Why in News

• Fighting between Israel and Gaza escalated rapidly in the worst combat since the last full- blown war in 2014, with Palestinian rocket and missile attacks killing Israeli civilians and Israeli forces taking aim at individual Gaza militants.

Details:

• The Palestinians said that they had reached a cease-fire with Israel.
• That news appeared to be confirmed indirectly when the Israeli military on lifted restrictions on citizens living near the border with Gaza.
• The outbreak of violence appears to have begun when a sniper wounded Israeli soldiers, a violent but localized expression of Palestinian impatience with Israel’s failure to alleviate dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza.

Israel-Palestine conflict

• The Israel-Palestine conflict – often referred as the ‘world’s most intractable conflict’ – is rooted in a dispute over land claimed by Jews as their biblical birthright and by the Palestinians, who seek self-determination.
• Despite repeated attempts to end the conflict between the two countries, there is no peace settlement in sight.
• In 1967, Israel launched a pre-emptive strike against Egypt, Syria, and Jordan and at the end of this Six-Day War, Israel captured:
• Golan Heights from
• West Bank and East Jerusalem from
• Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from
• The 1967 war is particularly important for today’s conflict, as it left Israel in control of
• the West Bank and Gaza Strip, two territories home to a large number of Palestinians.
• Gaza and Westbank are together known as ‘Occupied Territories’, after 1967 war.

Hamas and Fatah

• In 1987, Hamas (Islamic Militant group) for the liberation of Palestine through Jihad came into existence. It refused to recognize Israel as a country. It has received support from Iran and Syria.
• On the other hand, Fatah, a faction of PLO under Yasser Arafat received support from Western nations.