[ti:How Did the Israel-Palestinian Conflict Start?]
[al:As It Is]
[ar:VOA]
[dt:2023-10-12]
[by:www.voase.cn]
[00:00.00]The fighting between Israelis and Hamas militants is the latest clash in a conflict that some people believe dates back to events described in the Bible.
[00:14.56]Over the weekend, Hamas launched a surprise attack in Israel from the Palestinian territory of Gaza.
[00:24.77]Hamas gunmen killed more than 1,200 people, including women and children. 
[00:33.42]The group also took more than 150 people as hostages.
[00:40.58]Israel answered with airstrikes of what it said were Hamas targets in Gaza. 
[00:47.54]Officials in the Palestinian-controlled area said more than 1,000 have been killed, including some children.
[00:57.43]Thousands have also been wounded on both sides.
[01:03.09]The modern conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is mainly a territorial dispute in Palestine, an area now known as Israel, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank. 
[01:20.86]Parts of the land are also considered the holiest places to Jews, Christians and Muslims.
[01:29.69]The Roman Empire controlled the area at the time Jesus was believed to have been born in Bethlehem.
[01:37.52]Following the death of Rome's ally, King Herod, the land was divided into five locally administered areas under Rome.
[01:49.55]Later, the land then came under the Ottoman Empire's control for about 400 years until the end of World War I.
[01:59.98]After World War I, Britain controlled the area it called Palestine and expressed support for "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people."
[02:15.57]In November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution dividing the British-ruled area of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab, with Jerusalem under a UN administration.
[02:35.36]On May 14, 1948, the modern State of Israel was established for Jews fleeing persecution and seeking a homeland.
[02:46.25]Arab countries rejected the UN plan, arguing that it was unfair and violated the UN Charter.
[02:55.76]In the war that followed, some 700,000 Palestinians, half the Arab population in Palestine, fled or were driven from their homes. 
[03:07.84]They ended up in Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria as well as in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem.
[03:18.21]Israel denied that it sought to drive Palestinians from their homes.
[03:24.57]The new country said it was attacked by five Arab states the day after its creation. 
[03:31.78]Armistice agreements halted the fighting in 1949, but there was no official peace treaty.
[03:40.51]Palestinians call the creation of Israel the "Nakba" in Arabic.
[03:45.89]It means a disaster, or catastrophe, that resulted in mass displacement and blocked their dreams of statehood.
[03:55.27]In 1967, Israel launched the Six-Day War against Egypt and Syria. 
[04:01.93]Israel has occupied the West Bank, Arab East Jerusalem, which it captured from Jordan, and Syria's Golan Heights ever since.
[04:13.43]In 1973, Egypt and Syria attacked Israeli positions along the Suez Canal and Golan Heights, beginning the Yom Kippur War.
[04:24.10]Israel pushed both armies back within three weeks.
[04:29.59]Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 aiming to remove Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) fighters under Yasser Arafat. 
[04:42.31]In 2006, war erupted in Lebanon again when Hezbollah militants captured two Israeli soldiers and Israel retaliated.
[04:56.47]In 1987, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a Palestinian refugee living in Gaza, during the first intifada, or uprising, founded Hamas. 
[05:12.39]The name in Arabic means the Islamic Resistance Movement.
[05:18.93]The group does not recognize Israel's right to exist. 
[05:23.70]It has launched many deadly attacks, including suicide bombings against Israelis.
[05:32.43]In 1997, the U.S. State Department named Hamas a terrorist organization.
[05:39.91]So has the European Union and other Western countries.
[05:45.09]In 2005, Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip, which it had captured in 1967.
[05:54.81]Hamas won the 2006 parliamentary elections over the Palestinian Authority and took control of Gaza.
[06:06.92]The Palestinian Authority still administers the semi-autonomous, or partly self-ruling, areas of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
[06:19.29]Israel answered the Hamas takeover with a blockade on Gaza. 
[06:25.56]It restricted the movement of people and goods to keep the group from developing weapons.
[06:32.41]Over the years, Hamas received support from many Arab countries.
[06:39.07]Recently, it has moved closer to Iran and its allies.
[06:46.15]For over 40 years, efforts have aimed to bring peace to the area.
[06:54.58]In 1979, Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty. 
[06:58.96]Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO chief Arafat agreed in 1993 to set up Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
[07:13.50]The following year, Israel signed a peace treaty with Jordan.
[07:19.59]In 2002, an Arab plan offered Israel normal ties with all Arab countries in return for a full withdrawal from the lands it took in the 1967 Middle East war,
[07:33.73]the creation of a Palestinian state, and a "just solution" for Palestinian refugees.
[07:42.47]The two sides, however, are far apart on most issues.
[07:47.79]Hamas has rejected the two-state solution. 
[07:51.52]It has sworn to destroy Israel.
[07:54.92]Israel has increasingly built new Jewish settlements on occupied land over Palestinian objections.
[08:04.05]Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be the capital of the Palestinian state. 
[08:10.74]East Jerusalem has areas that are holy to Muslims, Jews, and Christians. 
[08:17.15]But Israel has established "indivisible" Jerusalem as the country's capital.
[08:23.88]Today about 5.6 million Palestinian refugees still live in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza.
[08:38.34]Palestinians have long demanded that refugees should be permitted to return home. 
[08:44.46]But Israel says any resettlement of Palestinian refugees must take place outside of its borders.
[08:55.57]I'm Anna Matteo.
[08:57.13]And I'm Dan Novak.