Since the establishment of the State of Israel there have been repeated armed clashes with its neighbors. The first Middle East war was a war of independence for Israel – for the Palestinians, however, the beginning of the «Nakba» (catastrophe), their flight and expulsion.
November 29, 1947: The General Assembly of the United Nations calls for the division of the British Mandate Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state (Resolution 181). The Jews agree, the Arabs in Palestine and the Arab states reject the plan.
May 14, 1948: David Ben Gurion reads Israel’s declaration of independence. The next day, the Arab neighbors Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Syria declare war. In battle, the new state can expand its territory and conquer the western part of Jerusalem. Around 700,000 Palestinians are fleeing.
October 1956: In the Suez Crisis, Israeli troops are fighting alongside France and Great Britain for control of the Suez Canal, which Egypt had previously nationalized.
June 1967: In the Six Day War, Israel conquers the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.
October 1973: An alliance of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria invades Israel on Yom Kippur, the most important Jewish holiday. Israel succeeds in repelling the attack only with heavy losses.
March 1979: Israel’s Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egypt’s President Anwar al-Sadat sign a US-brokered peace treaty.
June 1982: Operation Peace for Galilee begins. Israel attacks positions of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Lebanon and invades the neighboring country.
September 1982: Christian Lebanese militiamen perpetrated the Sabra and Shatila massacre in a Palestinian refugee camp – within sight of Israeli checkpoints. Israel’s Defense Minister Ariel Sharon is blamed for political responsibility.
December 1987: Outbreak of the first Palestinian uprising («Intifada»).
September 1993: Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat sign the Oslo Peace Accords.
November 4th 1995: Rabin is shot dead by a Jewish fanatic after a peace rally in Tel Aviv.
September 2000: After a visit by Israel’s then opposition leader Ariel Sharon to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the second Intifada breaks out.
2002: Israel begins building a 750-kilometer barrier around the West Bank. Fences and walls run partly on Palestinian territory.
August 2005: Against the resistance of the settlers, Israel clears all settlements in the Gaza Strip and withdraws its troops from the Palestinian territory on the Mediterranean.
July 2006: Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah militia fight a month-long war.
June 2007: The radical Islamic Hamas is driving Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah out of the Gaza Strip in a bloody power struggle among Palestinians.
Turn of the year 2008/2009 to August 2014: The Israeli military and Hamas are at war in the Gaza Strip in three conflicts. Shortly before the war in 2014, the last attempt by Israel and the Palestinian leadership of Abbas to agree a peace at the negotiating table failed.
December 2017: US President Donald Trump announces the move of the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The decision met with strong criticism internationally.
Spring 2018: Week-long demonstrations by Palestinians for the right to return to what is now Israel begin at the border fence between Israel and Gaza. More than 100 are shot by the army. The US opens its embassy in Jerusalem.
January 2020: Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu present a Middle East peace plan. The Palestinians see international law violated and reject it.
May 2021: There are serious clashes between Israeli security forces and Palestinians in Jerusalem. Numerous rockets are fired from the Gaza Strip at Israel, which reacts with massive air strikes. Dozens of Palestinians are killed in Gaza. Israel mobilizes thousands of reservists. International negotiators are trying to reach a new ceasefire as soon as possible. (SDA)