Prehistory The
Ubeidiya prehistoric site in northern Israel shows the
presence of archaic humans around 1.5 million years ago. The second-oldest evidence of
anatomically modern humans
outside Africa is a 200,000-year-old fossil from
Misliya Cave on Mount Carmel. The
Natufian culture ( 10,000 BCE) may be linked to the
Proto-Afroasiatic language and is notable for adopting
sedentism before the
advent of agriculture and the
Neolithic Revolution.
Bronze and Iron Ages , the ruins of a
Canaanite and later
Israelite city Early references to "
Canaan" and "Canaanites" appear in ancient
Near Eastern and
Egyptian texts ( 2000 BCE); these populations were structured as politically independent
city-states. During the
Late Bronze Age (1550–1200 BCE), large parts of Canaan formed
vassal states of the
New Kingdom of Egypt. As a result of the
Late Bronze Age collapse, Canaan fell into chaos, and Egyptian control over the region collapsed. Ancestors of the
Israelites are thought to have included
ancient Semitic-speaking peoples native to this area. Modern archaeological accounts suggest that the Israelites and their culture branched out of the Canaanite peoples through the development of a distinct
monolatristic—and later
monotheistic—religion centered on
Yahweh. They spoke an archaic form of
Hebrew, known as
Biblical Hebrew. Around the same time, the
Philistines settled on the southern
coastal plain. , a
Paleo-Hebrew inscription documenting administration in
Judah Most modern scholars agree that the
Exodus narrative in the
Torah and
Old Testament did not take place as depicted; however, some elements of these traditions do have
historical roots. There is debate about the earliest existence of the
Kingdoms of Israel and Judah and their extent and power. While it is unclear if there was a
United Kingdom of Israel, historians and archaeologists agree that the northern
Kingdom of Israel existed by 900 BCE and the
Kingdom of Judah by 850 BCE. The Kingdom of Israel was the more prosperous of the two and soon developed into a regional power, with a capital at
Samaria; during the
Omride dynasty, it controlled
Samaria,
Galilee, the upper
Jordan Valley, the
plain of Sharon and large parts of
Transjordan. The Kingdom of Judah, under
Davidic rule with its capital in
Jerusalem, later became a
client state of first the Neo-Assyrian Empire and then the
Neo-Babylonian Empire. It is estimated that
the region's population was around 400,000 in the
Iron Age II. In 587/6 BCE, following a
revolt in Judah, King
Nebuchadnezzar II besieged and destroyed Jerusalem and
Solomon's Temple, dissolved the kingdom and
exiled much of the Judean elite to Babylon.
Classical antiquity of
Antigonus II Mattathias, depicting the
Temple menorah After
capturing Babylon in 539 BCE,
Cyrus the Great, founder of the
Achaemenid Empire, issued
a proclamation allowing the exiled Judean population to return. The construction of the
Second Temple was completed . In 332 BCE,
Alexander the Great conquered the region as part of his
campaign against the Achaemenid Empire. After his death, the area
was controlled by the
Ptolemaic and
Seleucid empires as a part of
Coele-Syria. Under the Hellenistic kingdoms, ongoing
Hellenisation generated cultural tensions among the Jewish population that culminated under
Antiochus IV, whose decrees outlawed Jewish practices and triggered the
Maccabean Revolt in 167 BCE. The revolt weakened Seleucid control over Judea; by 142/141 BCE the
Hasmoneans had secured autonomy and soon established an
independent Jewish kingdom that, in the late 2nd–early 1st century BCE, expanded into neighbouring territories. The
Hasmonean civil war ended with the
Roman siege of Jerusalem in 63 BCE. fortress overlooking the
Dead Sea, which is the location of a
1st-century Roman siege In 37 BCE,
Herod the Great was installed as a
dynastic vassal of
Rome following the
Roman–Parthian Wars. In 6 CE, the area was annexed as the
Roman province of Judaea; tensions with Roman rule led to a series of
Jewish–Roman wars, resulting in widespread destruction. The
First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE) resulted in the
destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple and a sizable portion of the population being killed or displaced. A second uprising known as the
Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE) initially allowed the Jews to form an independent state, but the Romans brutally crushed the rebellion, devastating and depopulating Judea's countryside. Jerusalem was rebuilt as a
Roman colony (
Aelia Capitolina), and the province of Judea was renamed
Syria Palaestina. Jews were expelled from the districts surrounding Jerusalem. Nevertheless, there was a continuous small Jewish presence, and Galilee became its religious center.
