, Transjordan (Jordan), Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. The 1948 Arab-Israeli War is often called the War of Independence by Israelis and the Nakba (“Catastrophe”) by Arab Palestinians. By the summer of 1949, Israel had defeated the Arab states and established armistices, been recognized by more than 50 global governments, joined the UN, and established sovereignty over about 8,000 square miles (21,000 square km) of formerly mandated Palestine west of the Jordan River. [2] [15] [34]

The other 2,000 square miles (5,200 square km) of formerly mandated Palestine were split. The West Bank of the Jordan River, including East Jerusalem, was retained by Transjordan (to be called the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in 1949). Egypt retained control of the Gaza Strip. [2]

Palestinian displacement

Britannica contributors note that at that point “the Palestinian Arab community ceased to exist as a cohesive social and political entity.” From December 1947 to January 1949, more than 700,000 Arab Palestinians were displaced. Some moved to the West Bank where more than half of the prewar Arab population lived by 1949. Others fled to the Gaza Strip, and still others left Palestine altogether, with large numbers going to live in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, and Iraq. [2]

By comparison, about 150,000 Arabs remained in Israel. Their lives were dramatically changed, as Britannica editors explain:

Because much of their land was confiscated, Arabs were forced to abandon agriculture and become unskilled wage laborers, working in Jewish industries and construction companies. As citizens of the State of Israel, in theory they were guaranteed equal religious and civil rights with Jews. In reality, however, until 1966 they lived under a military jurisdiction that imposed severe restrictions on their political options and freedom of movement. [2]

The West Bank 

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The Jordanian-Israeli armistice of April 3, 1949, established the boundaries of the West Bank, abutting Jordan and the Dead Sea. The area was controlled by Jordan from 1950 until the 1967 Six-Day War, after which it came under Israeli military occupation. The boundaries set by the armistice were similar to those proposed by United Nations Resolution 181, but the resulting West Bank was smaller. Additionally, in the UN partition plan, Jerusalem was to be an international zone. However, in the armistice agreement, Jerusalem was split into Israeli (west) and Jordanian (east) sectors. [35]

The Gaza Strip

Legally not part of any state, the Gaza Strip occupies 140 square miles (363 square km) along the Mediterranean Sea just northeast of the Sinai Peninsula. During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the area was occupied by Egyptian forces. Egypt retained the Gaza Strip as part of the Egyptian-Israeli armistice agreement of February 24, 1949, but the land area was reduced to 25 miles (40 km) long and 4–5 miles (6–8 km) wide. [2] [36]

Egypt maintained control over the Gaza Strip from 1949 to 1956 and again from 1957 to 1967. During the occupation, according to Britannica contributors, Gaza

remained little more than a reservation. Egyptian rule was generally repressive. Palestinians living in the region were denied citizenship, which rendered them stateless (i.e., it left them without citizenship of any country), and they were allowed little real control over local administration. They were, however, allowed to attend Egyptian universities and, at times, to elect local officials. [2] [36]

Six-Day War

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The Six-Day War took place June 5–10, 1967, as a result of increasing attacks on Israel by newly formed Palestinian guerrilla groups based in Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan, and Israel’s retaliatory strikes. Israel decisively occupied the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank (including East Jerusalem and the Old City), and the Golan Heights. [37]

The Arab forces were devastated, with more than 18,000 casualties among the Egyptian, Jordanian, and Syrian armies. Israel’s army, by contrast, suffered about 700 losses. [37]

As a result of the war, the United Nations passed Resolution 242 in November 1967, which called for two provisions:

1. “Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.
2. Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.” [37] [38] [39]

Israel, Egypt, and Jordan accepted the resolution immediately, and more Arab states followed suit. [39]

Yom Kippur War

Egyptian Pres. Anwar Sadat tried to reach a peace settlement with Israel to return the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt and the Golan Heights to Syria, in accordance with UN Resolution 242. Israel rejected the terms. [40]

As a result, on October 6, 1973, which was the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur, Egyptian and Syrian forces attacked Israel via the Suez Canal and the Golan Heights, respectively. The fighting, called the Yom Kippur War, continued through the Islamic holy month of Ramadan and paused on October 22 with UN Resolution 338, which called for a stop to hostilities within 12 hours and implementation of the 1967 UN Resolution 242. [40] [41] [42]

