Following months of escalating violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which resulted in the highest number of fatalities in the West Bank in years, rockets began raining down on Israel today from Gaza.
Table of Contents
Described: The Conflict Between Israel and Palestine
On Saturday, Palestinian militants infiltrated Israel and fired thousands of rockets at Israel from Gaza, the Israeli military and medical personnel report, killing at least one person.
After months of increasing violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which has seen the highest number of fatalities in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since the 1967 Arab-Israeli conflict, rockets began raining down on Israel from Gaza at 6:30 a.m.
With more than 5,000 rockets fired, the Palestinian organization Hamas claimed responsibility for the rocket attack on Israel.
The military wing of Hamas, Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, declared in a statement that “we decided to put an end to all the crimes of the occupation (Israel), their time for rampaging without being held accountable is over.” “We announce Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and we fired, in the first strike of 20 minutes, more than 5,000 rockets.”
Israel Faces a Surge in Missiles and Rockets Over 5 Thousand Reported
Breaking News: Gaza Rocket Fire Towards Israel
Historical Background
Britain took over control of Palestine, which was inhabited by a Jewish minority and an Arab majority after the Ottoman Empire was overthrown in World War I.
Tensions between the two groups increased when Britain was given the task by the international community of establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
Jews immigrated in greater numbers to Palestine between the 1920s and the 1940s as a result of the Holocaust, when many fled persecution in Europe and looked for a new home.
Resistance to British rule as well as hostility between Jews and Arabs grew. The partition of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states with Jerusalem placed under international control was approved by the UN in 1947. The Arab side rejected the plan, which was never put into action even though the Jewish leadership supported it.
British authorities withdrew in 1948 after failing to put an end to the fighting, and Jewish leaders announced the establishment of Israel. Numerous Palestinians protested, and a war broke out. Arab neighboring nations used military force to intervene. As a result of what they refer to as Al Nakba, or “The Catastrophe,” hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced to flee or abandon their homes.
Peace And War
Israel and Palestine have engaged in a number of clashes over the years, some minor and others of catastrophic proportions that resulted in the deaths of thousands of people.
In 1987, Palestinian cleric Sheikh Ahmed Yassin established Hamas, an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya (Islamic Resistance Movement), as the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, a global Sunni Islamist organization.
Israeli-Palestinian relations were significantly impacted by the two Palestinian uprisings, or “intifadas,” particularly the second, which put an end to the peace process of the 1990s and ushered in a new era of conflict. Hamas participated in both of the intifadas.