Late antiquity and the medieval period in the Galilee During the
Byzantine period,
Early Christianity displaced
Roman paganism in the 4th century CE, with
Constantine embracing and promoting the Christian religion and
Theodosius I making it
the state religion. A series of laws were passed that discriminated against Jews and Judaism, and Jews were persecuted by both the church and the authorities. Many Jews had emigrated to flourishing
diaspora communities, while locally there was both Christian immigration and local conversion. By the middle of the 5th century, there was a Christian majority. Towards the end of the 5th century,
Samaritan revolts erupted, continuing until the late 6th century and resulting in a large decrease in the Samaritan population. After the
Sasanian conquest of Jerusalem and the short-lived
Jewish revolt against Heraclius in 614 CE, the Byzantine Empire
reconsolidated control of the area in 628. In 634–641 CE, the
Rashidun Caliphate conquered the Levant. Caliph
Umar ibn al-Khattab () lifted the Christian ban on Jews entering
Jerusalem and permitted them to worship there. Over the next six centuries, control of the region transferred between the
Umayyad,
Abbasid, and
Fatimid caliphates, and subsequently the
Seljuk and
Ayyubid dynasties. The population drastically decreased during the following several centuries, dropping from an estimated 1 million during Roman and Byzantine periods to about 300,000 by the early
Ottoman period, and there was steady
Arabisation and
Islamisation. The end of the 11th century brought the
Crusades,
papally-sanctioned incursions of Christian crusaders intent on wresting Jerusalem and the
Holy Land from Muslim control and establishing
crusader states. The Ayyubids pushed back the crusaders before Muslim rule was fully restored by the
Mamluk sultans of Egypt in 1291.
Modern period and the emergence of Zionism in the 1870s, a holy site in
Judaism In 1516, the Ottoman Empire conquered the region and ruled it as part of
Ottoman Syria. Under the Ottoman Empire, the Levant was fairly cosmopolitan, with religious freedoms for
Christians, Muslims, and Jews. In 1561 the
Ottoman sultan invited
Sephardic Jews escaping the
Spanish Inquisition to settle in and rebuild the city of
Tiberias. Under the Ottoman Empire's
millet system, Christians and Jews were considered
dhimmi ("protected") under
Ottoman law in exchange for loyalty to the state and payment of the
jizya tax. Non-Muslim Ottoman subjects faced geographic and lifestyle restrictions, though these were not always enforced. The millet system organised non-Muslims into autonomous communities on the basis of religion. (1897) in
Basel, Switzerland The
concept of an eventual return to Zion remained a symbol within religious Jewish belief which emphasised that their return should be determined by
Divine Providence rather than human action. The Jewish population of Palestine from the Ottoman rule to the beginning of the Zionist movement, known as the
Old Yishuv, comprised a minority and fluctuated in size. During the 16th century, Jewish communities struck roots in the
Four Holy Cities—Jerusalem, Tiberias,
Hebron, and
Safed—and in 1697, Rabbi Yehuda Hachasid led 1,500 Jews to Jerusalem. A 1660
Druze revolt against the Ottomans destroyed
Safed and
Tiberias. In the late 18th century, local Arab Sheikh
Daher al-Umar created a de facto independent emirate in the Galilee. Ottoman attempts to subdue the sheikh failed. After Daher's death the Ottomans regained control of the area. In 1799, governor
Jazzar Pasha repelled an
assault on Acre by
Napoleon's troops, prompting the French to abandon the Syrian campaign. In 1834, a
revolt by Palestinian Arab peasants against Egyptian conscription and taxation policies under
Muhammad Ali was suppressed; Muhammad Ali's army retreated and Ottoman rule was restored with British support in 1840. The
Tanzimat reforms were implemented across the Ottoman Empire. The first wave of modern Jewish migration to
Ottoman-ruled Palestine, known as the
First Aliyah, began in 1881, as Jews fled
pogroms in Eastern Europe. The 1882
May Laws increased economic discrimination against Jews, and restricted where they could live. In response, political
Zionism took form, a movement that sought to establish a
Jewish state in Palestine, thus offering a solution to the
Jewish question of the European states. Antisemitism, pogroms and official policies in tsarist Russia led to the emigration of three million Jews in the years between 1882 and 1914, only 1% of whom went to Palestine. Those who went to Palestine were driven primarily by ideas of self-determination and Jewish identity, rather than as a response to pogroms or economic insecurity. The
