Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Today, the war between Hamas and Israel entered its second week since it broke out on October 7. This is a new chapter in the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
The conflict broke out when Saturday (7/10/2023) the Hamas group which controls Gaza attacked a concert held by Israel on the Gaza-Israel border. Israel responded by declaring war. Tel Aviv attacked Gaza from various sides.
Long before this incident, the conflict between Israel and Palestine had been going on for a long time, even starting hundreds of years ago. The following is a summary of the history and initial chronology, quoted from Al Jazeera.
Chronology of Early Conflict
This conflict has been going on for more than 100 years. On November 2, 1917 the British Foreign Minister at that time, Arthur Balfour, wrote a letter addressed to Lionel Walter Rothschild, a figure in the British Jewish community. The letter was short, only 67 words, but its contents had an impact on Palestine that is still felt today.
The letter committed the British government to “establish a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine” and facilitate “the achievement of this objective”. This letter is known as the Balfour Declaration
In essence, the European powers promised the Zionist movement a state in a region where 90% of the population was native Palestinian Arabs. The British Mandate was established in 1923 and lasted until 1948.
During this period, the British facilitated the mass migration of Jews. Where there was a fairly large wave of arrivals after the Nazi movement in Europe.
In this wave of migration, they encountered resistance from Palestinians. Palestinians are concerned about the changing demographics of their country and the confiscation of their land by Britain to hand it over to Jewish settlers.
Increased Violence
Rising tensions eventually led to the Arab Revolt. This lasted from 1936 to 1939.
In April 1936, the newly formed Arab National Committee called on Palestinians to launch a general strike. It withheld tax payments and boycotted Jewish products to protest British colonialism and increasing Jewish immigration.
The six-month strike was brutally suppressed by the British, who launched a campaign of mass arrests and carried out the destruction of homes. This is a practice that Israel continues to apply to Palestinians to this day.
The second phase of the rebellion began in late 1937. It was led by the Palestinian peasant resistance movement, which targeted British power and colonialism.
In the second half of 1939, Britain had deployed 30,000 troops in Palestine. Villages were bombed by air, curfews were imposed, homes were destroyed, and administrative detentions and mass killings were widespread.
Simultaneously, the British collaborated with the Jewish settler community and formed an armed group and “counter-insurgency force” consisting of Jewish fighters called the British-led Special Night Squad. Within the Yishuv, the pre-state settler community, weapons were secretly imported and weapons factories were established to expand the Haganah, the Jewish paramilitary that later became the core of the Israeli army.
In the three years of the uprising, 5,000 Palestinians were killed. As many as 15,000 to 20,000 people were injured and 5,600 were imprisoned.
UN Resolution
By 1947, the Jewish population had swelled to 33% in Palestine, but they owned only 6% of the land. The United Nations (UN) then adopted Resolution 181, which called for the division of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states.
Palestinians rejected the plan because it gave about 56% of Palestine to the Jewish state, including most of the fertile coastal areas. At that time, Palestinians owned 94% of the historic territory and made up 67% of its population.
The Nakba incident
Before the British Mandate ended on May 14 1948, Israeli paramilitaries had begun military operations. It destroyed Palestinian towns and villages in order to expand the borders of the nascent Israel.
In April 1948, more than 100 Palestinian men, women and children were murdered in the village of Deir Yassin on the outskirts of Jerusalem. This determined the course of subsequent operations, and from 1947 to 1949, more than 500 Palestinian villages, towns and cities were destroyed in what Palestinians call the Nakba, or “catastrophe” in Arabic.
An estimated 15,000 Palestinians were killed, including in dozens of massacres. This incident also made the Zionist Movement control 78% of historic Palestine. The remaining 22% is divided between what is now the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip.
An estimated 750,000 Palestinians were forced to flee their homes. Today their descendants live as 6 million refugees in 58 refugee camps throughout Palestine and in neighboring countries such as Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt.
On May 15, 1948, Israel announced its founding. The next day, the first Arab-Israeli war began and fighting ended in January 1949 after a ceasefire between Israel and Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria.
In December 1948, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 194. It called for the right of return for Palestinian refugees.
After the Nakba
At least 150,000 Palestinians remained in the newly created state of Israel and lived under tightly controlled military occupation for nearly 20 years before they were finally granted Israeli citizenship.
Egypt took over the Gaza Strip, and in 1950, Jordan began its administrative rule over the West Bank. Then, in 1964, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was formed, and a year later, the Fatah political party was founded.
