The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the worlds most enduring conflicts, beginning in the mid-20th century. The conflict began with the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, which was never implemented and provoked the 1947–1949 Palestine 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. Since then, there have been several skirmishes between Israel and Palestine, some minor and some catastrophic, leading to the deaths of thousands.
In 1967, Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza in the Six-Day War, which is known as the Palestinian territories. The current Israeli-Palestinian status quo began following this military occupation. In the summer of 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.
In recent years, tensions between Israelis and Palestinians have remained high. In March and May of 2018, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip conducted weekly demonstrations at the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel. On May 21, 2021, Israel and Hamas agreed to a cease-fire, brokered by Egypt, with both sides claiming victory and no reported violations.