Second Aliyah (1904–1914) began after the
Kishinev pogrom; some 40,000 Jews settled in Palestine, although nearly half left eventually. Both the first and second waves of migrants were mainly
Orthodox Jews. The Second Aliyah included
Zionist socialist groups who established the
kibbutz movement based on the idea of establishing a separate Jewish economy based exclusively on Jewish labour. Those of the Second Aliyah who became leaders of the
Yishuv in the coming decades believed that the Jewish settler economy should not depend on Arab labour. This would be a dominant source of antagonism with the Arab population, with the new Yishuv's nationalist ideology overpowering its socialist one. Though the immigrants of the Second Aliyah largely sought to create communal Jewish agricultural settlements,
Tel Aviv was established as the first planned Jewish town in 1909. Jewish armed militias emerged during this period, the first being
Bar-Giora in 1907. Two years later, the larger
Hashomer organisation was founded as its replacement.
British Mandate for Palestine Chaim Weizmann's efforts to garner British support for the Zionist movement eventually secured the
Balfour Declaration of 1917, stating Britain's support for the creation of a Jewish "
national home" in Palestine. Weizmann's interpretation of the declaration was that negotiations on the future of the country were to happen directly between Britain and the Jews, excluding Arabs.
Jewish-Arab relations in Palestine deteriorated dramatically in the following years. In 1918, the
Jewish Legion, primarily Zionist volunteers, assisted in the British
conquest of Palestine. In 1920, the territory was divided between Britain and
France under the
mandate system, and the British-administered area (including modern Israel) was named
Mandatory Palestine. Arab opposition to British rule and Jewish immigration led to the
1920 Palestine riots and the formation of a Jewish militia known as the
Haganah as an outgrowth of Hashomer, from which the
Irgun and
Lehi paramilitaries later split. In 1922, the
League of Nations granted Britain the
Mandate for Palestine under terms which included the Balfour Declaration with its promise to the Jews and with similar provisions regarding the Arab Palestinians. The
population of the area was predominantly Arab and Muslim, with Jews accounting for about 11% and Arab Christians about 9.5% of the population. The
Third (1919–1923) and
Fourth Aliyahs (1924–1929) brought an additional 100,000 Jews to Palestine. The
rise of Nazism and the increasing persecution of Jews in 1930s Europe led to the
Fifth Aliyah, with an influx of a quarter of a million Jews. This was a major cause of the
Arab revolt of 1936–39, which was suppressed by British security forces and Zionist militias. Several hundred British security personnel and Jews were killed; 5,032 Arabs were killed, 14,760 wounded, and 12,622 detained. An estimated ten per cent of the adult male
Palestinian Arab population was killed, wounded, imprisoned, or exiled. The British introduced restrictions on Jewish immigration to Palestine with the
White Paper of 1939. With countries around the world turning away Jewish refugees fleeing
the Holocaust, a clandestine movement known as
Aliyah Bet was organised to bring Jews to Palestine. During
World War II, Palestine was
repeatedly bombed by Axis aircraft, causing casualties among both Jews and Arabs. About 30,000 Jews from Palestine served in the British military during the war, of whom around 700 were killed. Some 12,000 Palestinian Arabs also served in the British military during the war. At the end of the war, about 31% of the population of Palestine was Jewish. The UK found itself facing a
Jewish insurgency over immigration restrictions from 1944, which intensified following the end of the war, and continued conflict with the Arab community over limit levels. The Haganah joined Irgun and Lehi in an armed struggle against British rule. The Haganah attempted to bring tens of thousands of Jewish refugees and
Holocaust survivors to Palestine by ship. Most of the ships were intercepted by the
Royal Navy and the refugees placed in detention camps in
Atlit and
Cyprus. On 22 July 1946, Irgun
bombed the British administrative headquarters for Palestine, killing 91. The attack was a response to
Operation Agatha (a series of raids, including one on the
Jewish Agency, by the British) and was the deadliest directed at the British during the Mandate era. The Report of the Committee
