Hamas's attack on Israel is the latest event in a long history of conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The terrorist attacks, which occurred last weekend, are the largest assault on Jews since the Holocaust, with terrorists killing hundreds of people and kidnapping soldiers and civilians.
Israel declared war against the terrorist group on Sunday, the first time the nation has done so since 1973. So far, the war has claimed nearly 2,700 lives between the two sides, according to Health Ministry officials.
Here's a look at the recent history of conflict between the two sides.
1900s
The conflict between the Palestinian territories and Israel spans two centuries and dates back to well before the state of Israel was created.
In 1917, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration that announced the country's promise to establish a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine. It appeased the Zionist movement, which believes in a Jewish right to the land of Jerusalem.
Britain's promise led tens of thousands of Jewish civilians to migrate to Palestine in the 1920s and '30s.
In 1947, the United Nations split Palestine into two independent states: the "Jewish State" and the "Arab State," with Jerusalem under U.N. trusteeship, according to a resolution. Palestinians refused to recognize the resolution, and violent conflict began.
The Arab-Israeli War of 1948
Israel declared independence in 1948, beginning the Israeli-Arab War. Five Arab states fought against the creation of Israel. Palestinians were forced off their lands or fled in large swarms. The exodus led to a decadeslong battle between Palestine and Israel, according to the U.N.
Fighting began with attacks by irregular bands of Palestinian Arabs attached to local units of the Arab Liberation Army composed of volunteers from Palestine and neighboring Arab countries, according to the State Department. On the Jewish side, fighters were composed of the Haganah, an underground militia of Jews in Palestine, the Irgun, and LEHI.
The Arabs hoped to block the U.N. resolution creating the two states, and the Jews hoped to receive the territory allocated to them in the resolution. The fighting between the groups continued until 1949, when agreements to armistice lines were made between Israel and neighboring states Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria.
The territory of Palestine was divided into three parts: Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. Egypt had control of the Gaza Strip, and Jordan had control of the West Bank until 1967.
1956 Suez War
The Suez War began in October 1956, when Israeli forces invaded Egypt through the Suez Canal. French and British forces joined Israel, which damaged their relationships with the U.S.and nearly brought the Soviet Union into the conflict, according to the History Channel.
Egypt eventually proved victorious — Israel withdrew from the country but maintained control over the Gaza Strip.
The war was the first use of the U.N. peacekeeping force.
The Six-Day War in 1967
Despite many years of calm following the Suez War, peace between the two groups remained on a razor-thin wire. Arab leaders of Palestinian territory continued to feel anger toward Israel for military losses and the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees displaced following the 1948 war.
The Six-Day War was spurned due to a series of border disputes. By the 1960s, Syrian-backed Palestinian guerrillas were attacking along the Israeli border, leading to counter-raids from the Israel Defense Forces.
The war erupted on June 5, 1967, after Israel launched Operation Focus, a coordinated aerial attack on Egypt. Nearly 200 aircraft took off from Israel, assaulting 18 different airfields and eliminating nearly 90% of the Egyptian air force, according to the History Channel. Israeli pilots had won full control of the skies over the Middle East by the end of the day on June 5.
Israeli troops captured the Old City of Jerusalem. They celebrated victory on June 10 after the U.N. brokered a ceasefire between the two nations and the war came to an end. Nearly 20,000 Arabs and 800 Israelis had died in just 132 hours of fighting.
Yom Kippur War 1973
Egyptian and Syrian forces led Arab states in invading Israel on Yom Kippur on Oct. 6, 1973. It was an attempt to topple the country. The goal of the war was also to retrieve territory lost during the third war in 1967.
Egyptian forces took the IDF by surprise by attacking the Sinai Peninsula, and Syrian forces struggled to throw the IDF out of the Golan Heights. A U.S. airlift of arms aided Israel’s cause, but President Richard Nixon delayed the emergency military aid for a week as a tacit signal of U.S. sympathy for Egypt.
Nearly 2,700 Israeli soldiers died during the 19-day war, and a ceasefire was eventually secured by the U.N. In April 1974, the nation’s prime minister, Golda Meir, stepped down following criticisms of a lack of preparedness from the Israeli government.
First Intifada 1987
"Intifada" is Arabic, and it translates to "shaking off." It refers to the uprisings of the Palestinian people aimed at ending Israel's occupation of the territories.
In 1987, Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza started the first intifada against Israel, and Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group, was founded by Sheik Ahmed Yassin.
The first intifada occurred in December 1987 and ended in September 1993. Most of the Palestinian rioting took place during the intifada’s first year, after which the Palestinians shifted from throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails at Israeli targets to attacking them with rifles, hand grenades, and explosives, according to Britannica.
In 1988, the Palestinian Liberation Organization agreed to the U.S.'s conditions for opening dialogue and recognizing Israel's right to exist. A new Israeli government was elected in 1992 with a mandate to negotiate for peace.
Hamas first employed suicide bombing in April 1993, five months before PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed the Oslo Accords. It established limited self-governance in parts of Gaza and the West Bank under the governance of the Palestinian Authority. Hamas condemned the accords and the recognition of Israel.
Second Intifada 2000
The U.S. declared Hamas a foreign terrorist organization in 1997. Hamas's movement led to the second intifada in the early 2000s, with Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Tanzim militia engaging in violence against Israelis.
The second intifada was much more violent than the first one. Over 4,300 people died, and the ratio of Palestinian to Israeli deaths was slightly more than 3 to 1.
Israeli forces began building a separation barrier in the West Bank similar to the barrier erected in Gaza in 1996. Israel also orchestrated 200 assassinations of Palestinian military operatives and political leaders, according to Britannica.
The war ended in 2005 but left relations between the two groups tenser than ever. Israeli settlement in the West Bank continued, and the loss of the war led to a loss in confidence in the Palestinian Authority, pushing Palestinians to look to Hamas. The group took power of the Gaza Strip by force in 2007.
Conflict in the 2000s
In 2008, Israel launched an attack on Hamas targets in response to rocket fire from Gaza. A ground war between the two ended in 1,200 Palestinian and 13 Israeli deaths. Israel and Palestinian groups agreed to unilateral ceasefires in January 2009, with Israel withdrawing from Gaza.
Roughly 6,400 Palestinians and 300 Israelis had been killed in the violence since 2008, not counting recent fatalities, the U.N. reported.
Since then, the two groups have exchanged gunfire and kidnapped or killed soldiers and civilians. An Israeli raid on Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem in 2021 set off an 11-day war between Israel and Hamas, killing 200 Palestinians and more than 10 Israelis.
2023
In January 2023, a Palestinian man killed seven people outside a synagogue in east Jerusalem.
On Oct. 7, Hamas launched thousands of rockets into Israel, and almost 1,000 Palestinian fighters entered the country by land, sea, and air. At least 130 civilians and soldiers have been taken hostage, according to Israeli officials.
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