What is the history of the Israel-Palestinian conflict?
Hamas have been waging war since gunmen from the Palestinian militant group in the Gaza Strip stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and capturing 253 hostages, by Israeli tallies. Israel responded with a military offensive in Gaza in which more than 40,400 Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza health authorities.
The conflict is the bloodiest in a protracted conflict between Israelis and Palestinians that has rumbled on for seven decades and destabilised the Middle East.
WHAT ARE THE ORIGINS OF THE CONFLICT?
The conflict pits Israeli demands for a secure homeland in what it has long regarded as a hostile Middle East against Palestinians' unrealised aspirations for a state of their own.
In 1947, while Palestine was under British mandate rule, the United Nations General Assembly agreed a plan to partition it into Arab and Jewish states and for international rule over Jerusalem. Jewish leaders accepted the plan, which gave them 56% of the land. The Arab League rejected the proposal.
Israel's founding father, David Ben-Gurion, proclaimed the modern state of Israel on May 14, 1948, a day before the scheduled end of British rule, establishing a safe haven for Jews fleeing persecution and seeking a national home on land to which they cite ties dating to antiquity.
In the late 1940s, violence had been intensifying between Arabs, who comprised about two thirds of the population, and Jews. A day after Israel was created, troops from five Arab states attacked. In the war that followed,
