The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced many millions of people and has its roots in a colonial act carried out more than a century ago.

With Israel declaring war on the Gaza Strip after an unprecedented attack by the armed Palestinian group Hamas on Saturday October 7, the world’s eyes are again sharply focused on what might come next.

Hamas fighters have killed more than 1,400 Israelis in assaults on multiple towns in southern Israel. In response, Israel has launched a bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip, killing more than 9,000 Palestinians. It has mobilised troops along the Gaza border, apparently in preparation for a ground attack.

For decades, Western media outlets, academics, military experts and world leaders have described the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as intractable, complicated and deadlocked.

Here’s a simple guide to break down one of the world’s longest-running conflicts:

• More than 100 years ago, on November 2, 1917, Britain’s then-foreign secretary, Arthur Balfour, wrote a letter addressed to Lionel Walter Rothschild, a figurehead of the British Jewish community.
• The letter was short – just 67 words – but its contents had a seismic effect on Palestine that is still felt to this day.
• It committed the British government to “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” and to facilitating “the achievement of this object”. The letter is known as the Balfour Declaration.
• In essence, a European power promised the Zionist movement a country where Palestinian Arab natives made up more than 90 percent of the population.

• Escalating tensions eventually led to the Arab Revolt, which lasted from 1936 to 1939.
• In April 1936, the newly formed Arab National Committee called on Palestinians to launch a general strike, withhold tax payments and boycott Jewish products to protest British colonialism and growing Jewish immigration.
• The second phase of the revolt began in late 1937 and was led by the Palestinian peasantresistance movement, which targeted British forces and colonialism.
• In those three years of revolt, 5,000 Palestinians were killed, 15,000 to 20,000 were wounded and 5,600 were imprisoned.

• By 1947, the Jewish population had ballooned to 33 percent of Palestine, but they owned only 6 percent of the land.
• The United Nations adopted Resolution 181, which called for the partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states.
• The Palestinians rejected the plan because it allotted about 55 percent of Palestine to the Jewish state, including most of the fertile coastal region.
• At the time, the Palestinians owned 94 percent of historic Palestine and comprised 67 percent of its population.

• In April 1948, more than 100 Palestinian men, women and children were killed in the village of Deir Yassin on the outskirts of Jerusalem.
• That set the tone for the rest of the operation, and from 1947 to 1949, more than 500 Palestinian villages, towns and cities were destroyed in what Palestinians refer to as the Nakba, or “catastrophe” in Arabic.
• An estimated 15,000 Palestinians were killed, including in dozens of massacres.
• The Zionist movement captured 78 percent of historic Palestine. The remaining 22 percent was divided into what are now the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip.
• An estimated 750,000 Palestinians were forced out of their homes.

• At least 150,000 Palestinians remained in the newly created state of Israel and lived under a tightly controlled military occupation for almost 20 years before they were eventually granted Israeli citizenship.
• Egypt took over the Gaza Strip, and in 1950, Jordan began its administrative rule over the West Bank.
• In 1964, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) was formed, and a year later, the Fatah political party was established.

• On June 5, 1967, Israel occupied the rest of historic Palestine, including the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Syrian Golan Heights and the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula during the Six-Day War against a coalition of Arab armies.
• For some Palestinians, this led to a second forced displacement, or Naksa, which means “setback” in Arabic.
• In December 1967, the Marxist-Leninist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine was formed. Over the next decade, a series of attacks and plane hijackings by leftist groups drew the world’s attention to the plight of the Palestinians.

• The first Palestinian Intifada erupted in the Gaza Strip in December 1987 after four Palestinians were killed when an Israeli truck collided with two vans carrying Palestinian workers.
• Protests spread rapidly to the West Bank with young Palestinians throwing stones at Israeli army tanks and soldiers.
• It also led to the establishment of the Hamas movement, an off-shoot of the Muslim Brotherhood that engaged in armed resistance against the Israeli occupation.
• The Israeli army’s heavy-handed response was encapsulated by the “Break their Bones” policy advocated by then-Defence Minister Yitzhak Rabin. It included summary killings, closures of universities, deportations of activists and destruction of homes.
• The Intifada was primarily carried out by young people and was directed by the Unified National Leadership of the Uprising, a coalition of Palestinian political factions committed to ending the Israeli occupation and establishing Palestinian independence.
• In 1988, the Arab League recognised the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinian people.
• The Intifada also prompted the international community to search for a solution to the conflict.

