The birth of the Hebrew State, in the wake of the assassination of 6 million European Jews by Hitler’s regime, was painful. Israel was attacked by its Arab neighbors less than 24 hours after gaining independence. Since then, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has persisted, despite periods of calm and peace agreements between Israel and Arab states. A look back at some key dates in an eventful history.
August 1897
Creation in Basel, Switzerland, of the Zionist Organization, which campaigns for the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine, due to violence against Jewish minorities in Europe. Palestine was then under the authority of the Ottoman Empire.
1917
The British conquer Palestine. They are committed to creating a Jewish home in the territory. They also created a Muslim kingdom in Transjordan in 1921.
1920-1947
Violence between Jewish and Arab communities in Palestine, against a backdrop of immigration of persecuted Jews before and during the Second World War. The British suppress Arab and Jewish revolts. The Irgun and the Haganah, Jewish armed organizations, carried out violent actions against the British colonizers.
November 1947
The UN votes on a plan to divide Palestine between an Arab sector, a Jewish sector and Jerusalem, which would be under UN control. Jewish representatives accept the plan. Arab countries reject it.
May 14, 1948
David Ben-Gurion proclaims the independence of Israel. The next day, neighboring Arab countries invaded the fledgling state with the intention of driving the Jews back to the Mediterranean Sea. Against all odds, the Israelis win their war of independence. For the Palestinians, it is Nakba (the catastrophe). At least 700,000 Arabs, and more according to sources, are expelled from their homes. They take refuge in neighboring Arab countries or on Palestinian lands.
June 1967
Six Day War. In full tension with its Arab neighbors, Israel attacks Egypt. At the end of a six-day blitzkrieg, the Jewish state annihilated the Egyptian, Jordanian and Syrian air forces, and seized East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the plateau of Golan and the Sinai Desert (returned to Egypt after the 1979 peace treaty). The UN Security Council adopts Resolution 242, which demands Israel’s withdrawal from these “occupied territories”.
October 1973
Yom Kippur War. In the middle of a religious holiday, the armies of Egypt and Syria attack Israel in the hope of retaking the territories conquered by the Jewish state six years previously. Israel repels the Arab invaders, who emerge from the conflict divided.
June 1982
Israel invades southern Lebanon as far as Beirut to repel attacks carried out by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which had found refuge in the Land of Cedar. In September, Christian militias massacred hundreds of Palestinians from Sabra and Chatila, near West Beirut, without intervention from the Israeli occupier.
1987
First intifada. Exasperated by Israeli colonization and by alienating living conditions, the Palestinians launched the “revolt of the stones” against the Hebrew occupier.
September 1993
Oslo Accords. Historic handshake between Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin with American President Bill Clinton. The PLO leader recognizes Israel’s right to live in security, and the Israeli prime minister confirms his counterpart as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.
November 4, 1995
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated in Tel Aviv by an Israeli extremist opposed to the peace process.
2000
Second intifada. In the wake of the failure of peace talks, the leader of the Israeli opposition, Ariel Sharon, leads a delegation to the Esplanade des Mosques, the third holiest site in Islam, erected on the Temple Mount, the place holiest of Judaism. This gesture led to another Palestinian revolt, marked by a series of suicide attacks against Israeli civilians. The Israeli army responds with strikes against Palestinian militants. Thousands of people lost their lives on each side.
2003
Israel begins to erect a wall of separation between the Jewish state and the occupied West Bank. Violence against Israeli civilians is decreasing. The operation is criticized because the wall includes Palestinian territories. Palestinian communities are divided by this barrier. Checkpoints erected by the Israeli army complicate the movement of Palestinians.
September 2005
The Israeli government withdraws from the Gaza Strip after 38 years of occupation. Jewish settlers are evacuated. This 41-kilometer strip, wedged between the Israeli desert, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, populated by more than 2 million Palestinians, remains under Israeli control. The Jewish state controls the movement of goods and people, as well as the supply of fuel, electricity and drinking water.
2007
Hamas, which advocates the destruction of Israel, takes power in the Gaza Strip. Israel imposes a blockade on Palestinian territory.
2014
The murder of three Israeli teenagers near Hebron, in the West Bank, reignites violence. More than 2,200 Palestinians lose their lives. Dozens of Israelis are killed.
2016
Around a hundred stabbing attacks target Israelis in the Jerusalem area.
January 2020
United States President Donald Trump launches peace plan granting Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem and Jewish settlements in the West Bank in exchange for $50 billion in investments for Palestinian development. The Palestinians reject the project.
December 2022
Re-elected for a sixth term, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is once again accelerating the construction of housing in Israeli settlements in occupied territories.
October 7, 2023
Fifty years after the Yom Kippur War, hundreds of Hamas militants launched an air and ground offensive against Israeli civilians from the Gaza Strip.