The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a long-standing military and political conflict in the Levant that has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced many millions of people. The conflict 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 conflict is over who gets what land and how it’s controlled. The United Nations adopted Resolution 181 in 1947, 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 Israel’s victory, but 750,000 Palestinians were displaced, and the territory was divided into three parts. Today’s lines largely reflect the outcomes of two wars, one waged in 1948 and another in 1967. The 1967 war is particularly important for today’s conflict, as it left Israel in control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, two territories home to large Palestinian populations.

Currently, Israel is at war with Hamas, a conflict following a horrific rampage on October 7, 2023, in which militants from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad launched attacks that killed more than 1,400 Israelis and took more than 240 hostage. Israel has responded with widespread bombardment of the Gaza Strip and a ground incursion, killing and injuring tens of thousands of Palestinians. The internationally supported political solution to the broader conflict, endorsed in the past by both Israel and the Palestinian Authority, is a so-called “two-state solution.” That would establish Palestine as an independent state in Gaza and most of the West Bank, leaving Israel in control of the rest of the West Bank and all of Jerusalem.