proposed a plan to replace the British Mandate with "an independent Arab State, an independent Jewish State, and the City of Jerusalem [...] the last to be under an International Trusteeship System". Meanwhile, the Jewish insurgency continued and peaked in July 1947, with a series of widespread guerrilla raids culminating in
the Sergeants affair, in which the Irgun took two British sergeants hostage as attempted leverage against the planned execution of three Irgun operatives. After the executions were carried out, the Irgun killed the two British soldiers, hanged their bodies from trees, and left a booby trap at the scene which injured a British soldier. The incident caused widespread outrage in the UK. In September 1947, the British cabinet decided to evacuate Palestine as the Mandate was no longer tenable. of Palestine between Israel and the
State of Palestine, as proposed by the
United Nations On 29 November 1947, the General Assembly adopted
Resolution 181 (II). The plan attached to the resolution was essentially that proposed in the report of 3 September. The Jewish Agency, the recognised representative of the Jewish community, accepted the plan, which assigned 55–56% of Mandatory Palestine to the Jews. At the time, the Jews were about a third of the population and owned around 6–7% of the land. Arabs constituted the majority and owned about 20% of the land, with the remainder held by the Mandate authorities or foreign landowners. The
Arab League and
Arab Higher Committee of Palestine rejected the partition plan on the basis that the partition plan privileged European interests over those of the Palestinians, and indicated that they would reject any other plan of partition. On 1 December 1947, the Arab Higher Committee proclaimed a three-day strike, and
riots broke out in Jerusalem. The situation spiralled into
a civil war. Colonial Secretary
Arthur Creech Jones announced that the British Mandate would end on 15 May 1948, at which point the British would evacuate. As Arab militias and gangs attacked Jewish areas, they were faced mainly by the Haganah as well as the smaller Irgun and Lehi. In April 1948, the Haganah moved onto the offensive.
Independence and early years declaring the
establishment of Israel on 14 May 1948 On 14 May 1948, the day before the expiration of the British Mandate,
David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency,
declared "the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel". The following day, the armies of four Arab countries—Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, and Iraq—entered what had been Mandatory Palestine, launching the
1948 Arab–Israeli War; contingents from
Yemen,
Morocco,
Saudi Arabia, and
Sudan joined the war. The purpose of the invasion was to prevent the establishment of the Jewish state. The Arab League stated the invasion was to restore order and prevent further bloodshed. on 10 March 1949, marking the end of the
1948 war After a year of fighting, a
ceasefire was declared and temporary borders, known as the
Green Line, were established.
Jordan annexed what became known as the
West Bank, including
East Jerusalem, and
Egypt occupied the
Gaza Strip. Over 700,000 Palestinians
fled or were expelled by
Zionist militias and the
Israeli military—what would become known in Arabic as the ('catastrophe'). The events also led to the destruction of most of Palestine's Arab
culture,
identity, and
national aspirations. Some 156,000 Arabs remained and became
Arab citizens of Israel. By
United Nations General Assembly Resolution 273, Israel was admitted as a member of the UN on 11 May 1949. In the early years of the state, the
Labour Zionist movement led by Prime Minister Ben-Gurion dominated
Israeli politics. Immigration to Israel during the late 1940s and early 1950s was aided by the Israeli Immigration Department and the non-government sponsored
Mossad LeAliyah Bet ( "Institute for
Immigration B"). The latter engaged in clandestine operations in countries, particularly in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, where the lives of Jews were in danger and exit was difficult. Mossad LeAliyah Bet was disbanded in 1953. The immigration was in accordance with the
One Million Plan. Some immigrants held Zionist beliefs or came for the promise of a better life, while others moved to escape persecution or were expelled from their homes. An
influx of Holocaust survivors and
Jews from Arab and Muslim countries to Israel during the first three years increased the number of Jews from 700,000 to 1,400,000. By 1958, the population had risen to two million. Between 1948 and 1970, approximately 1,150,000 Jewish refugees relocated to Israel. Some immigrants arrived as refugees and were housed in temporary camps known as ''
ma'abarot''; by 1952, over 200,000 people were living in these tent cities.
