Arab-Israeli conflict

The Palestinian territories comprise the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, politically under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian National Authority and... the Hamas Government in Gaza. Since the Palestinian Declaration of Independence in 1988, the region is today recognized by three-quarters of the world's countries to be part of the State of Palestine, although this status is not recognized by the United Nations, Israel and major Western nations, including the United States. Effectively parts of the West Bank are currently governed by the Palestinian National Authority, while other parts are governed by Israeli military authorities, which the UN and international legal bodies often refer to as the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The Gaza Strip is being controlled by Hamas-led Palestinian Government. The territories were part of the territory west of the Jordan River of Mandate Palestine, formed in 1922. In March 1946, the territory east of the Jordan River, which had been ruled as a separate province of Mandate Palestine, became the independent kingdom of Transjordan, though general international recognition took a bit longer.
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Israel, officially the State of Israel ; Arabic: دَوْلَة... إِسْرَائِيل‎, Dawlat Isrāʼīl, IPA: [dawlat ʔisraːˈʔiːl], is a parliamentary republic in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan and the West Bank in the east, Egypt and the Gaza Strip on the southwest, and the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea to the south, and it contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area. Israel is defined as a Jewish and Democratic State in its Basic Laws and is the world's only Jewish-majority state. Following the adoption of a resolution by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 29 November 1947 recommending the adoption and implementation of the United Nations plan to partition Palestine, on 14 May 1948 David Ben-Gurion, the Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization and president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, declared the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel, a state independent from the British Mandate for Palestine.
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North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitical, the... United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and Western Sahara. Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Mauritania, and Libya together are also referred to as the Maghreb or Maghrib, while Egypt is a transcontinental country by virtue of the Sinai Peninsula, which is in Asia. North Africa also includes a number of Spanish possessions, Ceuta and Melilla . The Canary Islands and the Portuguese Madeira Islands, in the North Atlantic Ocean northwest of the African mainland, are sometimes included in considerations of the region. The distinction between Northern Africa and the rest of Africa is historically and ecologically significant because of the effective barrier created by the Sahara.
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The 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine or Great Arab Revolt was a nationalist uprising by Palestinian Arabs in Mandatory Palestine against... British colonial rule and mass Jewish immigration. The revolt consisted of two distinct phases. The first phase was directed primarily by the urban and elitist Higher Arab Committee and was focused mainly on strikes and other forms of political protest. By October 1936, this phase had been defeated by the British civil administration using a combination of political concessions, international diplomacy and the threat of martial law. The second phase, which began late in 1937, was a violent and peasant-led resistance movement that increasingly targeted British forces. During this phase, the rebellion was brutally suppressed by the British Army and the Palestine Police Force using repressive measures that were intended to intimidate the Arab population and undermine popular support for the revolt.
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The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, known to Israelis as the War of Independence —was fought between the State of Israel and a military coalition... of Arab states and Palestinian Arab forces. It was the first in a series of wars in the continuing Arab–Israeli conflict. The war was preceded by a period of civil war in the territory of the British Mandate of Palestine between Jewish Yishuv forces and Palestinian Arab forces in response to the UN Partition Plan. An alliance of Arab States intervened on the Palestinian side, turning the civil war into a war between sovereign states. The fighting took place mostly on the former territory of the British Mandate and for a short time also in the Sinai Peninsula and southern Lebanon. The war concluded with the 1949 Armistice Agreements, which established Armistice Demarcation Lines between Israeli and Arab military forces, commonly known as the Green Line.
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The Yom Kippur War, Ramadan War or October War , also known as the 1973 Arab–Israeli War and the Fourth Arab–Israeli War, was fought from... October 6 to 25, 1973, between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria. The war began when the coalition launched a joint surprise attack on Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism, which happened to occur that year during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Egyptian and Syrian forces crossed ceasefire lines to enter the Israeli-held Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights respectively, which had been captured and occupied since the 1967 Six-Day War. Both the United States and the Soviet Union initiated massive resupply efforts to their respective allies during the war, and this led to a near-confrontation between the two nuclear superpowers. The war began with a massive and successful Egyptian crossing of the Suez Canal during the first three days, after which they dug in, settling into a stalemate.
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The Six-Day War , also known as the June War, 1967 Arab-Israeli War, or Third Arab-Israeli War, was fought between June 5 and 10, 1967, by Israel and... the neighboring states of Egypt , Jordan, and Syria. After a period of high tension, and military build-up, between Israel and its neighbors, the war began on June 5 with Israel launching surprise air raids against the Egyptian air-fields. Within six days, Israel had won a decisive land war. Israeli forces had taken effective control of the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria. After the 1956 Suez Crisis, Egypt agreed to the stationing of a United Nations Emergency Force in the Sinai to ensure all parties would comply with the 1949 Armistice Agreements. In the following years there were numerous minor border clashes between Israel and its Arab neighbors, particularly Syria. In early November, 1966, Syria signed a mutual defense agreement with Egypt.
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