This paper aims to find out some of the chronicles to the conflict and the attempts of solutions from within and outside Israel that have been both successful and unsuccessful to ascertain the prevailing situation and what lays ahead both parties and the region as a whole.

This paper will utilize secondary sources data varying from articles to books, newspapers, magazines from various sources to discuss the topic. The paper will thus begin by introduction of the topic, History of the conflict, analyzing warring parties, it also considers the various legal frameworks that have been put in place in pursuit of a resolution and it will look at the various attempts at finding a resolution like the Oslo and Camp David Accords.

The Israel-Palestine conflict dates back to the late 19th century. In 1947, the United Nations passed Resolution 181, known as the Partition Plan, to divide the British mandate of Palestine into separate Arab and Jewish states. Israel's establishment on May 14, 1948, following this plan, ignited the first Arab-Israeli war, which ended in 1949 with Israel's victory and the displacement of approximately 750,000 Palestinians. The territory was then divided into Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. Subsequent years saw escalating tensions between Israel and neighboring countries, particularly Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. After the 1956 Suez Crisis and Israel's Sinai Peninsula invasion, Egypt, Jordan, and Syria signed mutual defense pacts anticipating possible Israeli military action. In June 1967, following maneuvers by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, Israel launched a preemptive strike on Egyptian and Syrian air forces, starting the Six-Day War. Israel then gained the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria. Six years later, during the Yom Kippur War, Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Israel to reclaim their lost territories. The war yielded no significant gains for any party, yet Egyptian President Anwar Sadat declared it a victory for Egypt as it facilitated negotiations with Syria over previously ceded territories. In 1979, after ceasefires and peace talks, Egypt and Israel signed the Camp David Accords, ending their 30-year conflict. The Accords improved Israel's relations with its neighbors but did not address Palestinian self-determination. In 1987, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip launched the First Intifada against the Israeli Government. The 1993 Oslo I Accords aimed to mediate this conflict, establishing a framework for Palestinian self-governance and mutual recognition between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. The 1995 Oslo II Accords expanded on this by mandating Israel's withdrawal from six cities and 450 towns in the West Bank.

In 2000, the stagnation of the peace process and Israeli control over the West Bank, alongside former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's visit to the al-Aqsa mosque, a highly significant religious site for Muslims, intensified Palestinian grievances. These tensions led to the outbreak of the Second Intifada in September 2000, lasting until 2005. In response to the violence, Israel approved the construction of a barrier wall around the West Bank in 2002, despite opposition from the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.    Increased factionalism among Palestinians was triggered when Hamas gained control of the Palestine Authority after the 2006 parliamentary elections, displacing Fatah. This shift gave Hamas, a political and militant movement inspired by the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood, control of the Gaza Strip. Although the Gaza Strip has been under the semi-autonomous Palestinian Authority since 1993, the United States and European Union, among others, did not recognize Hamas' electoral victory due to its classification as a terrorist organization by Western governments since the late 1990s. This resulted in Hamas seizing control, leading to violence between Hamas and Fatah. From 2006 to 2011, a series of unsuccessful peace talks and deadly confrontations culminated in reconciliation agreements between the two groups. Fatah, in 2014, entered a unified government with Hamas. However, in the summer of 2014, clashes in the Palestinian territories resulted in a military confrontation between the Israeli military and Hamas, which witnessed Hamas firing nearly 3000 rockets in Israel and Israel responding with a major offensive in Gaza. The conflict of 2014 between Israelis and Palestinians ended with a ceasefire in late August, when 73 Israelis and 2251 Palestinians lost their lives. Following a surge of violence in 2015, Palestinian President Mohammad Abbas Fatah declared that the Palestinian people would not continue with the  territorial divisions established by the Oslo Accords. In 2018, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip staged weekly protests along the border with Israel, culminating in a demonstration on the 17th anniversary of the Nakba, the Palestinian exodus accompanying Israel's independence. Although the majority of protesters were peaceful, some attempted to breach the perimeter fence, threw rocks and other objects. According to the United Nations, 183 protesters were killed and over 6,000 were injured by live ammunition. The ensuing political tension resulted in the re-emergence of disunity between Fatah and Hamas, with Fatah's control over the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas's de facto rule in the Gaza Strip. Despite Abbas's efforts to unify the Palestinian people under the Palestinian Authority, this state of affairs persisted throughout the late 2010s and the early 2020s.

In 2018, a new outbreak of violence occurred between Hamas and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), resulting in the most severe period of conflict since 2014. Prior to reaching a ceasefire, Palestinian militants launched over 100 rockets into Israel, while the IDF responded with strikes on more than 50 targets in Gaza within a 24-hour period. During this time, the US administration under President Donald J. Trump identified the achievement of an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement as a top foreign policy priority. In 2018, the Trump administration eliminated funding from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which provided aid to Palestinian refugees, and transferred the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The decision to relocate the embassy was met with approval from Israeli leaders, but was condemned by Palestinian leaders and other Middle Eastern and European countries. Israel views Jerusalem as its unified and complete capital, while Palestinians claim that East Jerusalem is the future capital of a Palestinian state. In January 2020, the Trump administration unveiled its long-anticipated "Peace to Prosperity" plan, which was rejected by Palestinians because of its support for future Israeli annexation of West Bank settlements and control over an undivided Jerusalem.

