3. TIMELINE

The following, by no means comprehensive, set of developments in the history of Palestine and Israel are pertinent to understanding the issues covered by Amnesty International’s report. Following the defeat of the Ottoman empire in the First World War, in 1922 the League of Nations placed Palestine under a British mandate, which lasted until 1947. The area of mandate Palestine covered what is now Israel and the OPT.

In 1947, the UN recommended partition of Palestine into a Jewish state (comprising 55% of the territory) and an Arab state (45%), with international control over Jerusalem and its environs. At that time, Jews comprised around 30% of the population and Palestinians around 70%. The Palestinian leadership at the time, as well as Arab states, rejected the UN partition plan. In the 1947-49 conflict before and after the May 1948 declaration of the State of Israel, thousands of Palestinians and Jews were killed and more than 800,000 Palestinians were displaced from their homes in the context of attacks on civilians. This experience is known as the nakba (catastrophe) by Palestinians. Some were internally displaced from their villages and cities to other parts of what became Israel. Others fled to different parts of mandate Palestine (22% of which fell under the control of Jordan and Egypt following the conflict). Most of the rest fled to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

Since then, Israel has prevented the Palestinian refugees and their descendants, as well as internally displaced persons within Israel, from returning to their homes. Palestinians who remained in Israel – around 150,000 people – became entitled to Israeli citizenship. However, from 1948 to 1966 they were placed under military rule. Meanwhile, between 1949 and 1952 the Jewish population more than doubled, mainly through immigration. After the establishment of Israel, two parts of mandate Palestine remained outside its control: the Gaza Strip, which was administered by Egypt; and the eastern area, which became known as the West Bank and was administered by Jordan. The Arab-Israel war in 1967, which Israel won in six days, led to Israel militarily occupying the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. Together, these areas are known as the OPT. The war also resulted in the displacement of a further 350,000 refugees, the vast majority of them Palestinians from the OPT, mainly to Jordan. Israel also prevents these Palestinian refugees and their descendants from returning. In 1980, Israel unilaterally (and unlawfully under international law) formalized its 1967 annexation of East Jerusalem, including Palestinian parts of the city and a surrounding area of about 70km2 that belonged to about 28 Palestinian villages. The first intifada (uprising) by Palestinians against Israel’s occupation began in December 1987 and ended in 1993 with the signing of the first Oslo Accords. Between 1993 and 1995, further negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) led to more Oslo Accords. These established the Palestinian Authority and tasked it with limited self-governance of the Gaza Strip

ISRAEL’S APARTHEID AGAINST PALESTINIANS

CRUEL SYSTEM OF DOMINATION AND CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY Amnesty International

and parts of the West Bank and divided the West Bank (excluding East Jerusalem and Hebron) into Areas A, B and C. The establishment of the Palestinian Authority did not change the status of the OPT under international law as territories under Israeli military occupation. The Palestinian authorities have varying degrees of administrative responsibility over Areas A and B, where some 90% of Palestinians live (around 2.8 million people). Israel has full civil and security authority over Area C, Palestinian rural areas that comprise about 60% of the West Bank and are home to around 300,000 Palestinians. In September 2000 Palestinians launched a second intifada against Israel’s military rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. During the uprising, which ended in 2005, Israeli forces killed Palestinians unlawfully by shooting them during protests and at checkpoints although they were not posing imminent danger. They also bombed residential areas and carried out extrajudicial executions. Palestinian armed groups and individuals deliberately killed Israeli civilians by placing bombs in crowded places and in drive-by shootings both in Israel and in the OPT. In response, the Israeli authorities collectively punished the OPT’s entire population by imposing severe restrictions on movement and demolishing hundreds of Palestinian homes. In mid-2002, Israel began constructing a fence/wall in and around the West Bank, mostly on Palestinian land. The route has meant further appropriation of Palestinian land and the separation and segregation of Palestinian communities. In 2004, the International Court of Justice advised that the barrier was illegal. In September 2005, Israel “disengaged” from the Gaza Strip, withdrawing all military personnel and some 8,000 Jewish settlers from the territory while retaining control over its airspace, coastal waters and borders. Many settlers were moved to settlements in the West Bank. In 2007, armed clashes between security forces and armed groups loyal to the two main Palestinian political parties, Fatah and Hamas, culminated in Hamas seizing control of Palestinian government institutions in the Gaza Strip, and the ousting of forces loyal to Fatah. Since then, Hamas has acted as the de facto government of Gaza establishing a parallel security and law enforcement apparatus there, while Fatah remains the dominant party comprising the Palestinian authorities, including government and presidency, in the West Bank. Meanwhile, Israel imposed an air, land and sea blockade on the Gaza Strip collectively punishing its entire population. Since then, Israel has severely restricted the entry of goods and fuel into Gaza, the export of produce from Gaza and the movement of people between Gaza and the West Bank. In December 2008, November 2012, July 2014 and May 2021, Israel launched military offensives against Gaza, while Palestinian armed groups fired rockets from the territory into Israel. These offensives have caused huge destruction to civilian property and infrastructure including electricity, water and sewerage networks and sanitation plants in Gaza in addition to killing at least 2,700 Palestinian civilians as well as injuring and displacing hundreds of thousands of others. During this period Palestinian armed groups fired thousands of indiscriminate rockets towards cities and towns in Israel killing or injuring dozens of civilians. Most recently, the outbreak of violence in May 2021 occurred after threatened forced evictions of Palestinians in East Jerusalem prompted widespread protests.

ISRAEL’S APARTHEID AGAINST PALESTINIANS

CRUEL SYSTEM OF DOMINATION AND CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY Amnesty International

BRITISH MANDATE PALESTINE (1920-48)

ISRAEL’S APARTHEID AGAINST PALESTINIANS

CRUEL SYSTEM OF DOMINATION AND CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY Amnesty International