Israel and Hamas have been waging war since gunmen from the Palestinian militant group in the Gaza Strip stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and capturing 253 hostages, by Israeli tallies. Israel responded with a military offensive in Gaza in which more than 41,500 Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza health authorities.
Nearly the entire population of 2.3 million people in the enclave have been displaced from their homes and much of the territory has been laid to waste. The G aza war is the bloodiest episode yet in a protracted conflict between Israelis and Palestinians that has rumbled for seven decades and destabilised the Middle East.
R ecent weeks have also seen a dramatic escalation in a related conflict across Israel’s border with Lebanon , where the Iran-backed armed movement Hezbollah says it is fighting in solidarity with the Palestinians. WHAT ARE THE ORIGINS OF THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT ? The conflict pits Israeli demands for a secure homeland in what it has long regarded as a hostile Middle East against Palestinians’ unrealized aspirations for a state of their own. In 1947, while Palestine was under British mandate rule, the United Nations General Assembly agreed a plan to partition it into Arab and Jewish states and for international rule over Jerusalem.
Jewish leaders accepted the plan, which gave them 56% of the land. The Arab League rejected the proposal. Israel’s founding father, David Ben-Gurion, proclaimed .