An outline, era by era

Israel–Gaza wars

21st Century · 2000 – present

The Israel–Gaza wars are a series of armed conflicts between Israel and Palestinian armed groups, chiefly Hamas, in and around the Gaza Strip, a narrow coastal territory of about 365 square kilometres on the eastern Mediterranean. Major rounds of fighting took place in 2008–2009, 2012, 2014, 2021 and from October 2023. They sit within the wider Israeli–Palestinian conflict, which goes back to the competing national claims to Mandatory Palestine in the twentieth century.

Gaza's population is mostly descended from refugees of the 1948 war. Israel withdrew its settlers and troops from the Strip in 2005, and Hamas took control there in 2007, after which Israel and Egypt kept a tight blockade. The wars have caused very heavy civilian suffering and destruction, and they raise disputed questions of security, occupation, self-determination and the laws of war. Israeli, Palestinian and international accounts often differ, and this entry keeps to well-documented facts.

Things happened, and the rest is history

  1. Gaza after the 1948 war

    Event

    What happened

    During the 1948 Arab–Israeli war, several hundred thousand Palestinians flee or are expelled from their homes, and many reach the Gaza Strip. The 1949 armistice leaves the Strip under Egyptian administration. Israel captures it in the 1967 Six-Day War and keeps it under military control until its withdrawal in 2005.

    The rest is history

    Refugees and their descendants came to make up most of Gaza's population, and the refugee question remains central to the conflict. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency was created in 1949 to assist them. Israeli military rule and settlement in Gaza between 1967 and 2005 shaped the later politics of the territory.

    Sources

    1. BookMorris, Benny. The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
    2. BookFiliu, Jean-Pierre. Gaza: A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

  2. The First Intifada and the rise of Hamas

    Event

    What happened

    In December 1987 a popular uprising, the First Intifada, begins in Gaza and spreads to the West Bank. Within days Palestinian Islamists in Gaza announce the founding of Hamas, which issues its charter in 1988. The uprising lasts until the early 1990s.

    The rest is history

    Hamas grew out of the Muslim Brotherhood and became a rival to the secular Palestine Liberation Organization. It opposed the Oslo peace process and carried out suicide bombings in the 1990s and 2000s. It also ran charities and social services, which built its support in Gaza.

    Sources

    1. BookMilton-Edwards, Beverley, and Stephen Farrell. Hamas: The Islamic Resistance Movement. Cambridge: Polity, 2010.
    2. PrimaryCovenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas). Founding charter, 18 August 1988.

  3. The Oslo Accords

    Event

    What happened

    In 1993 Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization exchange letters of mutual recognition and sign the Declaration of Principles in Washington. The 1994 Gaza–Jericho Agreement creates the Palestinian Authority, which takes over parts of Gaza. The accords set out a five-year interim period meant to lead to a final settlement.

    The rest is history

    The final-status talks failed at Camp David in July 2000. Violence, settlement growth and attacks on civilians eroded trust on both sides. Israel built a fence around Gaza in the 1990s, and movement in and out of the Strip became increasingly restricted.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryDeclaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements. Signed in Washington, 13 September 1993.
    2. BookShlaim, Avi. The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World. New York: W. W. Norton, 2000.

  4. The Second Intifada

    Event

    What happened

    In September 2000 a second Palestinian uprising begins after Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount, known to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif, and amid the collapse of the Camp David talks. Over the following years there are suicide bombings in Israeli cities and Israeli military operations in the West Bank and Gaza. The fighting subsides around 2005.

    The rest is history

    Historians disagree about the causes, and the visit is often seen as a trigger rather than the sole cause. Many thousands were killed, most of them Palestinians, along with about a thousand Israelis. Israel built the West Bank barrier and Gaza's rocket and mortar fire grew. The experience pushed Israel toward unilateral disengagement from Gaza.

    Sources

    1. BookRoss, Dennis. The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004.
    2. BookBregman, Ahron. Israel's Wars: A History since 1947. London: Routledge, 2002.

  5. Israel's disengagement from Gaza

    Event

    What happened

    In August and September 2005 Israel removes about 8,000 settlers from 21 settlements in Gaza and withdraws its troops from the Strip. It keeps control of Gaza's airspace, coastline and most border crossings. Egypt controls the Rafah crossing under an agreement made that November.

    The rest is history

    Israel describes the move as an end to occupation, while the United Nations and many legal scholars hold that Israel's control of the borders means it remains the occupying power in some respects. The status of Gaza after 2005 is still debated. Rocket fire from Gaza continued after the withdrawal.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryDisengagement Plan Implementation Law, 2005. Knesset, Israel, February 2005.
    2. BookFiliu, Jean-Pierre. Gaza: A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

  6. Hamas takes Gaza and the blockade begins

    Event

    What happened

    In January 2006 Hamas wins the Palestinian legislative elections, which international observers judged largely free and fair. After months of tension with Fatah, fighting breaks out in June 2007 and Hamas takes full control of Gaza. Israel and Egypt then tighten restrictions on goods and people entering and leaving.

