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War & ConflictActive1947 – presentUpdated 2026-09-0915 primary sources

Israel–Palestine Conflict

Israeli, Palestinian, regional and independent accounts of occupation, war in Gaza, hostages, settlements and failed negotiations — separated into what courts and monitors have established, what each government asserts, and what remains contested.

Parties: Israel · Palestinian Authority · Hamas · United Nations · United States

How We Analyze Stories

Section 01

The Issue

Two national movements claim the same territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. Since 1967 Israel has held the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem under military occupation or blockade; Palestinians have no sovereign state and are governed by a divided Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and, until recently, Hamas in Gaza.

The current phase began with the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, which killed roughly 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages, and the Israeli military campaign in Gaza that followed. Gaza's health ministry figures, relayed by the UN, record tens of thousands of Palestinians killed and near-total displacement of a population of about 2.1 million.

A ceasefire agreed in October 2025 and UN Security Council Resolution 2803 set out a transitional arrangement for Gaza. The UN's humanitarian office reports that implementation has so far not produced the improvements on the ground the plan describes.

Almost every factual dispute here has a verifiable core and a contested frame: casualty totals, responsibility for specific strikes, aid restrictions, hostage treatment, settlement legality and the reasons talks collapsed. This page keeps those layers apart.

Section 02

Timeline

  1. 1947-11-29

    UN partition plan

    The General Assembly recommends partition of Mandatory Palestine into Jewish and Arab states with an international regime for Jerusalem. Jewish leaders accept; Arab states and Palestinian leadership reject it.

    eventUN General Assembly Resolution 181 (II)

  2. 1948–1949

    War, Israeli independence, Palestinian displacement

    Israel is established; around 700,000 Palestinians are displaced. UN Resolution 194 addresses return and compensation; it has never been implemented.

    eventUN General Assembly Resolution 194 (III)

  3. 1967-06

    Six-Day War and start of occupation

    Israel takes the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, Sinai and the Golan. Security Council Resolution 242 calls for withdrawal from occupied territory and mutual recognition of secure borders — a text both sides read differently to this day.

    eventUN Security Council Resolution 242

  4. 1993-09-13

    Oslo Accords

    Mutual recognition between Israel and the PLO and a five-year interim self-government plan. Permanent-status issues — borders, Jerusalem, refugees, settlements — are deferred and never resolved.

    agreementDeclaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements

  5. 2005–2007

    Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, Hamas takeover, blockade

    Israel withdraws settlers and soldiers from Gaza in 2005. Hamas wins 2006 elections and takes sole control of Gaza in 2007; Israel and Egypt impose a closure regime the UN describes as a blockade.

    policyOCHA — Gaza blockade reporting

  6. 2023-10-07

    Hamas-led attack on southern Israel

    Around 1,200 people are killed in Israel and about 250 taken hostage into Gaza, the deadliest single day in Israeli history.

    attackUN Human Rights Office — reporting on the situation

  7. 2023-10-2025-10

    Israeli campaign in Gaza

    Sustained air and ground operations, mass displacement, destruction of housing and health infrastructure, and repeated warnings of famine conditions from UN-backed food-security assessments.

    responseOCHA — Occupied Palestinian Territory situation reports

  8. 2024-01-26

    ICJ provisional measures in South Africa v. Israel

    The International Court of Justice finds it plausible that rights under the Genocide Convention are at risk and orders Israel to prevent genocidal acts and enable humanitarian access. The Court makes no finding of guilt.

    eventICJ — South Africa v. Israel, order of 26 January 2024

  9. 2024-07-19

    ICJ advisory opinion on the occupation

    The Court finds Israel's continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory unlawful and calls for it to end as rapidly as possible, including settlement activity.

    eventICJ advisory opinion — legal consequences of Israel's policies in the OPT

  10. 2024-11-21

    ICC arrest warrants

    Pre-Trial Chamber I rejects Israel's jurisdictional challenges and issues warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant; a warrant was also sought for Hamas commander Mohammed Deif.

    eventICC — Pre-Trial Chamber I decision and warrants

  11. 2025-10

    Ceasefire and Resolution 2803

    A ceasefire agreement halts major hostilities and the Security Council adopts Resolution 2803, setting out transitional governance and reconstruction arrangements for Gaza.

    agreementUN Security Council Resolution 2803 (2025)

  12. 2025-10-22

    Second ICJ advisory opinion

    The Court sets out Israel's obligations towards the UN and other relief providers in the occupied territory, including on the entry of humanitarian assistance.

    eventICJ advisory opinion of 22 October 2025 (A/80/502)

Section 03

Side-by-Side Positions

What Israel says

Israel

Government of Israel and its security establishment

Israel presents the war as self-defence against an organisation that carried out a mass killing of civilians and holds hostages, fought in a dense urban area where Hamas embeds itself in civilian infrastructure.