• The Intifada ended with the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 and the formation of the Palestinian Authority (PA), an interim government that was granted limited self-rule in pockets of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
• The PLO recognised Israel on the basis of a two-state solution and effectively signed agreements that gave Israel control of 60 percent of the West Bank, and much of the territory’s land and water resources.
• The PA was supposed to make way for the first elected Palestinian government running an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with its capital in East Jerusalem, but that has never happened.
• Critics of the PA view it as a corrupt subcontractor to the Israeli occupation that collaborates closely with the Israeli military in clamping down on dissent and political activism against Israel.

• The second Intifada began on September 28, 2000, when Likud opposition leader Ariel Sharon made a provocative visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound with thousands of security forces deployed in and around the Old City of Jerusalem.
• Clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli forces killed five Palestinians and injured 200 over two days.
• The incident sparked a widespread armed uprising. During the Intifada, Israel caused unprecedented damage to the Palestinian economy and infrastructure.
• Israel reoccupied areas governed by the Palestinian Authority and began construction of a separation wall that along with rampant settlement construction, destroyed Palestinian livelihoods and communities.

• PLO leader Yasser Arafat died in 2004, and a year later, the second Intifada ended, Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip were dismantled, and Israeli soldiers and 9,000 settlers left the enclave.
• A year later, Palestinians voted in a general election for the first time.
• Hamas won a majority. However, a Fatah-Hamas civil war broke out, lasting for months, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians.
• Hamas expelled Fatah from the Gaza Strip, and Fatah – the main party of the Palestinian Authority – resumed control of parts of the West Bank.
• In June 2007, Israel imposed a land, air and naval blockade on the Gaza Strip, accusing Hamas of “terrorism”.

• Israel has launched four protracted military assaults on Gaza: in 2008, 2012, 2014 and 2021. Thousands of Palestinians have been killed, including many children, and tens of thousands of homes, schools and office buildings have been destroyed.
• Rebuilding has been next to impossible because the siege prevents construction materials, such as steel and cement, from reaching Gaza.
• The 2008 assault involved the use of internationally banned weaponry, such as phosphorus gas.
• In 2014, over a span of 50 days, Israel killed more than 2,100 Palestinians, including 1,462 civilians and close to 500 children.
• During the assault, called Operation Protective Edge by the Israelis, about 11,000 Palestinians were wounded, 20,000 homes were destroyed and half a million people displaced.

This past week Israel has cut Gaza’s telecommunication and internet services for a second time despite humanitarian aid agencies warning that such blackouts severely disrupt their work in an already dire situation in the war-torn Palestinian enclave. Ground offensives continue to batter the Gaza in the last couple of weeks. Capital caught up with fares Alqub Ambassador of the State of Palestine in Ethiopia and Permanent Representative to the African Union and UNECA to get a hold of what is happening in Gaza and what Palestine is doing to end the siege diplomatically. Excerpts;  

Capital: What are the key priorities and objectives of the Palestinian mission to the African Union?

Fares Alqub: The AU is considered the most important supporter of the Palestinian cause. The key priority and objective for us is to maintain excellent relationship with the African union as a multilateral organization, and create good relations with all the African countries that we don’t have any representation there. The African union gives us the privilege to get in contact with all the African countries, and the opportunity to speak and share our Palestinian reality to all member countries. For us, the African union is the place and the point where Palestine and Africa meet together.

Capital:  How would you describe the current relationship between Palestine and African Union member states?

Fares Alqub: We have a historical relationship with all the African countries, we share the same values and principles of freedom, justice, right to self-determination, dignity, and straggles against colonialism and apartheid.

Each year, the African leaders discuss the Palestinian cause and the new developments in the Palestinian territories. Each year the African leaders issue a declaration about Palestine, in which they renew the African support to the Palestinian rights, condemn the Israeli occupation and its continues violations of international law and the Israelis denial to the Palestinian rights.