Jews of European background were often treated more favourably than Jews from
Middle Eastern and
North African countries—housing units reserved for the latter were often re-designated for the former, so Jews newly arrived from Arab lands generally ended up staying longer in transit camps. During this period, food, clothes and furniture were rationed in what became known as the
austerity period. The need to solve the crisis led Ben-Gurion to sign a
reparations agreement with West Germany that triggered mass protests by Jews angered at the idea that Israel could accept monetary compensation for the Holocaust.
Arab–Israeli conflict There were
further expulsions of Palestinians after the establishment of Israel. During the 1950s, Israel was
frequently attacked by
Palestinian fedayeen, nearly always against civilians, mainly from the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip, leading to several Israeli
reprisal operations. In 1956, the UK and France aimed at regaining control of the
Suez Canal, which Egypt had nationalised. The continued blockade of the Suez Canal and
Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, together with increasing fedayeen attacks against Israel's southern population and recent Arab threatening statements, prompted Israel to attack Egypt. Israel joined
a secret alliance with the UK and France and overran the
Sinai Peninsula in the
Suez Crisis but was pressured to withdraw by the UN in return for guarantees of Israeli shipping rights. The war resulted in significant reduction of Israeli border infiltration. In the early 1960s, Israel captured Nazi war criminal
Adolf Eichmann in Argentina and brought him to Israel
for trial. Eichmann remains the only person executed in Israel by conviction in an Israeli civilian court. In 1963, Israel was engaged in a diplomatic standoff with the United States in relation to the Israeli
nuclear programme. Since 1964 Arab countries, concerned over Israeli plans to divert waters of the
Jordan River into the
coastal plain, had been trying to divert the headwaters to deprive Israel of water resources,
provoking tensions between Israel on the one hand, and Syria and Lebanon on the other.
Arab nationalists led by Egyptian President
Gamal Abdel Nasser refused to recognise Israel and called for its destruction. By 1966, Israeli-Arab relations had deteriorated to the point of battles taking place between Israeli and Arab forces. In May 1967, Egypt massed its army near the border with Israel, expelled
UN peacekeepers stationed in the Sinai Peninsula since 1957, and blocked Israel's access to the Red Sea. Other Arab states mobilised their forces. Israel reiterated that these actions were a
casus belli and launched a pre-emptive strike (
Operation Focus) against Egypt in June. Jordan, Syria and Iraq attacked Israel. was returned to Egypt in 1982. In the ensuing
Six-Day War, Israel captured and occupied the West Bank from Jordan, the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, and the Golan Heights from Syria. Israeli forces
expelled ~300,000 Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Jerusalem's boundaries were enlarged, incorporating
East Jerusalem. The 1949 Green Line became the administrative boundary between Israel and the
occupied territories. Following the 1967 war and the "
Three Nos" resolution of the Arab League, Israel faced attacks from the Egyptians in the Sinai Peninsula during the 1967–1970
War of Attrition, and from Palestinian groups targeting Israelis in the occupied territories, globally, and in Israel. Most important among the Palestinian and Arab groups was the
Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), established in 1964, which initially committed itself to "armed struggle as the only way to liberate the homeland". In the late 1960s and early 1970s,
Palestinian groups launched attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets around the world, including
a massacre of Israeli athletes at the
1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. The Israeli government responded with an
assassination campaign against the organisers of the massacre,
a bombing and a
raid on the PLO headquarters in Lebanon. On 6 October 1973, the Egyptian and Syrian armies launched
a surprise attack against Israeli forces in the Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights, opening the
Yom Kippur War. The war ended on 25 October with Israel repelling Egyptian and Syrian forces but suffering great losses. An
internal inquiry exonerated
the government of responsibility for failures before and during the war, but public anger forced Prime Minister
Golda Meir to resign. On 27 June 1976,
Air France Flight 139 was hijacked in flight from Israel to France by Palestinian guerrillas; Israeli commandos rescued 102 of 106 Israeli hostages days later.