Official Claim

Official statements say operations target combatants and military infrastructure, that warnings and evacuation routes are issued, that Hamas is responsible for civilian deaths by fighting from protected sites, and that Gaza's casualty figures come from a Hamas-run ministry and do not separate fighters from civilians.

Supporting evidence

  • The 7 October attack is documented by survivor testimony, forensic recovery, perpetrator footage and international monitoring.
  • Hostages were taken into Gaza and held for extended periods; releases occurred under negotiated deals.
  • Tunnel networks and weapons found in and beneath civilian buildings have been documented by journalists and independent visitors as well as the military.

Important context

  • Rocket fire from Gaza and attacks from Lebanon and Yemen shaped Israeli threat assessment during the war.
  • Domestic coalition politics tied the government's survival to how the war and hostage deals were handled.

Weaknesses & contradictions

  • The scale of civilian deaths, destruction of housing and health facilities, and restrictions on aid have been found by the ICJ and UN bodies to raise legal obligations Israel has not met.
  • Gaza health-ministry casualty totals have historically tracked closely with later UN and independent verification, which weakens blanket dismissal of the figures.
  • The ICJ has ruled the occupation and settlement enterprise unlawful, a finding Israel rejects but has not overturned in any court.

Original statements & documents

Section 04

Claim Check

Official ClaimIndependent EvidenceDisputed

“Around 1,200 people were killed and about 250 taken hostage in Israel on 7 October 2023.”

Claimed by Israel, corroborated by UN and independent reporting

Verified
Evidence supporting
Forensic identification, survivor and first-responder testimony, perpetrator footage and international monitoring converge on these figures.
Evidence challenging
Individual details of specific incidents were later corrected, including some early atrocity claims that could not be substantiated.
Independent verification
The overall death and hostage totals are verified. Specific incident-level claims must be checked individually.

“Gaza casualty figures are unreliable because they come from a Hamas-run ministry.”

Claimed by Israeli officials and allied commentators

Misleading
Evidence supporting
The ministry does not disaggregate combatants from civilians, and data collection degraded as hospitals were damaged.
Evidence challenging
The UN relays those figures with named methodology, and in previous rounds of fighting ministry totals were closely matched by later independent verification. Peer-reviewed work has argued the totals are more likely undercounts.
Independent verification
The figures carry real uncertainty about combatant status, not about the scale of civilian death, which independent bodies place in the tens of thousands.

“Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.”

Claimed by South Africa before the ICJ, several UN special rapporteurs and rights organisations

Disputed
Evidence supporting
The ICJ found a plausible risk to rights under the Genocide Convention and ordered preventive measures; a UN Commission of Inquiry and major rights groups have concluded genocide occurred.
Evidence challenging
Israel rejects the characterisation and argues intent is absent. The ICJ has issued no merits judgment, and provisional measures are not a finding of guilt.
Independent verification
Legally undetermined. The case is live before the ICJ; the underlying conduct findings are documented, the genocide determination is not judicially settled.

“Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territory and its settlements are unlawful.”

Claimed by International Court of Justice, UN General Assembly, most states

Verified
Evidence supporting
The ICJ's advisory opinion of 19 July 2024 found the continued presence unlawful and settlement activity in breach of international law; Security Council Resolution 2334 reached the same conclusion on settlements.
Evidence challenging
Israel disputes the Court's jurisdiction and the characterisation of the territory as occupied.
Independent verification
Established as the authoritative legal position of the world court; contested politically by Israel and some allies.

“Hamas fights from hospitals, schools and tunnels beneath civilian areas.”

Claimed by Israel

Partially Supported
Evidence supporting
Tunnel infrastructure beneath civilian areas has been documented by journalists and independent visitors, and weapons have been found in protected sites.
Evidence challenging
Some specific site claims, including early assertions about particular hospitals, were not substantiated by the evidence later presented.
Independent verification
The general pattern is strongly supported; each named site requires its own evidence, and the presence of fighters does not by itself make a strike on a protected site lawful.

“Famine conditions occurred in Gaza during the war.”

Claimed by IPC famine review committee and UN agencies

Strongly Supported
Evidence supporting
IPC classifications recorded famine or famine-risk thresholds in parts of Gaza, supported by nutrition and mortality data collected under a published methodology.
Evidence challenging
Israel disputed the assessments and attributed shortages to distribution failures and diversion rather than restrictions on entry.
Independent verification
The IPC findings are the best available evidence and were reached under an independent methodology; the causal apportionment remains contested.

