The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in which more than 2,000 people have lost their lives in the recent war between Israel and Hamas, dates back to the 19th century with a long harrowing history.
Here is a timeline:
In 1917, during World War I, the British captured Palestine from the Ottomans and, in the Balfour Declaration of November 2, promised "a national home for the Jewish people" there.
Opposition from the Palestinians first emerged at a congress in Jerusalem in 1919.
In 1922, the League of Nations set out the obligations of a British mandate in Palestine, including securing the "establishment of the Jewish national home", the future Israel.
Britain crushed the Arab Revolt in Palestine of 1936-1939.
Jews fleeing anti-Semitism in Russia and central Europe began emigrating to Palestine.
Palestine was partitioned into Jewish and Arab states under United Nations Resolution 181, approved in November 1947. Jerusalem is put under international control.
In the split, the West Bank — including east Jerusalem — goes to Jordan and the Gaza Strip to Egypt.
The state of Israel was finally created on May 14, 1948, triggering an eight-month war with Arab states.
More than 400 Palestinian villages are razed by Israeli forces and around 760,000 Palestinian refugees flee to the West Bank, Gaza and neighbouring Arab countries.
The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) was created in 1964.
In the Six-Day War of June 1967, Israel defeated Egypt, Jordan and Syria and occupied east Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights.
Jewish settlement of the occupied territories started shortly afterward and continues in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights today.
Arab states attacked Israel on October 6, 1973, the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur. Israel repels the attack.
Israel invaded civil war-wracked Lebanon on June 6, 1982, to attack Palestinian militants after initially sending in its forces in 1978.
Israeli-backed Lebanese Christian militias kill hundreds of Palestinians in refugee camps in Beirut. Israeli troops remained in southern Lebanon until 2000.
The first intifada, or Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule, rages from 1987 to 1993.
In 1993, Israel and the PLO signed a declaration on principles for Palestinian autonomy after six months of secret negotiations in Oslo, launching an abortive peace process.
PLO leader Yasser Arafat returned to the Palestinian territories in July 1994 after 27 years in exile to set up the Palestinian Authority.
Self-rule was established for the first time in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho.
In September 2000, right-wing Israeli opposition leader and future prime minister Ariel Sharon visited the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in east Jerusalem, a site holy to Muslims and Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount, sparking the first clashes of the second intifada.
Responding to a wave of suicide bombings, Israel in 2002 invaded the West Bank in its largest operation there since the 1967 war.
Mahmud Abbas, a moderate, took over the leadership of the Palestinian Authority in January 2005, after the death of Arafat.
The last Israeli forces left Gaza after a 38-year occupation in September 2005.
In 2007, Hamas seized control of Gaza after ferocious fighting with its rivals in the Fatah faction led by Abbas, who remains in power in the West Bank.
In 2014, Israel launched a new operation against Gaza to stop rocket fire from the territory. Over 1,400 Palestinian civilians were killed, compared with six civilians in Israel, according to UN figures.
2017: Trump nod on Jerusalem
On December 6, 2017, Trump recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, a decision that outrages Palestinians and sparked international criticism.
Abbas says the US can no longer play its historic role as a mediator of peace talks with the Israelis.
On May 10, 2021, after several days of tensions around the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in east Jerusalem, Hamas launched rockets toward Israel, which hit back with deadly airstrikes in the Gaza Strip.
An 11-day war followed between Hamas and Israel, in which scores of people were killed. In August 2022, three days of clashes took place between Israel and Hamas, whose main military chiefs were killed.
New unrest broke out in early 2023 after an Israeli incursion in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank.
In May, 35 people were killed over five days in clashes and in July Jenin saw its biggest military operation for several years.
As of now, more than 2,000 people have lost their lives in recent Israel-Hamas war resulting in a total blockade of the Gaza Strip.