The has been one of the world’s most tragic and longstanding conflicts.
The conflict , with over 16,000 people killed since, thousands more injured, and hundreds reportedly taken captive.
The violence escalated after militant group launched a coordinated .
But when did the long-running conflict start, and what is it all about?
How did the Israel-Palestinian conflict start?
The roots go back to what are regarded as 'Biblical times', but from a modern historical perspective, the late 1800s and early 1900s were central to the situation that exists now.
Between 1882 and 1948, thousands of Jews relocated from around the world to the area.
In 1917, shortly before Britain became the colonial power in Palestine, it issued the Balfour Declaration, declaring support for Palestine as a national home for the Jewish people.
Palestinians did not accept the terms that would have seen the territory under international administration, and part under British rule, but the push for a Jewish state was strong.
In 1947, the United Nations adopted Resolution 191 and voted to split the contested territory into Arab and Jewish states, but the Arabs did not accept the deal and then war broke out.
Some 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes in the lead-up to and during the bloody 1948 Arab–Israeli War - a mass exodus known as the 'Nakba', Arabic for 'catastrophe'.
Israel gained control of most of the disputed territory, with the exception of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The West Bank was controlled by Jordan, while the Gaza Strip was controlled by Egypt.
In 1967, the Six-Day War took place and Israel gained control of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The Camp David Accord peace treaty, which was signed in 1979, improved relations between Israel and its neighbours, but the question of Palestinian self-determination and self-governance remained.
Struggles for peace deals
After years of violent conflict, the two sides reached a deal in 1993, in which the Palestinians would recognise the state of Israel and the Israelis would recognise the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.
Called the Oslo Accords, the deal also created a Palestinian Authority which had some limited self-governance powers in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
It was an interim agreement ahead of what was supposed to be a comprehensive peace deal within five years.
That didn’t happen. There was a failed peace summit hosted by the US in 2000.
A visit by Ariel Sharon - the man soon to be Israel’s Prime Minister - to the Temple Mount in East Jerusalem was seen by Palestinians as an assertion of Israel’s sovereignty over the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest site, and was one of the main reasons which lead to the second intifada (violent uprising) of Palestinians.
Over the next five years, there were around 3,000 Palestinian and 1,000 Israeli casualties, among the latter many civilians killed in suicide bombings.
The consequences were profound.
The Israelis retreated from Gaza, and by the mid-2000s Hamas, a Palestinian Sunni fundamentalist faction regarded as a terrorist organisation by many countries, took over the coastal territory.
Fatah, the more mainstream Palestinian organisation, remained in control of the externally recognised Palestinian Authority, based in the West Bank.
Hamas used Gaza as a launching pad for intermittent rocket or mortar attacks across the border, hardening the Israeli public’s views.
“It made Jewish Israelis even more opposed to any kind of agreement with the Palestinians,” Dr Gil Merom, an international security expert from the University of Sydney told SBS News.
“The logic was: if we gave them a territory and all they do is make it a base to assault or attack Israeli settlements, then what kind of a deal is it?”
Accordingly, Gaza was put under Israeli military blockade which limited supplies of food, water and energy for its 1.8 million residents. The living conditions for these Palestinians have been described as the world’s largest outdoor prison.
A further casualty from the intifada was Gaza International Airport, a symbol of thwarted Palestinian hopes for economic independence and the Palestinians' only direct link to the outside world that was not controlled by Israel or Egypt. Opened in 1998, Israel deemed it a security threat and destroyed its radar antenna and runway a few months after the September 2001 attacks on the United States.
Another casualty was Gaza's fishing industry, a source of income for tens of thousands. Gaza's fishing zone was reduced by Israel, a restriction it said was necessary to stop boats smuggling weapons.
The Israelis retreated from Gaza, and in 2006, Hamas won the Palestinian Authority’s parliamentary elections.
Much of the international community cut aid to the Palestinians in Hamas-controlled areas because they regarded Hamas as a terrorist organisation.
Israel stopped tens of thousands of Palestinian workers from entering the country, cutting off an important source of income. Israeli air strikes crippled Gaza's only electrical power plant, causing widespread blackouts. Citing security concerns, Israel and Egypt also imposed tighter restrictions on the movement of people and goods through the Gaza crossings.
In 2008, Israel launched a 22-day military offensive in Gaza after Palestinians fired rockets at the southern Israeli town of Sderot. About 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were reported dead before a ceasefire was agreed.
In 2014, following the kidnap and killing of three Israeli teenagers by Hamas, a seven-week war broke out, in which more than 2,100 Palestinians were reported killed in Gaza and 73 Israelis were reported dead, 67 of them military.
In 2018, fighting again broke out at Gaza's border and more than 170 Palestinians were reportedly killed over several months of protests.
Tensions again flared up in 2021 during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, with hundreds of Palestinians wounded in clashes with Israeli security forces at the Al-Aqsa compound in Jerusalem, one of Islam's holiest sites.
Fighting went on for 11 days, killing at least 250 people in Gaza and 13 in Israel.
In 2022, at least 44 people were killed in three days of violence that began when Israeli air strikes hit a senior Islamic Jihad commander.
What happened in October 2023?
On 7 October, Hamas militants launched a coordinated land, sea and air attack, killing around 700 Israelis and abducting dozens.
Hamas said the attack was driven by what it called escalated Israeli attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, Jerusalem and against Palestinians in Israeli prisons.
The assault, the worst breach in Israel's defences in 50 years, followed two years of subterfuge by Hamas that involved keeping its military plans under wraps and convincing Israel it did not want a fight.