Though the parties agreed to the resolution, hostilities continued, which prompted UN Resolution 339 on October 23, 1973, which requested a ceasefire between Israel and Egypt, and Resolution 340 on October 25, which again demanded a ceasefire and established a United Nations Emergency Force to monitor compliance. With these two resolutions, the fighting stopped. [40] [43]

Palestine Liberation Organization

Formed at an Arab summit meeting in 1964, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) aimed to bring various Palestinian groups together under one umbrella organization. According to Britannica editors, only after the Six-Day War defeat (1967) did the PLO begin “to be widely recognized as the representative of the Palestinians and came to promote a distinctively Palestinian agenda. The defeat discredited the Arab states, and Palestinians sought greater autonomy in their struggle with Israel.” The goals of this struggle, however, were a source of disagreement within the PLO: More radical factions sought to destroy Israel as a Jewish state and replace it with a secular state (not governed according to a religion), and more moderate factions were willing to accept a settlement with Israel that included an independent Palestinian state. [44]

In 1974 the PLO was recognized by the Arab League, the regional organization of Arab states in the Middle East and parts of Africa, as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian Arabs. In November 1974 PLO chair Yasser Arafat addressed the UN General Assembly, which had added the “Palestine question” to the agenda. Arafat was the first representative of a nongovernmental organization to address the group. Many European countries began to have political dialogue with the PLO, but the United States (under Pres. Gerald Ford) and Israel considered the group a terrorist organization. [44] [45]

Camp David Accords

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U.S. policy shifted under Pres. Jimmy Carter, who called for a “homeland” for the Palestinians on March 16, 1977. Later that year, Egyptian Pres. Anwar Sadat addressed the Israeli Knesset (parliament) to advance a peace settlement. That agenda was advanced by Carter, who invited Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to Camp David, the U.S. presidential retreat, for peace talks. [46] [47] [48]

Called the Camp David Accords, the treaty was hashed out privately among the three men, with Carter often acting as mediator. The resulting document, the “Framework for Peace in the Middle East,” had three parts:

1. A process for Palestinian self-government in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Not until the 1993 Oslo Accords would this stipulation begin to take effect.
2. A framework for the conclusion of a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. In March 1979 Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty that closely followed this provision.
3. A similar framework for peace treaties between Israel and its other neighbors. This provision would take decades and be piecemeal, with a peace treaty signed with Jordan in 1994 and the Abraham Accords in 2020. [46] [49]

The first intifada and Oslo Accords

According to Britannica contributors, the Palestinians became frustrated with the lack of “effective support of their aspirations from other countries and no likely favorable change coming from the Israelis.” Israel’s “land expropriation and settlement construction in the West Bank and Gaza Strip” also exacerbated the frustrations. Throughout 1987 Palestinians staged demonstrations, riots, and violence against Israelis, while Israeli authorities responded with disproportionate force.

Britannica contributors explain:

Large-scale riots and demonstrations broke out in the Gaza Strip in early December and continued for more than five years thereafter. This uprising, which became known as the intifada (Arabic: “shaking off”), inspired a new era in Palestinian mass mobilization. Masked young demonstrators turned to throwing stones at Israeli troops, and the soldiers responded by shooting and arresting them. Women, and women’s organizations, were prominent. [2]

According to the UN:

248 Palestinians had been shot to death by Israeli armed forces since the beginning of the uprising; another 126 had died from beatings, tear-gas inhalation and other causes related to actions by those forces and Israeli settlers. Thousands of Palestinians had been wounded or had suffered crushed bones in random beatings by Israeli soldiers implementing a policy of might to suppress the uprising.... A high proportion of the victims were youths and children. [2] [50] [57]

In 1987 Hamas was founded in opposition to the PLO’s secular approach to the conflict. Hamas has embraced the use of violence and terrorism. One of the main tenets of Hamas is the belief that Palestine is an Islamic homeland, which means the land “can never be surrendered to non-Muslims and that waging holy war to wrest control of Palestine from Israel is a religious duty for Palestinian Muslims.” [51]

Over the protestations of Hamas, the PLO accepted American terms for a dialogue in 1988:

1. A rejection of terrorism
2. A recognition of Israel’s right to exist
3. Acceptance of UN Resolutions 242 and 338 [50]

These terms led to a secret dialogue between the PLO and Israeli government in Norway in 1993, which led to the Oslo Accords (signed over 1993−95). The Oslo I Accord reaffirmed UN Resolutions 242 and 338 as well as the terms agreed to at Camp David. The accord was signed by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO chair Yasser Arafat on September 13, 1993, after the PLO affirmed Israel’s right to exist and Israel affirmed the PLO as the representative of the Palestinians. [50] [52]