In August and September 2020, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain agreed to normalize relations with Israel, making them the third and fourth countries in the region to do so, following Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994. These agreements, known as the Abraham Accords, were reached more than 18 months after the United States hosted Israel and several Arab states for ministerial talks in Warsaw, Poland, regarding the future of peace in the Middle East. Palestinian leader Mohammad Abbas of Fatah rejected the accords, as did Hamas. In October 2020, an Israeli court ruled that several Palestinian families living in Sheikh Jarrah, a neighborhood in east Jerusalem, were to be evicted by May 2021, with their land handed over to Jewish families. In February 2021, several Palestinian families from Sheikh Jarrah filed an appeal to court ruling, leading to protests around the appeal hearings, ongoing legal battles regarding property ownership, and the forcible displacement of Palestinians from their homes in Jerusalem.

In May 2021, Palestinians in Jerusalem took to the streets to protest the threatened evictions of Sheikh Jarrah residents and other activists who began hosting nightly sit-ins. When a court ruled in favor of evictions, the protests expanded, with Israeli police using force to disperse demonstrators. On May 7th, after several weeks of daily demonstrations and escalating tensions between protesters, Israeli settlers, and the police during Ramadan, violence erupted at the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem. Israeli police employed stun grenades, rubber bullets, and water cannons in their confrontation with protesters, injuring hundreds of Palestinians.

Following the skirmishes in the Old City of Jerusalem, tensions escalated throughout East Jerusalem, exacerbated by the observance of Jerusalem Day. On May 10th, after several days of unrest in Jerusalem and the deployment of both lethal and non-lethal forces by Israeli police, Hamas, the militant organization that governs Gaza, as well as other Palestinian militant factions, launched a barrage of rockets into Israeli territory.

Israel's response to rocket attacks includes artillery bombardments and airstrikes. These attacks resulted in the death of over 20 Palestinians. Israel claimed that it was targeting Hamas, but it also struck non-military infrastructure, such as residential buildings, media headquarters, and healthcare facilities. Israel also targeted the tunnels and rocket launchers of other militant groups such as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Airstrikes expanded beyond the initial targets, leading to collateral damage.

On May 21, 2021, Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire facilitated by Egypt, with each party claiming victory. During the 11 days of fighting, 250 Palestinians were killed, almost 2,000 others wounded, and 13 Israelis lost their lives. The authorities in Gaza estimate that the damage caused was in tens of millions of dollars, while the United Nations reported that over 72,000 Palestinians were displaced by the conflict.

On October 7, 2023, the outbreak of the war between Israel and Hamas prompted President Joe Biden to make a strong statement of support for Israel. Concurrently, the United States announced that it would dispatch renewed shipments of arms and deploy its Mediterranean Sea world warships closer to Israel. While the UN Security Council convened an emergency meeting to address escalating violence, its members failed to reach a consensus. Considering the heinous atrocities that have characterized past conflicts between Israel and Palestinian extremist groups, international organizations swiftly expressed alarms over the safety of civilians in Israel, the Palestinian territories, and those held captive by militants in Gaza. Approximately 800 Israelis and 500 Palestinians perished. Regrettably, the mounting death toll has become the foremost concern in this conflict.

The United States did not immediately confirm reports of Iranian intelligence and security forces directly assisting Hamas in planning the October 7 attack. However, Iran has a well-established patronage relationship with extremist groups across the Middle East, including Hamas. This raised concerns that the attacks were a signal from Iran, indicating its readiness to escalate its malign influence in various conflicts in the region. Furthermore, experts have expressed concern that another extremist group with Iranian backing, Hezbollah, may become involved in the conflict, thereby expanding it beyond the Israeli and Palestinian borders. On October 9, reports emerged that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) were targeting sites in Lebanon where Hezbollah was based. However, an Israeli statement on this matter did not clarify the purpose of cross-border operations.

A recent United States initiative to facilitate a normalization agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia was severely disrupted by the October Conflict. Saudi Arabia has consistently championed the cause of Palestinian Arab populations in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, particularly in Gaza, where these populations are now threatened by IDF operations, thereby endangering the progress that Israel and Saudi Arabia have made towards achieving a mutual understanding.

The most conservative and religious government in Israel's history was inaugurated in December 2022, led by Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party. The coalition comprised two ultra-Orthodox parties and three far-right parties, including the religious Zionism party and an ultra-nationalist faction affiliated with the West Bank settler movement. To secure a governing majority, Netanyahu made concessions to his partners. Opponents have criticized the government’s prioritization of Israeli settlement expansion and development in the occupied West Bank. The coalition also endorsed discrimination against LGBTQ+ individuals on religious grounds and voted to limit judicial oversight of the government in May 2023, following a nationwide protest in March that caused a delay.

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