The 2021 Israel-Palestine crisis was marked by protests, police riot control, rocket attacks on Israel by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip. The crisis was triggered on May 6, 2021, when Palestinians in East Jerusalem began protesting over an anticipated decision of the Supreme Court of Israel on the eviction of six Palestinian families in the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. The conflict continued until a ceasefire came into effect on May 21, 2021, ending 11 days of fighting in which both sides claimed victory. The conflict resulted in more than 250 Palestinians killed and nearly 2,000 others wounded, and at least 13 Israelis were killed over the eleven days of fighting. More than 72,000 Palestinians were displaced by the fighting.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has its roots in a colonial act carried out more than a century ago. It pits Israeli demands for security in what it has long regarded as a hostile region against Palestinian aspirations for a state of their own. Israels founding father David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the modern State of Israel on May 14, 1948, establishing a safe-haven for Jews fleeing persecution and seeking a national home on land to which they cite deep ties over generations. Palestinians lament Israels creation as the Nakba, or catastrophe, that resulted in their dispossession and blocked their dreams of statehood. In the war that followed, some 700,000 Palestinians, half the Arab population of what was British-ruled Palestine, fled or were driven from their homes, ending up in Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria as well as in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. The conflict has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced many millions of people. Violence has been particularly acute in recent years, with the number of Palestinians – militants and civilians – killed in the occupied West Bank by Israeli forces since the year began being the highest in nearly two decades.