1967 and the occupation

The Six-Day War (June 1967)

After 1948, Arab states refused to recognise Israel, and the ceasefire lines — the Green LineGreen Line✕The ceasefire lines of 1949 between Israel and its neighbours. They were the borders of Israel until 1967 and are the usual starting point for talks about a Palestinian state.All words explained → — stayed tense. In May 1967 Egypt's president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, moved troops into Sinai, sent away UN peacekeepers and closed the sea route to Israel's southern port, while Arab leaders spoke of destroying Israel. On 5 June Israel struck Egypt first. Jordan, newly allied with Egypt, opened fire despite Israeli appeals to stay out, and Syria joined in. Six days later Israel held Sinai, Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.

For Israelis it felt like a miracle: Jews could pray again at the Western Wall, their most important prayer site, in Jerusalem's Old City. For Palestinians it was the Naksa — the setback. About 300,000Palestinians displaced in the 1967 war✕about 300,000As of 1967Mostly from the West Bank to Jordan. Around 120,000 of them were already refugees from 1948. Estimates range from about 245,000 to 325,000.Source: UNRWA (UN agency for Palestine refugees) — Palestine refugees were displaced, many for the second time. In November the UN set out the idea of land for peace (Resolution 242): Israel should withdraw from occupied land, and its neighbours should make peace with it.

Occupation and settlements

Israel ruled the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza under military law. They had no vote in Israel, were tried in military courts and needed Israeli permits to build, travel or work. Israel annexedAnnexation✕When a state declares that land it controls is now officially part of its own country. Israel annexed East Jerusalem (1980) and the Golan Heights (1981). Some Israeli politicians want to annex all or part of the West Bank.All words explained → East Jerusalem and later the Golan Heights; most countries never recognised this. It also built settlementsSettlements✕Israeli towns and villages built on land Israel captured in 1967, mainly in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Most countries and the UN consider them illegal under international law, which forbids moving your own population into occupied land. Israel disputes this.All words explained → — Jewish towns on land it declared state land or took from Palestinian villages, whose residents live under Israeli civilian law.

Armed struggle, war and the first peace

The PLOPLO✕The Palestine Liberation Organization, founded in 1964 as the umbrella body of Palestinian groups. Long led by Yasser Arafat. It recognised Israel in 1993 and is the official Palestinian partner in talks.All words explained → was founded in 1964 — when Jordan and Egypt still held the West Bank and Gaza — to "liberate" Palestine, including the land that was Israel. Led from 1969 by Yasser Arafat of the FatahFatah✕The largest party in the PLO, founded by Yasser Arafat. It leads the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. It is secular and supports a negotiated two-state solution, and is Hamas's main rival.All words explained → party, it carried out many attacks, often on civilians. In 1982, after years of PLO attacks on northern Israel, Israel invaded Lebanon to drive it out; during that war a Lebanese militia allied with Israel massacred hundreds of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians at Sabra and Shatila.

In 1973 Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Israel. Four years later Egypt's president, Anwar Sadat, visited Jerusalem, and in 1979 Egypt and Israel made peace. Israel returned Sinai. Enemies could make peace.

Go deeper · optionalMore: the years 1949–1987▾

Between the wars. Jordan annexed the West Bank in 1950; Egypt ran Gaza under military rule. Israel took in hundreds of thousands of immigrants — Holocaust survivors and Jews from Arab countries — and its population more than doubled in ten years. The Arab citizens who stayed inside Israel lived under military rule until 1966. Along the ceasefire lines, Palestinian fighters crossing into Israel killed Israeli civilians, and Israeli forces shot thousands of Palestinians who crossed — most of them refugees trying to return home or reach their fields, according to the Israeli historian Benny Morris. Israel answered attacks with raids: at Qibya in 1953 Israeli soldiers killed 69 villagers. In 1956 Israeli border police killed 49 Arab citizens of Israel at Kafr Qasim, and during the Suez war that year Israeli troops killed hundreds of Palestinians in Khan Younis and Rafah, according to the UN.

Land for peace. Resolution 242 asked Israel to withdraw "from territories occupied" in the war, and for every state to live in peace "within secure and recognised boundaries". It did not say "all the territories": Israel says this allows some border changes; Arab states read it as full withdrawal. In September 1967, Arab leaders meeting in Khartoum said "no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it". Egypt and Jordan accepted Resolution 242 that November; the PLO did so in 1988.

The settlements. After 1977, under the right-wing Likud party, settlements spread across the West Bank.

Attacks on civilians. Palestinian groups hijacked planes, and at the 1972 Munich Olympics militants killed 11 Israeli athletes and coaches. Expelled from Jordan in 1970, the PLO moved to Lebanon. An Israeli inquiry found Israel's leaders indirectly responsible for the Sabra and Shatila massacre, and Defence Minister Ariel Sharon resigned.

Peace with Egypt. The treaty's promise of self-rule for Palestinians was never carried out, and Sadat was assassinated in 1981 by Egyptian Islamist extremists.

Two views

Why did Israel keep the land?

Many Israelis say

Israel took the land in a war of self-defence. Before 1967 it was only 15 km wide at its narrowest point, and the West Bank's hills overlook its cities. For many Israelis, Judea and Samaria are also the heart of the biblical homeland.

Many Palestinians say

The occupation has lasted for generations. Palestinians live under military law, without a vote in the state that controls their lives, while settlements take more and more of their land. No people should live under another's army forever.

These are widely held views, not the views of every Israeli or every Palestinian. Both societies argue about these questions among themselves.