6 Day War
On June 5, 1967, Israel occupied the remainder of historic Palestine, including the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Syrian Golan Heights, and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula during the 6 Day War against a coalition of Arab armies. For some Palestinians, this led to a second forced displacement, or Naksa, which means “setback” in Arabic.
In December 1967, the Marxist-Leninist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine was formed. Over the next decade, a series of attacks and plane hijackings by left-wing groups drew world attention to the plight of the Palestinian people.
Settlement construction begins in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. A two-tier system was created in which Jewish settlers were granted all the rights and privileges of Israeli citizens while Palestinians had to live under military occupation that discriminated against them and prohibited any form of political or civil expression.
First Intifada
The first Palestinian intifada, which means resistance in Arabic, was carried out in the Gaza Strip in December 1987. This occurred after four Palestinians were killed when an Israeli truck collided with two vans carrying Palestinian workers.
Protests spread quickly to the West Bank with Palestinian youth throwing stones at Israeli tanks and soldiers. This also led to the founding of the Hamas movement, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood involved in armed resistance against the Israeli occupation.
The Israeli army’s harsh response was summarized in the “Break Their Bones” policy advocated by then Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin. These actions included sudden killings, closure of universities, deportation of activists, and destruction of homes.
The intifada was carried out primarily by young people and was directed by the Unified National Leadership of the Uprising, a coalition of Palestinian political factions committed to ending the Israeli occupation and establishing Palestinian independence. Intifadas are characterized by popular mobilization, mass protests, civil disobedience, well-organized strikes, and communal cooperation.
According to the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, 1,070 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces during the Intifada, including 237 children. More than 175,000 Palestinians were arrested. The Intifada also pushed the international community to find a solution to the conflict.
Oslo Agreement
The Intifada ended with the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 and the creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA), an interim, limited self-rule government in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The PLO recognized Israel under a two-state solution and effectively signed an agreement giving Israel control of 60% of the West Bank, as well as most of the region’s land and water resources.
The PA was supposed to pave the way for the first elected Palestinian government to run an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with its capital in East Jerusalem, but that never happened.
Critics of the PA view it as a corrupt subcontractor to the Israeli occupation that collaborates closely with the Tel Aviv military in suppressing dissent and political activism. In 1995, Israel built an electronic fence and a concrete wall around the Gaza Strip, stopping interaction between the divided Palestinian territories.
Second Intifada
The second intifada began on September 28, 2000, when the leader of Israel’s opposition Likud Party, Ariel Sharon, made a provocative visit to the Al Aqsa Mosque compound. At that time, thousands of security forces were deployed in and around the Old City of Jerusalem.
Clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli forces killed five Palestinians and injured 200 people over two days. This incident sparked widespread armed rebellion.
During the Intifada, Israel caused unprecedented damage to the Palestinian economy and infrastructure. Israel reoccupied territory ruled by the PA and began construction of a separation wall which, along with rampant settlement construction, destroyed Palestinian livelihoods and communities.
Jewish settlers also began to settle illegally in the area. Space for Palestinians is increasingly shrinking because roads and infrastructure are only intended for illegal Jewish settlers.
At the time the Oslo Accords were signed, more than 110,000 Jewish settlers lived in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Today, it numbers more than 700,000 people on more than 100,000 hectares of land expropriated from Palestine.
Civil War
PLO leader Yasser Arafat died in 2004. A year later, the second Intifada ended, Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip were dismantled, and Israeli soldiers and 9,000 settlers left the enclave.
A year later, Palestinians voted in general elections for the first time. Hamas won a majority. However, the Fatah-Hamas civil war broke out which lasted for months and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians.
Hamas expelled Fatah from the Gaza Strip, and Fatah regained control of parts of the West Bank. In June 2007, Israel imposed a land, air and sea blockade on the Gaza Strip, accusing Hamas of “terrorism”.
Israel’s attack on Gaza
Israel has launched four prolonged military attacks on Gaza, namely in 2008, 2012, 2014 and 2021. Thousands of Palestinians have been killed, including many children, and tens of thousands of homes, schools and office buildings have been destroyed.
Rebuilding is nearly impossible because the siege prevents construction materials, such as steel and cement, from reaching Gaza. The 2008 attack involved the use of internationally banned weapons, such as phosphorus gas.
In 2014, over a period of 50 days, Israel killed more than 2,100 Palestinians, including 1,462 civilians and nearly 500 children. During the attacks, around 11,000 Palestinians were injured, 20,000 homes were destroyed and half a million people were displaced.
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