The conflict between Israel and Palestine has its roots in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with the birth of major nationalist movements among the Jews and among the Arabs, both geared towards attaining sovereignty for their people in the Middle East. The Balfour Declaration, issued by the British government in 1917, announced support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine. In 1947, the United Nations adopted Resolution 181, known as the Partition Plan, which sought to divide the British Mandate of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states. On May 14, 1948, the State of Israel was created, sparking the first Arab-Israeli War. The war ended in 1949 with Israels victory, but 750,000 Palestinians were displaced, and the territory was divided into three parts: the State of Israel, the West Bank (of the Jordan River), and the Gaza Strip.
Throughout the conflict, Palestinian violence has been a concern for Israelis. Israel, along with the United States and the European Union, refer to the violence against Israeli civilians and military forces by Palestinian militants as terrorism. The motivations behind Palestinian violence against Israeli civilians are many, and not all violent Palestinian groups agree with each other on specifics. Nonetheless, a common motive is the desire to destroy Israel and replace it with a Palestinian Arab state. The most prominent Islamist groups, such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, view the Israeli–Palestinian conflict as a religious jihad.
The conflict has seen several flare-ups over the years, including a military confrontation between the Israeli military and Hamas in the summer of 2014, which ended with a cease-fire deal brokered by Egypt, but only after 73 Israelis and 2,251 Palestinians were killed. In May 2021, after weeks of tension during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, hundreds of Palestinians were wounded in clashes with Israeli security forces at the Al Aqsa compound in Jerusalem, Islam’s third holiest site. After demanding Israel withdraw security forces from the compound, Hamas unleashed a barrage of rockets from Gaza into Israel. Israel hit back with air strikes on Gaza, and fighting went on for 11 days, killing at least 250 people in Gaza and 13 in Israel.
