Israel and Palestine: Seven Decades of War and Broken Truces

LondonThe ceasefire that It came into force this Friday in the Gaza Strip is the third of the current war, started on October 7, 2023, following Hamas's attacks on Israel. There was one between November 24 and December 1, 2023; and a second, longer one, between January 15 and March 18 of that same year. Can this be different now and lead to a definitive peace process? The challenges are enormous; Trump's plan is very generic and piecemeal, and the risk of falling into the curse of a history of violence and death is very high. The weight of the past systematically draws the region toward the abyss.

But rather than speaking of the beginning—of the current war—we should speak of the resumption of a war, as interminable as it is permanent. Because, in reality, since the creation of the State of Israel in May 1948, the conflict with the Palestinian people and neighboring Arab countries has gone through successive cycles of war, uprisings by the Palestinian population, and very fragile truces. But counting wars and truces or ceasefires between the two sides depends somewhat on what is considered a war (the most important ones, intifadas, specific military operations...?) and what is considered a truce (formal ceasefires, armistices, pauses...?). Below we offer a summary of the most significant episodes in the turbulent recent history of the Middle East.

1948-49

Arab-Israeli War, War of Independence for the Israelis, Nakba (disaster, in Catalan) for the PalestiniansThe first war broke out immediately after the declaration of independence. The new state fought against the armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, while hundreds of thousands of Palestinians (an estimated 750,000) fled or were expelled from their homes—the Nakba. The conflict ended with the 1949 Armistice Agreements, which established the Green Line and left the West Bank under Jordanian control and Gaza under Egyptian administration.

1956

Suez Crisis. In the years following the 1949 armistice, cross-border attacks by Palestinian feudal lords and Israeli reprisals created a pattern of continued violence in the area. Israel, allied with France and the United Kingdom, invaded Egyptian territory in an attempt to gain control of the Canal, but lack of support and pressure from the United States and the United Nations led to its withdrawal.

1967

This year marked a turning point in the history of the conflict. The Six-Day War altered the map of the region until then: Israel defeated Arab armies, occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza, and took control of territories that remain the epicenter of the conflict today. Since then, military occupation and settlement policy have become the core of the dispute. Human rights violations are systematic in the occupied West Bank.

1969-1970

The War of Attrition pitted Israel and Egypt against each other between March 1969 and August 1970, a continuation of the Six-Day War. Driven by Nasser, Egypt sought to wear down Israel with constant attacks on the Suez Canal. The conflict ended on August 7, 1970, with a US-brokered ceasefire established by Williams Rogers, then Secretary of State, which established an end to hostilities and opened the door to further peace talks under UN auspices. Although the plan met with limited success, it was considered a possible ceasefire that effectively ended the war of attrition and laid the groundwork for subsequent US-led diplomacy in the Middle East.

1973

Yom Kippur War. Egypt and Syria attacked Israel by surprise to recover lost territory. Although it was a regional war, its consequences deeply affected the Palestinians, who saw their national aspirations subordinated to inter-Arab diplomacy. In the following years, they led to the rise of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the growth of international recognition of their cause.

1987

Within the occupied territories, a new phase began in December of that year with the First Intifada, a popular uprising against Israeli rule in the West Bank and Gaza. The uprising, which combined civil disobedience and violent clashes, lasted six years and culminated in the now-dismantled Oslo peace process. The 1993 accords created the Palestinian National Authority and established the two-state principle, but they too failed to bring lasting peace.

2000-2005

The Second Intifada, much more violent, erupted following Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount and left thousands dead. The conflict ended in February 2005 with a ceasefire agreed between Mahmoud Abbas and Ariel Sharon in Sharm el-Sheikh—the same scenario as now, but without a lasting peace.

2007

Hamas's takeover of the Gaza Strip opened a new series of short, devastating wars. Operation Cast Lead (2008–09), Pillar of Defense (2012), and Protective Edge followed a similar pattern: rocket fire from Gaza, massive Israeli bombardments, hundreds of Palestinian civilian deaths, and truces brokered by Egypt, Qatar, or the United States. Each ceasefire restored a precarious calm without addressing the underlying causes: the blockade, the occupation of the West Bank, and the lack of a political horizon for the Palestinian people.

2021

In May, a new confrontation lasting only eleven days devastated Gaza again and ended another Egyptian truce.status quo It continued until October 7, 2023. If each round of violence is counted as a war, historians record between ten and fifteen since 1948, depending on whether or not regional Arab conflicts are included. In any case, the number of truces, on the other hand, is incalculable: from the armistices of 1949 to the dozens of ceasefires agreed upon in Gaza, almost every armed episode, more or less serious, or genocidal, like the current one, has ended the same way, with an agreement that pauses the fighting but does not resolve the conflict.