Section 05

What Both Sides Agree On

Verified Fact
  • The 7 October 2023 attack happened and hostages were taken into Gaza.
  • Gaza's civilian destruction and displacement are on a scale without precedent in the territory's modern history.
  • The Oslo framework failed to deliver either a Palestinian state or Israeli security.
  • Hostage releases and prisoner exchanges have only ever been achieved through negotiation, not force.
  • Neither side's maximum objective — permanent control of the whole territory, or the other's disappearance — is achievable.

Section 06

Where the Accounts Conflict

Casualty counting

Israel disputes Gaza ministry figures for not separating combatants from civilians; the UN relays them with methodology and independent researchers argue they undercount. Both cannot be resolved without access for investigators.

Legal characterisation of the war

Israel calls it self-defence within the laws of armed conflict. The ICJ, UN bodies and rights organisations have found unlawful conduct, and a genocide case is pending. These are different claims that are frequently collapsed into one argument.

Responsibility for aid shortages

The ICJ's 2025 opinion sets out Israel's obligations on humanitarian access; Israel attributes shortages to diversion and UN distribution failures. Independent monitoring supports restrictions at entry points as a major factor.

Whether a state was ever on offer

Israeli accounts point to the 2000 and 2008 offers as evidence of Palestinian rejectionism; Palestinian accounts point to unbroken settlement growth throughout the same years as evidence the offers were not sovereign. The settlement data is not disputed; its meaning is.

Section 07

Where It Went Sideways

What each side originally wanted

  • Israel

    Return of all hostages, dismantling of Hamas's military and governing capacity, and security control over Gaza's perimeter.

  • Palestinians

    End of occupation and blockade, a halt to settlement expansion, and a path to sovereign statehood.

  • Hamas

    Permanent ceasefire, full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and large-scale prisoner releases.

What was offered

  • Phased hostage-for-prisoner exchanges, partially executed during 2023–2025.
  • Temporary humanitarian pauses and limited aid corridors.
  • The October 2025 ceasefire framework and the transitional arrangements adopted in Resolution 2803.

What was rejected

  • Israel rejected a permanent ceasefire before Hamas's military capacity was dismantled.
  • Hamas rejected disarmament and exile of its leadership as a precondition.
  • Successive Israeli governments rejected the 1967 lines with land swaps as a negotiating baseline; Palestinian negotiators rejected terms leaving settlement blocs and security control in place.

Stated reason for the breakdown

Each side says the other's minimum demand is an existential risk: for Israel, leaving Hamas armed; for Palestinians, accepting an arrangement with no sovereignty or end to occupation.

Deeper political & economic pressures

  • Israeli coalition politics gave veto power to parties opposed to any Palestinian state.
  • Palestinian politics is split between a West Bank authority without a mandate and an armed movement in Gaza.
  • External guarantors applied uneven pressure, with US military and diplomatic backing reducing the cost of continuing.
  • Domestic publics on both sides hardened after mass civilian death, narrowing the space for compromise.

Could negotiations resume?

The 2025 ceasefire and Resolution 2803 provide a live framework. Whether it holds depends on verified hostage and prisoner completion, aid entry at the promised scale, a credible Palestinian governing arrangement in Gaza, and a settlement freeze that would make statehood talks meaningful.

Section 08

Independent Assessment

What is known

  • The 7 October attack killed roughly 1,200 people in Israel and about 250 were taken hostage.
  • Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and nearly the whole population of about 2.1 million was displaced.
  • The ICJ has found Israel's continued occupation and its settlements unlawful, and ordered provisional measures in the genocide case.
  • The ICC issued arrest warrants against Israeli leaders and sought one against a Hamas commander.
  • UN-backed assessments recorded famine or famine-risk conditions in Gaza.

What is likely

  • Gaza casualty totals are more likely undercounts than overcounts, given the collapse of record-keeping capacity.
  • Restrictions on entry of aid were a primary driver of food insecurity, alongside distribution breakdown and diversion.
  • Neither Hamas's military destruction nor Israel's security objectives were achieved to the degree publicly claimed.

What is disputed

  • Whether the conduct in Gaza meets the legal definition of genocide.
  • The proportion of Palestinian deaths that were combatants.
  • Responsibility for the collapse of specific ceasefire rounds.
  • Whether previous statehood offers were genuinely sovereign.

What cannot be confirmed

  • Conditions in Israeli detention facilities and in Hamas captivity that investigators could not access.
  • Internal decision-making in the Israeli cabinet and Hamas leadership about war aims and hostage terms.
  • The full extent of destruction and casualties in areas investigators still cannot reach.

Section 09

Primary Documents

Primary Source

Section 10

Sources