Peace process The
1977 Knesset elections marked a major turning point in Israeli political history as
Menachem Begin's
Likud party took control from the
Labor Party. Later that year, Egyptian President
Anwar El Sadat made a trip to Israel and spoke before the
Knesset in what was the first recognition of Israel by an Arab head of state. Sadat and Begin signed the
Camp David Accords (1978) and the
Egypt–Israel peace treaty (1979). In return, Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula and agreed to enter negotiations over autonomy for Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. On 11 March 1978, a PLO guerilla raid from Lebanon led to the
Coastal Road massacre. Israel responded by launching an
invasion of southern Lebanon to destroy PLO bases. Begin's government meanwhile provided incentives for
Israelis to settle in the
occupied West Bank, increasing friction with the Palestinians there. The 1980
Jerusalem Law was believed by some to reaffirm Israel's 1967 annexation of Jerusalem by government decree and
reignited international controversy over the
status of the city. No Israeli legislation has defined the territory of Israel, and no act specifically included East Jerusalem therein. In 1981 Israel
effectively annexed the Golan Heights. The international community largely rejected these moves, with the UN Security Council declaring both the Jerusalem Law and the Golan Heights Law null and void. Several waves of
Ethiopian Jews immigrated to Israel since the 1980s, while between 1990 and 1994,
immigration from the post-Soviet states increased Israel's population by twelve per cent. On 7 June 1981, during the
Iran–Iraq War, the
Israeli air force destroyed Iraq's sole nuclear reactor, then under construction, in order to impede the Iraqi nuclear weapons programme. Following a series of PLO attacks in 1982, Israel
invaded Lebanon to destroy the PLO bases. In the first six days, Israel destroyed the military forces of the PLO in Lebanon and decisively defeated the Syrians. An Israeli government inquiry (the
Kahan Commission) held Begin and several Israeli generals indirectly responsible for the
Sabra and Shatila massacre and held
defence minister Ariel Sharon as bearing "personal responsibility". Sharon was forced to resign. In 1985, Israel responded to a Palestinian
terrorist attack in Cyprus by
bombing the PLO headquarters in Tunisia. Israel withdrew from most of Lebanon in 1986 but continued to
occupy a borderland buffer zone in southern Lebanon until 2000, from where Israeli forces
engaged in conflict with
Hezbollah. The
First Intifada, a Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule, broke out in 1987, with waves of uncoordinated demonstrations and violence in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. Over the following six years, the intifada became more organised and included economic and cultural measures aimed at disrupting the Israeli occupation. Over 1,000 people were killed. During the 1991
Gulf War, the PLO supported
Saddam Hussein and Iraqi missile
attacks against Israel. Despite public outrage, Israel heeded American calls to refrain from hitting back. (left) with
Yitzhak Rabin (center) and King
Hussein of Jordan (right), prior to signing the
Israel–Jordan peace treaty in 1994 In 1992,
Yitzhak Rabin became prime minister following
an election in which his party called for compromise with Israel's neighbours. The following year,
Shimon Peres on behalf of Israel and
Yasser Arafat for the PLO signed the
Oslo Accords, which gave the
Palestinian National Authority (PNA) the right to govern
parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The PLO also
recognised Israel's right to exist and pledged an end to terrorism. In 1994, the
Israel–Jordan peace treaty was signed, making Jordan the second Arab country to normalise relations with Israel. Arab public support for the Accords was damaged by the continuation of Israeli settlements and
checkpoints, and the deterioration of economic conditions. Israeli public support for the Accords waned after
Palestinian suicide attacks. In November 1995, Rabin
was assassinated by
Yigal Amir, a far-right Jew who opposed the Accords. During
Benjamin Netanyahu's premiership at the end of the 1990s, Israel
agreed to withdraw from
Hebron, though this was never ratified or implemented, and he signed the
Wye River Memorandum. The agreement dealt with further redeployments in the West Bank and security issues. The memorandum was criticised by major international human rights organisations for its "encouragement" of human rights abuses.
