This did not start on October 7th!

This is just a small summary of some of the events that have occurred before October 7th. This does not cover everything.

1897

Modern Zionism Officially Established

Modern Zionism was officially established as a political organization with aims to create their own Jewish state in what we now know as Israel. At that time most people living there were Arabic-speaking Palestinians.

Source/Text From - history.com & un.org & Image Source - un.org

1917

The Balfour Declaration

The Balfour Declaration (“Balfour’s promise” in Arabic) was a public pledge by Britain in 1917 declaring its aim to establish “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine.

The so-called mandate system, set up by the Allied powers, was a thinly veiled form of colonialism and occupation.

The case of Palestine, however, was unique. Unlike the rest of the post-war mandates, the main goal of the British Mandate there was to create the conditions for the establishment of a Jewish “national home” – where Jews constituted less than 10 percent of the population at the time.

Upon the start of the mandate, the British began to facilitate the immigration of European Jews to Palestine. Between 1922 and 1935, the Jewish population rose from nine percent to nearly 27 percent of the total population.

Source/Text From aljazeera.com

“A land without a people for a

people without a land”

How Early Zionist leaders described Palestine

1947

U.N. Votes for Partition of Palestine

As violence ravaged Palestine, the matter was referred to the newly formed United Nations. In 1947, the UN adopted Resolution 181, which called for the partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states, handing over about 55 percent of the land to Jews. Arabs were granted 45 percent of the land, while Jerusalem was declared a separate internationalised territory.

Source/Text From/Image - aljazeera.com

1947 - 1949

Mass Atrocities

Between 1947 and 1949, at least 750,000 Palestinians from a 1.9 million population were made refugees beyond the borders of the state. Zionist forces had taken more than 78 percent of historic Palestine, ethnically cleansed and destroyed about 530 villages and cities, and killed about 15,000 Palestinians in a series of mass atrocities, including more than 70 massacres.

Source/Text From/Image - aljazeera.com

Palestinian Arabs leaving the port city of Jaffa as Zionist forces advanced on the city [Associated Press]

1948

The Nakba

Leading up to Israel’s birth in 1948, more than 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their homes and forcibly displaced by Zionist militias. This mass exodus came to be known as the Nakba or catastrophe.

A further 300,000 Palestinians were displaced by the Six-Day War in 1967.

Source/Text From/Image - aljazeera.com

1950

Right to Return

According to the Absentees’ Property Law (1950), Palestinian refugees expelled after November 29, 1947, are “absentees” and are denied any rights. Their land, houses/apartments, and bank accounts (movable and immovable property) were confiscated by the state.

Simultaneously, the Law of Return (1950) gave Jews from anywhere in the world the right to automatically become Israeli citizens. 

Source/Text From - aljazeera.com

1960

Right to Acquire, Lease Land

Basic Law: Israel Lands (1960) stipulates ownership of “Israel lands” – controlled by the state, Jewish National Fund (JNF) and the Development Authority – can only be transferred between the three entities, knowing that the JNF leases land it owns to Jews only.

Ninety-three percent of the land in Israel is public and belongs to the state, JNF, or the Development Authority. Thirteen percent is controlled by the JNF, which has a “hugely influential” role in Israeli land policies. 

Palestinian citizens are blocked from leasing about 80 percent of the land controlled by the state according to Adalah.

1967

The Occupation of Water

Soon after Israel occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, in June 1967, the Israeli military authorities consolidated complete power over all water resources and water-related infrastructure in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). 50 years on, Israel continues to control and restrict Palestinian access to water in the OPT to a level which neither meets their needs nor constitutes a fair distribution of shared water resources.

Source/Text From - amnesty.org

Palestinian women fill bottles of water in the West Bank village of Qarawah Bani Zeid. © ABBAS MOMANI/AFP/Getty Images

1967

Israel’s "Administrative Detention" Policy

The Israeli authorities have used administrative detention orders ever since the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967.

Israeli military commanders can issue administrative detention orders of up to six months to detain Palestinians if there are “reasonable grounds” that an individual is a risk to “the security of the area” or to “public security”.

The commander can extend the detention orders indefinitely, yet detainees must be brought before a military judge within eight days of the issue or renewal of a detention order — or released.

Source/Text From - amnesty.org & Image Source - aljazeera.com

2007

Israel’s Blockade

Since 2007 Israel has maintained control of Gaza’s air space, land borders and territorial waters, tightly restricting the movement of basic goods and people in and out of the Strip, fuelling a humanitarian disaster. Israel has forced Gaza’s population to live in increasingly dire conditions, which have, since October 2023, deteriorated with such speed and severity that the entire population now faces an engineered famine.

Source/Text From - amnesty.org

Palestinians drive amid the rubble of buildings destroyed in an airstrike in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, October 12, 2023. © 2023 SAID KHATIB/AFP via Getty Images