The agreement also established a framework for Palestinian self-governance in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. On May 4, 1994, an accord was signed to initiate the first stage of Israeli withdrawal and a transfer of authority to the new Palestinian Authority. [52]

Second intifada

Hamas, however, had “a vision of an Islamic state in all of historical Palestine” and thus “rejected the Oslo Accords and, in a move to scuttle peace talks, initiated a series of suicide attacks against Israeli targets.” [50]

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Simultaneously, Israel continued to build settlements in the occupied territories it was supposed to be leaving, and Palestinians were importing arms forbidden by the Oslo Accords. Ariel Sharon, then an Israeli candidate for prime minister, visited the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in September 2000 “as an assertion of Israel’s sovereignty over Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest site,” according to Britannica contributors. The visit sparked the second intifada (also called the Al-Aqṣā intifada) with rioting from Palestinians and lethal force from the Israeli police. [50] [53]

The violence would continue until the end of 2005, with more than 4,300 fatalities and more than 200 assassinations of Palestinian leaders. And conditions were not improved.

Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank continued, and tight controls were placed on the movement of Palestinian goods and people, stifling economic growth. Negotiations were at a standstill. In addition, the Palestinian Authority lost support amid charges of widespread corruption. Many Palestinians now turned to Hamas. [50]

Israeli disengagement from Gaza

In 2005 Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip, removing all security forces and settlements that August and September. Four Israeli settlements in the West Bank were also removed, though most of them remained. Israel retained control of Gaza’s borders, airspace, and coastline. [1] [36]

Months later, in January 2006, Hamas won the legislative elections, defeating the competing political faction, Fatah, which had led the Palestinian national movement since the late 1960s. Hamas subsequently took complete control over the Gaza Strip in 2007, leaving the Fatah-led emergency cabinet to take control of the West Bank. The United States and European Union imposed sanctions on Hamas, viewing it as a terrorist organization. Although the 2007 political split was marked by violent clashes, Hamas and the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority later made several attempts at reconciliation. Those efforts ultimately stalled over disputes about security integration and administrative control. [51] [36]

Israel declared the Gaza Strip under Hamas rule a hostile entity in 2007 and implemented power cuts, restricted imports, and closed borders. Israel completely closed its border with the Gaza Strip in January 2008 and temporarily stopped fuel imports. [36]

Cycles of conflict between Israel and Hamas continued, with major military confrontations in 2008−09, 2012, and 2014 in Israel and the Gaza Strip. [51]

Israel-Hamas War

In May 2021 the violence boiled over when

Israel’s Supreme Court was set to rule on the eviction of dozens of Palestinian residents in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. Confrontations between Israeli police and Palestinian demonstrators prompted Hamas to launch rockets into Jerusalem and parts of southern Israel; Israel responded with air strikes in the Gaza Strip. [36]

Israel continued to target militants in the West Bank and Gaza Strip throughout 2022 without much Hamas response. That changed on October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched a surprise land, sea, and air attack on Israel, killing at least 1,200 people, primarily Israeli citizens, making the attack the deadliest day for Israel since its independence. [51] [54]

On October 8 Israel declared war for the first time since the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The stated objectives were to dismantle Hamas and to retrieve the 240 people, some of whom were Israeli, taken hostage on October 7. Britannica editors note, however, that Israel

later came under intense international criticism for the mounting death toll, which exceeded 70,000 in November 2025, and the widespread destruction throughout the Gaza Strip. Pressure on the Israeli government from abroad and at home, where many Israelis called for a ceasefire that would lead to an immediate return of the hostages, culminated eventually in a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas in October 2025, which mediators hoped would bring an end to the war. The ceasefire went into effect on October 10, and the final surviving hostages were released on October 13. [54]

Also worth noting is that the conflict spilled over into skirmishes in the West Bank and with Iran, Hezbollah, and Houthi forces. [54]

Amid growing global concern over Israel’s conduct and the deepening humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, about 17 countries announced their recognition of Palestinian statehood in 2024 and 2025. The UN General Assembly voted on September 12, 2025, to support a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Although international pressure to recognize a Palestinian state is strong, ceasefires remain tenuous. [54]