Ehud Barak,
elected prime minister in 1999, withdrew forces from southern Lebanon and conducted negotiations with PNA Chairman Yasser Arafat and U.S. President
Bill Clinton at the
2000 Camp David Summit. Barak offered a plan for the establishment of a
Palestinian state, including the entirety of the Gaza Strip and over 90% of the West Bank with Jerusalem as a shared capital. Each side blamed the other for the failure of the talks.
21st century In late 2000, after a controversial visit by Sharon to the
Temple Mount, the
Second Intifada began. The popular uprising faced disproportionate repression from the Israeli state.
Palestinian suicide bombings eventually developed into a recurrent feature of the intifada. Some commentators contend that the intifada was pre-planned by Arafat after the collapse of peace talks. Sharon became prime minister in a
2001 election; he carried out his plan to
unilaterally withdraw from the Gaza Strip and spearheaded the construction of the
West Bank barrier, ending the intifada. Between 2000 and 2008, 1,063 Israelis, 5,517 Palestinians and 64 foreign citizens were killed. In July 2006, a Hezbollah artillery assault on Israel's northern border communities and a
cross-border abduction of two Israeli soldiers precipitated the month-long
Second Lebanon War, including an Israeli invasion of Lebanon. The war wound down in August 2006 after the passage of
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701; Israeli forces mostly withdrew from Lebanon by October 2006 but continued to occupy the Lebanese portion of
Ghajar village. In 2007 the Israeli Air Force
destroyed a nuclear reactor in Syria. In 2008,
a ceasefire between
Hamas and Israel collapsed, resulting in the three-week
Gaza War. In what Israel described as a response to
over a hundred Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israeli cities, Israel began
an operation in the Gaza Strip in 2012, lasting eight days. Israel started another
operation in Gaza following an escalation of rocket attacks by Hamas in July 2014. In May 2021, another
round of fighting took place in Gaza and Israel, lasting eleven days. By the 2010s,
increasing regional cooperation between Israel and
Arab League countries have been established, culminating in the signing of the
Abraham Accords. The Israeli security situation shifted from the traditional
Arab–Israeli conflict towards the
Iran–Israel proxy conflict and
direct confrontation with Iran during the Syrian civil war. on 7 October 2023 On 7 October 2023, Palestinian militant groups from
Gaza, led by Hamas, launched
a series of coordinated attacks on Israel, leading to the start of the
Gaza war. On that day, approximately 1,300 Israelis, predominantly civilians, were killed in communities near the Gaza Strip border and
during a music festival.
Over 200 hostages were kidnapped and taken to the Gaza Strip. Studies modeling trauma exposure and assessing mental health outcomes estimated that approximately 5.3% of Israelis may develop
PTSD, with national data showing that probable PTSD nearly doubled from 16.2% to 29.8% and rates of anxiety and depression also rising sharply. After clearing militants from its territory, Israel launched
one of the most destructive bombing campaigns in modern history and
invaded Gaza on 27 October with the stated objectives of destroying Hamas and freeing hostages. The fifth war of the
Gaza–Israel conflict since 2008, it has been the deadliest for Palestinians in the entire
Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the most significant military engagement in the region since the
Yom Kippur War in 1973. A
United Nations Special Committee,
multiple governments, and various experts and human rights organisations have concluded that Israel is committing
genocide against the Palestinian people due to the harm and loss of life inflicted on civilians during the
Gaza War. and exchanged missile barrages with Iran three weeks later, in response of Iranian strikes earlier in that month. After nearly a year of the
Israel–Hezbollah conflict from October 2023 due to Hezbollah shooting rockets at Israel to support Hamas in Gaza, Israel
assassinated Hezbollah secretary general
Hassan Nasrallah in September 2024. A November 2024
ceasefire agreement instructed Israel to withdraw from Lebanon, which Israel mostly did by February 2025, but against the agreement, Israeli forces stayed in five military outposts on highlands in Southern Lebanon. In June 2025, Israel launched a renewed series of airstrikes on Iran, targeting Iran's air defence systems, missile launchers, their military leadership, and their
nuclear programme, which escalated into a
full-scale war. ==Geography==