Middle East
The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians – a chronicle
The terrorist organization Hamas attacked Israel in the early hours of Saturday morning
© SAID KHATIB / AFP
The Middle East conflict is escalating again. The terrorist organization Hamas has attacked Israel at several points. A chronicle of the conflict that has now lasted decades.
Since the founding of the State of Israel there have been repeated armed clashes with neighbors. The first Middle East war was a war of independence for Israel – but for the Palestinians it was the beginning of the “Nakba” (catastrophe), their flight and expulsion.
Middle East conflict: a chronicle
November 29, 1947: The United Nations General Assembly calls for the division of the British mandate Palestine was divided into a Jewish and an Arab state (Resolution 181). The Jews agree, the Arabs in Palestine and the Arab states reject the plan.
May 14, 1948: David Ben Gurion reads Israel’s Declaration of Independence. The next day, Arab neighbors Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Syria declared war. In battle, the new state can expand its territory and conquer the western part of Jerusalem. Around 700,000 Palestinians are fleeing.
October 1956: In the Suez Crisis, Israeli troops are fighting alongside France and Great Britain for control of the Suez Canal, which Egypt had previously nationalized.
June 1967: In the Six-Day War, Israel conquered the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.
October 1973: An alliance of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria invades Israel on Yom Kippur, the most important Jewish holiday. Israel only manages to repel the attack with heavy losses.
Peace treaty brokered by the USA
March 1979: Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat sign a peace agreement brokered by the USA.
June 1982: Operation “Peace for Galilee” begins. Israel attacks positions of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Lebanon and invades the neighboring country.
September 1982: Christian Lebanese militiamen carry out the Sabra and Shatila massacre in a Palestinian refugee camp – within sight of Israeli checkpoints. Israel’s Defense Minister Ariel Sharon is accused of political responsibility.
December 1987: Outbreak of the first Palestinian uprising (“Intifada”).
September 1993: Israeli Prime Minister Izchak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat sign the Oslo peace treaties.
November 4, 1995: Rabin is shot by a Jewish fanatic after a peace rally in Tel Aviv.
September 2000: After Israel’s then opposition leader Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the second Intifada broke out.
2002: Israel begins construction of a 750-kilometer-long barrier around the West Bank. Fences and walls partly run on Palestinian territory.
August 2005: Against the resistance of the settlers, Israel is clearing all settlements in the Gaza Strip and withdrawing its troops from the Palestinian territory on the Mediterranean.
Hezbollah militia
July 2006: Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah militia are engaged in a month-long war.
June 2007: In a bloody power struggle among Palestinians, the Islamist Hamas expels Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah from the Gaza Strip.
Turn of the year 2008/2009 to August 2014: The Israeli military and Hamas are fighting each other in three conflicts in the Gaza Strip. Shortly before the 2014 war, the last attempt by Israel and Abbas’s Palestinian leadership to agree on peace at the negotiating table failed.
December 2017: US President Donald Trump announces the move of the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The decision met with strong international criticism.
Spring 2018: Weeks of demonstrations by Palestinians demanding the right to return to the territory of what is now Israel begin at the border fence between Israel and the Gaza Strip. More than 100 are shot by the army. The USA opens its embassy in Jerusalem.
State of war in the Middle East
Burning streets and people in fear – Hamas is attacking Israel
January 2020: Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu present a Middle East peace plan. The Palestinians see international law violated and reject it.
May 2021: The conflict escalated, among other things, after clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces on the Temple Mount (Al-Haram al-Sharif) in Jerusalem and in the Arab east of the city. According to Palestinian information, 255 people died in an eleven-day exchange of blows; according to Israeli information, 14 people died in Israel. Egypt brokered a ceasefire.
Always fights
Spring 2022: After a series of attacks on Israelis, 18 people die. Israel’s army then began carrying out more raids in the West Bank. According to the Ministry of Health in Ramallah, more than 170 Palestinians will be killed in 2022 in connection with military operations, in clashes or in their own attacks.
August 2022: The Israeli military is launching a major military operation against the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad. Dozens of people die. Palestinians then fire rockets at Israeli towns. The escalation was preceded by the arrest of a leader of the group classified as a terrorist organization by the EU and USA. After three days of fighting, a ceasefire comes into force.
July 2023: More than a thousand soldiers are moving into the city of Jenin in one of the largest military operations in the West Bank in 20 years. On the Israeli side, one soldier dies from Israeli fire; on the other side, at least twelve Palestinians are killed and more than 100 injured. The army justifies the operation with the aim of destroying terrorist infrastructure.
October 2023: Surprisingly, militant Palestinians from the coastal strip fire thousands of rockets at Israeli towns. At the same time, numerous armed Palestinians are advancing into Israel by land, sea and air. Israel’s army is shelling the Gaza Strip as a result of the major attacks. At least dozens of people died on both sides on the first day of the conflict.