Israel placed the Arab population of the West Bank under military rule, which is enforced to this day. Its capture of all of Jerusalem and newly acquired control over the biblical lands called Judea and Samaria in Israel opened the way to the construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which became central to the conflict. The six-day war was a spectacular military success for Israel. The attack caught Arab governments by surprise and saw Israel achieve rapid victories including seizing the Sinai peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria, and the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan. In 1967, Israel launched what it said was a pre-emptive defensive war against Jordan, Egypt and Syria, as they appeared to be preparing to invade. How did the occupied Palestinian territories become occupied? The PLO drew international attention to its cause with high-profile attacks and hijackings. In 1964, a coalition of Palestinian groups founded the Palestine Liberation Organisation under the leadership of Yasser Arafat to pursue armed struggle and establish an Arab state in place of Israel. What is the Palestine Liberation Organisation? Much of their land was expropriated and Arab Israeli communities were deliberately kept poor and underfunded. They were placed under military rule for nearly two decades, which deprived them of many basic civil rights. Palestinians called the exodus and eradication of much of their society inside Israel the Nakba, or “catastrophe”, and it remains the traumatic event at the heart of their modern history.Īrabs who remained in Israel as citizens were subject to official discrimination. What happened to the Palestinians who were living there?Ībout 700,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled – about 85% of the Arab population of the territory captured by Israel – and were never allowed to return. With Israel’s new army gaining ground, an armistice agreement in 1949 saw new de facto borders that gave the fledgling Jewish state considerably more territory than it was awarded under the UN partition plan. Fighting between Jewish armed groups, some of which the British regarded as terrorist organisations, and Palestinians escalated until the armies of Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan and Syria invaded after Israel declared independence in May 1948. Neither the Palestinians nor the neighbouring Arab countries accepted the founding of modern Israel.
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