The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a long-running and controversial conflict between two self-determination movements that lay claim to the same territory. 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 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was never implemented and provoked the 1947–1949 Palestine War. The current Israeli-Palestinian status quo began following Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967 Six-Day War. Key events in the conflict include:

• 1948: Israel announced its establishment, and the first Arab-Israeli war began. An estimated 750,000 Palestinians were forced out of their homes, and today their descendants live as six million refugees in 58 squalid camps throughout Palestine and in neighboring countries.

• 1967: Israel occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank, as well as most of the Syrian Golan Heights, Gaza, and the Egyptian Sinai peninsula.

• 2014: Clashes in the Palestinian territories precipitated a military confrontation between the Israeli military and Hamas in which Hamas fired nearly three thousand rockets at Israel, and Israel retaliated with a major offensive in Gaza. The skirmish ended in late August 2014 with a cease-fire deal brokered by Egypt, but only after 73 Israelis and 2,251 Palestinians were killed.

The conflict has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced many millions of people. Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank say they are suffering because of Israeli actions and restrictions, while Israeli civilians and military forces have been targeted by Palestinian violence.