While Israel was led to believe it was containing a war-weary Hamas by providing economic incentives to Gazan workers, the group's fighters were being trained and drilled, often in plain sight, a source close to Hamas said.
"Hamas used an unprecedented intelligence tactic to mislead Israel over the last months, by giving a public impression that it was not willing to go into a fight or confrontation with Israel while preparing for this massive operation," the source said.
Israel concedes it was caught off guard by an attack timed to coincide with the Jewish Sabbath and a religious holiday.
Israel has killed hundreds of Palestinians in its retaliation on Gaza since then.
"This is our 9/11," said Major Nir Dinar, spokesperson for the Israeli Defence Forces.
"They got us."
"They surprised us and they came fast from many spots - both from the air and the ground and the sea."
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said his country was embarking on a "long and difficult war" in response, and vowed a "mighty vengeance".
The country's cabinet approved the cutting of electricity, fuel and goods in Gaza.
Israeli air strikes have hit housing blocks, tunnels, a mosque and homes of Hamas officials in Gaza, killing hundreds of people.
Palestinian fighters took dozens of hostages to Gaza, including soldiers and civilians, children and the elderly. A second Palestinian militant group, Islamic Jihad, said it was holding more than 30 of the captives.
What is the group Hamas?
The significant escalation is the latest in a long-standing conflict between Hamas and Israel.
Hamas is a Palestinian military and political group, gaining power in the Gaza Strip since winning legislative elections there in 2006.
Hamas’ stated aim is to establish a Palestinian state, while refusing to recognise Israel’s right to exist.
Hamas, in its entirety, is designated as a terrorist organisation by countries including Australia, Canada, the UK and the US.
Some countries list only its military wing as a terrorist group.
The UN though did not condemn Hamas in its entirety as a terrorist organisation, due to insufficient support from member states to do so during a 2018 vote.
What is Australia's stance on Israel?
The Australian government expressed support for Israel after the attacks by Hamas.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described Hamas's actions as "indiscriminate and abhorrent".
Albanese said Australia recognises Israel's "right to defend itself".
In July, Australia issued a joint statement with Britain and Canada calling on Israel's government to reverse a decision to approve new settlement units in the West Bank, saying they were "deeply concerned" by an ongoing cycle of violence.
The statement came after Israel approved more than 5,700 new settlement units in the West Bank and instituted changes to the settlement approval process which facilitate swifter approval of construction.
Settlements are considered illegal under international law by many countries.
At the time, Albanese said Australia, "understood the need for a peaceful resolution".
"Together with other partners, including the UK and Canada, we understand that the need for a peaceful resolution in the Middle East between Israelis and Palestinians requires a settlement between the Israeli and Palestinian leadership," he said.
"We also understand that settlements in Palestinian territories make that more difficult. I want to see the right of Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace behind secure borders. And we need to ensure that any action doesn't undermine that but assists that."
In August, the Australian government announced it would to describe the territories in the West Bank and Gaza that Israel occupied in 1967.
The move strengthened the government's objection to the settlements, and was welcomed by Palestinian groups in Australia.
Israel's support from the US
Israel became an undeclared nuclear power by the mid-1980s and, with the backing of the US, built up one of the most formidable defence forces in the world.
Assistant Professor Maha Nassar, from the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies at the University of Arizona, argues the US support of Israel has been one of the main reasons the conflict has proved so difficult to resolve.
“The most powerful party involved - the United States - has consistently sided with Israel over the Palestinians and has pressured the Palestinians to give up their basic right to self-determination,” she told SBS News.
“They have done this in many different ways, most notably by offering Palestinians a ‘statelet’ that doesn't have any real control over its own borders, water, defence, or population. The Palestinians have never been offered a viable, contiguous, fully sovereign state.”
What about a two-state solution?
The Israelis would never accept the Palestinian refugee diaspora right of return to Israel, because doing so would essentially change the nature of Israel to a Jewish minority state.
This has evoked uncomfortable comparisons with South Africa under apartheid, including in a
and even in the past by former Israeli politicians.
Israelis criticised the apartheid comparison made in the report. Emmanuel Nahshon, spokesman for Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, compared it to a Nazi tabloid and flagged that UN Secretary-General António Guterres had not endorsed the report.
A two-state solution is generally mooted as the only long-term viable one. But there are a lot of obstacles to it.
Why is Jerusalem significant?
The Trump administration’s decision to move the US Israeli embassy in 2018 was considered to be symbolically significant.
While the US officially takes no position on borders, the move heightened tensions as it was considered to indicate support for the Israeli position on Jerusalem.
“This move means the end of the two-state solution,” Professor Nassar said.
“That's because one of the core principles [on the Palestinian side] is that East Jerusalem would be the capital of a future Palestinian state.”
But Israel’s government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, claims Jerusalem is “Israel’s undivided capital”.
“Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1980, in violation of international law,” Professor Nassar said.
“With this move, the US has clearly sided with Netanyahu's stance, ending any hope of a Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem.”
But Jerusalem and its status is not the only barrier, even though, Dr Merom said, virtually all stakeholders except Hamas are committed to a two-state solution in theory.
Other major obstacles include the precise location of the border; the fate of the Palestinian refugees (whether or not they can have the right of return); and the question of Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories - where almost half a million Jewish Israelis have now built homes in what the UN and most of the international community considers illegal settlements.
Professor Nassar said peace would be impossible until Palestinians were “treated as equals with the same rights to freedom and dignity as everyone else.”
-Additional reporting by AAP
