Over 15,000 dead in Palestine and 1,200 dead in Israel. The people have chosen their side of the war. Whether it be innocent civilians, government officials, soldiers or even those watching the news from across the world, everyone has found where they stand. However, do they know the real destructive story and where it all began?
It may seem like the conflict between Israel and Palestine was an abrupt event in the news, but the conflict between the two has been ongoing since World War I. After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in 1917, Great Britain took control of Palestine.
The land of Palestine was originally inhabited by Jewish people and Arabs, although, the two groups weren’t very fond of each other. Great Britain tried to amend their hatred and publicly declared “a national home for Jewish people” with the Balfour Declaration of 1917. Arabs were not all that excited about the news.
This action made by Great Britain pushed Arabs further and further away from being head of their land. The White Paper of 1939, a policy published by the British, restricted the amount of Jews allowed in Palestine without Arab consent. However, during World War II, many Jews migrated to Palestine to escape the Holocaust.
Violence between the two ethnic groups broke out, along with their violence against the British rule over Palestine.
In 1947, the United Nations voted to separate Palestine into two parts for Jewish and Arab independent ruling, this was called the British Mandate. Arabs thought they would be able to have a good amount of land away from Jews. However, they thought wrong.
When Great Britain withdrew power over Palestine and ended the mandate, the state of Israel was established and war broke out between the two groups. After the Arab-Israeli war of 1948, over 75,000 Palestinians were kicked out of their homes and the land was broken up into three different parts: Israel, Gaza Strip and West Bank.
The Gaza Strip was controlled by Egypt and the West Bank was controlled by Jordan. When Arabs were forced out of what was now Israel, they moved to those two pieces of land.
In the Six-Day War of 1967, Israel took control of both the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
In 1987, Palestinians who were occupying the Gaza Strip and West Bank planned to rise against Israel which was called “Intifada” which translates to “shaking off.”
The constant back-and-forth battles and disagreements were fought during the Intifada.
In the 1960s, a man named Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was in charge of charitable work in both Gaza and West Bank after Israel took the land. He then established the group Hamas which stands for Harakat al-Maquwama al-Islamiya. Yassin formed the group to counter other organizations, but in 1988 Hamas published a charter that called for the destruction of Israeli power in Palestine.
With the uprising of the militant group, many casualties occurred. For example, the abduction and murder of two Israeli soldiers, suicide bombings, civil wars and even Israeli forces killing Hamas’ founder Yassin in 2004.
In 2006, Hamas was officially elected in the Palestinian legislative election. The people haven’t had an election since then. Egypt and Israel also closed off the borders with Gaza in 2006 which cut off the people’s movement and transportation of goods in and out of the land.
Hamas was cut off from U.S. and EU funding, so, how are they making money for their government? Hamas is getting their funds from private donors, such as the Persian Gulf and some Islamic charities as well as taxing anything that passes between the tunnels of Gaza.
Hamas collects up to 12 million dollars each month.
All of this led to attacks between Hamas and Israel before 2023. In 2021, Hamas fired more than 4,000 rockets into Israel killing 10 civilians and over 300 being injured. The U.S. and Egypt ordered a cease-fire to the fight.
However, that didn’t stop the militant group from fighting against Israel once more. On October 7, 2023, Hamas fired over Israel again and rekindled the fire between the two countries leaving the rest of the world to discuss the heated battles.