The relationship between the state of Palestine and AU countries is very good, and each day we are working to develop and strengthen these relations. For us the African countries are the most countries that feels for us, because most of the African countries was under occupation one day, and they felt the oppression that we as Palestinian feel and live each day under the Israeli occupation.

 Capital: What efforts are being made to strengthen political and diplomatic ties between Palestine and African countries?

Fares Alqub: Well, we should be realistic. Palestine lives under occupation for more than 75 years, but what we are capable to do under these difficult conditions; is to cooperate and provide assistance to all the African countries with the (Palestinian know how). As we do with some of the AU countries through PICA (the Palestinian international cooperation agency) and applying humanitarian and technical projects. Through PICA, we express our gratitude and appreciations to African countries for its solidarity and continues support with Palestine.

Capital: How does the Palestinian government engage with the African Union on issues related to peace, security, and human rights? 

Fares Alqub: As I said before, Palestine and Africa share the same struggling history. We share the same experience. So, when it comes to talk about Palestine and Africa, it’s really special. For us, we find ourselves on the same page with the AU in all the different aspects. Also, the AU, is the sound of Africa, and it unites all Africa under its umbrella. This sound is always the sound of truth, equity, and freedom. That’s why we do engage with the AU in best ways, in order to achieve the best outcome.

Capital: What do you say about the current conflict? What is the solution?

Fares Alqub: What are we witnessing is really terrible and painful. Israel is committing genocide, forced displacement, and sending its bombs everywhere. Israel, the occupying power should immediately seize fire and stop killing civilians (children, women, and elderly people), stop killing the medical teams, allow the entrance of the humanitarian needs to Gaza strip, and save what is remaining to be saved.

Capital: Why is not the western world calling for a cease fire? Is it double standards when it belongs to Palestine?

Fares Alqub: I believe that you should ask the western world this question, but for us, it is obvious that the double standards are getting Crystal clear by the time passing, and by experiencing more difficult situations. The Palestinian live is equal for any live in the world. No one in the world has the power to decide which live matters more than the other.

                Capital: Will the current conflict spread to other countries in the region?

Fares Alqub: We hope not, but all nations and people should know that without a just peace between Palestine and Israel, our region will never have peace. And as long as the Israeli occupation continues to occur, the region won’t find nor peace nor security. There is an inherited saying: “War breaks out in Palestine and peace begins in Palestine”.

  Capital: Can you provide an update on the status of Palestine’s bid for full membership in the African Union?

Fares Alqub: Well, we have a special membership in the AU. For us we really appreciate AU for granting us a special status. The only states who can get a full membership is the African countries.

Capital: What role does the Palestinian mission play in promoting economic cooperation and trade between Palestine and African countries?

Fares Alqub: Trade is increasing between Africa and Palestine, for us we encourage the Palestinians businessmen to invest, in all the African countries, especially because Africa is a rich continent, full of resources and young generations. So, it will be a great opportunity to invest in Africa. We do provide the businessmen with studies that shows the sectors which they can invest in order that both sides reach a win-win situation.

Capital: How does Palestine collaborate with the African Union on addressing regional challenges and conflicts in the Middle East?

Fares Alqub: Palestine is ready to collaborate with all international organizations in order to bring peace, and end the Israeli occupation. At the end, this will grant peace to our region. Palestine and AU always collaborate, and will always work with each other in order to solve all conflicts in our region.

Capital: What initiatives or programs are in place to enhance cultural and educational exchanges between Palestine and African countries?

Fares Alqub: Well, we have many exchanges between Palestine and African countries, but what we focus on these days are the humanitarian and technical projects that are applied through PICA, in which it gives special assistance and support in special fields.

Capital: How does the Palestinian mission work towards garnering support for the Palestinian cause within the African Union and its member states?

Fares Alqub: We do have great relations with the AU countries, and we always work to enhance these relations, and seek all possible means to consolidate the friendship relations through all diplomatic means.

Capital: Can you share any upcoming plans or initiatives that aim to strengthen the relationship between Palestine and African Union member states?

Fares Alqub: Well, what I can share for you, that we will not miss any opportunity which will strengthen the relationship between AU members and Palestine.