The territory that encompasses today’s Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories became a separate entity under British rule on July 24, 1922. Known as the British Mandate of Palestine, it also included Transjordan until 1946. From the outset, the territory east of the Jordan River was not open to Jewish settlement, which was restricted by the British to Western Palestine until the end of the Mandate in May 1948. British rule in Mandate Palestine became increasingly complicated under the pressure of the competing national interests of the Arab and Jewish populations in the territory. Arab-Jewish tensions resulted in riots and violence and erupted into large-scale rebellion by the Arabs in 1936, which lasted until 1939. In 1937, the British issued a proposal to divide the territory between its Arab and Jewish populations (the Peel Commission Plan). The partition proposal was rejected by the Arabs and subsequently withdrawn by the British. In 1947, Great Britain announced its decision to withdraw from the Mandate and placed the Palestine question before the United Nations. The Special UN Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) recommended that two separate Jewish and Arab states should be created, while Jerusalem should be placed under international administration. On November 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 181 by a two-thirds majority of the votes, recommending implementation of the partition plan (see Appendix I for all UN resolutions mentioned in this text). The Jewish leaders in Mandate Palestine accepted the partition, while the Arab leaders voiced their rejection to it. Civil war between the Jews and the Arabs in Palestine broke out the day after the passage of the resolution, marking the start of Israel’s War of Independence.
On the day that the British forces finally withdrew from the mandate on May 14, 1948, the Jewish leadership declared the establishment of the State of Israel. The United States was the first country to officially recognize Israel, soon followed by the USSR. Fifty-four countries recognized Israel within the first year of its establishment, including most European and South American countries.
One day after Israel’s declaration of independence, a coalition of Arab forces from surrounding countries Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Iraq invaded Palestine. The war in Palestine transformed from a civil war between the Jews and the Arabs in Palestine into the first Arab-Israeli war and generated the Palestinian refugee problem (see Chapter 4).
In 1949, armistice agreements were signed between Israel and the various Arab countries, officially ending hostilities. These agreements established an armistice line between Israel and its Arab neighbors known as the “Green Line.” Under these arrangements, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Old City of Jerusalem, remained under Jordanian control. Egypt withdrew to the borders that demarcated the former frontier between Egypt and Mandatory Palestine, but remained in control of a strip of land along the coast, which became known as the Gaza Strip. Egypt did not annex the territory of Gaza, but left it under military administration. Jordan, however, annexed the West Bank in 1950 and granted its inhabitants Jordanian citizenship as a result of this decision. Overall, as a result of the 1948 war, the Arab-controlled territory of Palestine was significantly reduced and was no longer contiguous, in contrast to the partition plan offered by the UN in 1947.
In 1967, Israel captured the territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan during the Six-Day War. It also gained control over the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip, which were previously held by Egypt, and it captured the Golan Heights from Syria. In the aftermath of the war, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 242, calling for Israeli withdrawal from territories it had occupied during the recent conflict in exchange for an end to the state of belligerency. This resolution, which called for the implementation of the “land for peace formula,” formed the basis of the Arab-Israeli peace process after 1967 and for later peace treaties signed between Israel and Egypt (1979) and Israel and Jordan (1994). “Land for peace” also served as the basis for the Oslo Accords signed between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1993 and 1995.
After 1967, Israeli forces remained in the Sinai Peninsula until 1982. In that year, Israel completed its withdrawal from the territory as part of the agreements reached with Egypt after the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty.
At the same time, Egypt ceded its claims on the Gaza Strip to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). However, the strip remained under Israeli military administration until 1994, when control over Gaza (except for a few settlement blocs and military areas) was transferred to the Palestinian Authority (PA) as part of the Oslo Accords. Gaza’s borders and air space remained controlled by Israel, as outlined by the Oslo Accords.
In the summer of 2005, the Israeli government followed through on a decision to unilaterally disengage from the Gaza Strip. It dismantled all the Israeli settlements within the territory, leaving the Strip’s administration to the PA. In 2006, Palestinian parliamentary elections were held in the West Bank and Gaza, in which the Islamist movement Hamas won the majority of the seats in the Palestinian Legislative Assembly. A short-lived unity government of the Hamas and Fatah factions was established, until fighting broke out in the Strip between the two parties. The coalition government ended in June 2007 as Hamas seized control of the Strip. Since then, divisions between the Palestinian governing factions in Gaza (Hamas) and the West Bank (Fatah) have not been resolved, despite several attempts at reconciliation. In June 2014, Hamas and Fatah agreed to form a unity government, but it fell apart a year later. In 2016, Hamas announced its willingness to participate in Palestinian municipal elections to be held in the Gaza strip in 2017, and formed what was effectively a new government. Those elections were subsequently suspended.
In its quest to regain control over the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Authority (PA) increased pressure on Hamas by reducing the PA budget allocated to Gaza for electricity, fuel, medical and social services, and salaries for government employees. As a result of these punitive measures, Hamas and Fatah came to an agreement in October 2017 that would give Fatah full civilian control over the Gaza Strip, while the PA would ease the sanctions on Gaza in return. Neither of these commitments were actually been implemented, and general elections have yet to take place. In October 2022, Fatah and Hamas leaders signed an agreement in Algiers committing to hold elections within a year of signing the agreement. The last elections for PA president and parliament were held in 2006.
As Hamas refused to respect previous agreements that the PA made with Israel and to abandon the use of violence, Israel and Egypt maintained a land, sea and air blockade on the Gaza Strip, permitting only controlled import and export of goods. The overwhelming bulk of this trade passed through the Kerem Shalom border crossing, with other border crossings—including the Rafah crossing with Egypt—handling limited traffic or being closed altogether. This also means that the population of the Gaza Strip has been dependent on Israel for the import of basic necessities, including energy. Israel maintains that the blockade is vital for preventing Hamas from obtaining weapons and supplies that would permit rocket and other attacks on Israel. Since 2017, the PA has imposed its own sanctions on the Gaza Strip. For example, in order to put pressure Hamas, the PA temporarily stopped paying for import duties charged by Israel for Gaza’s fuel and electricity supply.
In May 2010, there was an attempt to break the blockade by a flotilla headed to Gaza from Turkey with the stated aim of delivering humanitarian aid. Israel requested that the six ships head for the Israeli port of Ashdod so that the aid could be transferred via land to Gaza. When the flotilla rejected the suggestion, Israeli troops boarded the ships before they could reach Gaza and came under attack on one of them (the Mavi Marmara). The clashes resulted in the death of nine Turkish activists and a further deterioration in the Turkish-Israeli relationship.
Despite the blockade, smuggling tunnels to Egypt enabled the movement of goods and people in and out of Gaza. Under the leadership of ‘Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi, the Egyptian army launched a campaign to destroy the smuggling tunnels, since they also served Sinai-based Islamist insurgent groups. As part of its crackdown on Islamist militants, the Egyptian government also started building a buffer zone between Gaza and Egypt in 2014 in order to prevent the passage of militants and weapons from one territory to the other. For the same reason, and because of its adversarial relationship with Hamas, Egypt has kept the Rafah border crossing closed most of the time. However, since August 2018, Egypt has opened the crossing more regularly. The Rafah crossing thereby functions as the people’s main exit from the Gaza Strip.
Hostilities between Israel and Hamas have continued since 2007, including major military engagements in 2008 (Operation Cast Lead), 2012 (Operation Pillar of Defense) and 2014 (Operation Protective Edge). These conflicts are discussed in more detail in Chapter 3.