    The rest is history

    The Palestinian territories were thereafter divided between Hamas in Gaza and the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Israel says the blockade is needed to stop weapons reaching armed groups. Critics, including UN bodies and human rights groups, say it harms the civilian population. Israel and Egypt have maintained restrictions, with changes, ever since.

    Sources

    1. BookTamimi, Azzam. Hamas: A History from Within. Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press, 2007.
    2. BookRoy, Sara. Hamas and Civil Society in Gaza: Engaging the Islamist Social Sector. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011.

  7. The 2008–2009 Gaza War

    Event

    What happened

    On 27 December 2008 Israel begins Operation Cast Lead, with air strikes and then a ground invasion, after a period of rocket fire from Gaza and the end of a truce. A ceasefire is declared on 18 January 2009. Palestinian deaths are in the many hundreds to over a thousand, and Israeli deaths number about a dozen.

    The rest is history

    A UN fact-finding mission led by Richard Goldstone reported in 2009 that both sides may have committed war crimes. Israel rejected the report, and Goldstone later said he regretted some of its conclusions about Israeli intent. It was the first of several rounds of fighting, with others in 2012, 2014 and 2021.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryReport of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict (Goldstone Report). UN Human Rights Council, A/HRC/12/48, 25 September 2009.
    2. BookFiliu, Jean-Pierre. Gaza: A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

  8. The 7 October 2023 attack and the war that followed

    Event

    What happened

    On 7 October 2023 Hamas and allied groups break through the Gaza border fence and attack Israeli communities and a music festival. Israeli authorities put the death toll at about 1,200, most of them civilians, and around 250 people are taken hostage. Israel responds with a large air and ground campaign in Gaza.

    The rest is history

    Gaza's health authorities reported tens of thousands of Palestinian deaths and the displacement of most of the population, figures that UN agencies have treated as broadly credible but that Israel disputes in part. Humanitarian conditions deteriorated severely, and the International Court of Justice took up a case brought by South Africa concerning the conduct of the war, issuing provisional measures on 26 January 2024. Israel rejects the allegations in that case. Several ceasefires and hostage releases were negotiated, and the war and its legal and political effects were still unfolding in 2024.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryOrder on provisional measures, South Africa v. Israel. International Court of Justice, 26 January 2024.A court order, not a finding on the merits; it records the case and the Court's provisional measures.
    2. PrimaryApplication instituting proceedings, South Africa v. Israel. International Court of Justice, 29 December 2023.A party submission documenting South Africa's allegations, which Israel contests.

  9. Gaza as the world's largest open-air prison

    Popular belief

    The legend

    Gaza is often described as the world's largest open-air prison, a phrase used by critics of the blockade to say that its two million residents cannot leave and live under confinement.

    The rest is history

    The phrase has been used by UN officials, rights groups and political leaders since the 2000s, and the blockade has seriously limited movement and trade. Israel and Egypt reject the comparison, citing security threats and noting that Hamas governs inside the Strip. Permits for leaving were issued in limited numbers, and travel through Egypt's Rafah crossing was irregular. It is best understood as a political description rather than a legal one.

    Sources

    1. BookRoy, Sara. The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-development. Washington, DC: Institute for Palestine Studies, 2016.
    2. PrimaryReport of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza Conflict. UN Human Rights Council, A/HRC/29/52, 24 June 2015.

  10. Israel as a land without a people

    Popular belief

    The legend

    A slogan says that Palestine was 'a land without a people for a people without a land', and is quoted to claim that early Zionists ignored the Arab population.

    The rest is history

    The phrase was used by some Christian and Zionist writers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including Israel Zangwill in a modified form. Most Zionist leaders knew the country had a large Arab population, and Zangwill himself later acknowledged it. Ottoman records and the 1922 British census show hundreds of thousands of Arab inhabitants. Historians treat the slogan as a rhetorical device rather than a policy statement.

    Sources

    1. ArticleGarfinkle, Adam M. "On the Origin, Meaning, Use and Abuse of a Phrase." Middle Eastern Studies 27, no. 4 (1991): 539-550.
    2. PrimaryCensus of Palestine, 1922. Government of Palestine, British Mandate, 1923.

  11. Gaza's Iron Dome makes Israel invulnerable

    Popular belief

    The legend

    It is often said that the Iron Dome missile defence system stops all rockets from Gaza, so that rocket fire poses no real danger to Israelis.

    The rest is history

    Iron Dome, in service since 2011, is designed to intercept only rockets predicted to hit populated areas. Israeli officials have claimed high interception rates, often around 90 percent, but such figures depend on how an interceptable rocket is defined and have been questioned by some independent analysts. The system does not stop every rocket, and rockets from Gaza have still killed people and disrupted life in southern and central Israel, including in 2014. On 7 October 2023 Hamas fired thousands of rockets in a few hours, and some got through.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryReport of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza Conflict. UN Human Rights Council, A/HRC/29/52, 24 June 2015.

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