The West Bank and Gaza

Lines from 1949

Both territories were part of the British mandate of Palestine. The UN’s 1947 partition plan allotted them largely to a proposed Arab state that never came into being. When the mandate ended in May 1948 and Israel was proclaimed, the armies of five Arab countries entered Palestine, and in the war that followed Israel expanded beyond the territory the plan envisaged.^[1][2]

The armistices of 1949 fixed the lines. Egypt held a strip around the town of Gaza, 40 km long and 6–8 km wide, crowded with refugees, and ruled it without making it part of Egypt. Jordan held the hills west of the Jordan River, including East Jerusalem, and annexed them in 1950, which only Britain and Pakistan recognised.^[2][1]

Occupation and Oslo

Israel took both in the Six-Day War of 1967. It put the West Bank under military administration and incorporated East Jerusalem, and from the late 1970s built settlements there; under Menachem Begin (1977–83) their number more than tripled. Israel regarded the West Bank as vital to its security. In 1988 Jordan gave up its claim, and a Palestinian uprising, the first intifada, had begun in December 1987.^[1][2]

The Oslo Accords of 1993 between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization were meant to extend Palestinian self-government over five years, before a final settlement. The Palestinian Authority was created, and in 1995 the West Bank was divided into Area A under Palestinian control, Area B under Palestinian civil and joint security control, and Area C under full Israeli control. By 2000 the process had faltered, with the Palestinian Authority controlling less than a fifth of the West Bank, and the second intifada broke out.^[1]

Two territories, two governments

Israel withdrew its soldiers and settlers from Gaza in 2005 but kept control of its borders and airspace. Hamas, which Israel, the US and the EU list as a terrorist group, won Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006, and in June 2007 it took control of Gaza after fighting with Fatah, while a Fatah-led cabinet took over in the West Bank. Israel then blockaded Gaza.^[2][1]

In the West Bank, settlement kept growing. A government that took office in Israel in December 2022 created a Settlements Administration, and in 2025 its cabinet approved 54 new settlements, increasing the number approved by nearly half. Settler attacks on Palestinians rose sharply from late 2023.^[1]

War since 2023

On 7 October 2023 Hamas attacked Israel from Gaza, the deadliest day in Israel since its independence, and the Israel-Hamas war followed.^[1] By December 2025, according to UN figures citing local health authorities, more than 70,000 Palestinians had been killed since 7 October 2023.^[4]

In July 2024 the International Court of Justice, asked by the UN General Assembly, gave an advisory opinion that Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is unlawful and should end “as rapidly as possible”, and that it must stop all new settlement activity and evacuate all settlers.^[3] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the opinion “absurd” and said Jews were not “occupiers in their own land”.^[5]

“under an obligation to cease immediately all new settlement activities and to evacuate all settlers from the Occupied Palestinian Territory”^[3]

A ceasefire and a Board of Peace

On 8 October 2025 Israel and Hamas agreed a ceasefire as the first stage of a US plan: hostages were exchanged for Palestinian detainees, aid increased, and Israeli forces pulled back to a line that still left them controlling an estimated 53–58% of Gaza. In November the UN Security Council, in resolution 2803, welcomed a Board of Peace chaired by Donald Trump and authorised an International Stabilization Force. The next stage calls for Hamas to disarm, Israeli forces to withdraw further and a technocratic Palestinian administration to take over.^[4]

The ceasefire has been repeatedly broken, with each side accusing the other.^[4] In September 2026 the Board of Peace published a six-month, $2.4 billion reconstruction plan, and its High Representative, Nickolay Mladenov, said it depended on Hamas disarming.^[6]