Israel Gaza War: History of the Conflict Explained

 Watch:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1H1SA0F_wY

The Palestinian militant group Hamas launched an unprecedented assault on Israel with hundreds of gunmen infiltrating communities near the Gaza Strip.

At least 1,300 Israelis have been killed, while dozens of soldiers and civilians, including women and children, are being held in Gaza as hostages.

At least 5000 Palestinians have been killed and 12,493 wounded in Israeli strikes on Gaza since Oct.7, the health ministry in Gaza said on Thursday. Of the total death toll, 2,524 were children and 1,000 were women in numerous air strikes on Gaza that Israel's military is carrying out in response, and Israel has imposed a total blockade on the territory, denying it food, fuel and other essentials.

It is also massing its forces along the Gaza border and Palestinians are bracing themselves for a ground operation which could cost many more deaths.

What was Israel before 1948, and what was the Balfour Declaration?

Britain took control of the area known as Palestine after the ruler of that part of the Middle East, the Ottoman Empire, was defeated in World War One.

The land was inhabited by a Jewish minority and Arab majority, as well as other, smaller ethnic groups.

Tensions between the two groups grew when the international community gave the UK the task of establishing a "national home" in Palestine for Jewish people.

This came from the Balfour Declaration of 1917, a pledge made by then Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Britain's Jewish community and endorsed by the newly-created League of Nations - forerunner of the United Nations - in 1922.

To Jews Palestine was their ancestral home, but Palestinian Arabs also claimed the land and opposed the move.

Between the 1920s and 1940s, the number of Jews arriving there grew, with many fleeing from persecution in Europe, especially the Nazi Holocaust in World War Two.

Violence between Jews and Arabs, and against British rule, also increased.

In 1947, the UN voted for Palestine to be split into separate Jewish and Arab states, with Jerusalem becoming an international city.

That plan was accepted by Jewish leaders but turned down by the Arab side and never implemented.

How and why was Israel created?

In 1948, unable to solve the problem, Britain withdrew and Jewish leaders declared the creation of the State of Israel.

It was intended to serve as a haven for Jews fleeing persecution, as well as a national homeland for Jews.

Fighting between Jewish and Arab militias had been intensifying for months, and the day after Israel declared statehood, five Arab countries attacked.

 Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were forced out of their homes in what they call Al Nakba, or  "The Catastrophe".

By the time the fighting ended in a ceasefire the following year, Israel controlled most of the territory.

Jordan occupied land which became known as the West Bank, and Egypt occupied Gaza.

Jerusalem was divided between Israeli forces in the West, and Jordanian forces in the East.

Because there was never a peace agreement there were more wars and fighting in the following decades.

In a war in 1967, Israel occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank, as well as most of the Syrian Golan Heights, Gaza and the Egyptian Sinai peninsula.

Most Palestinian refugees and their descendants live in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as in neighbouring Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

Neither they nor their descendants have been allowed by Israel to return to their homes - Israel says this would overwhelm the country and threaten its existence as a Jewish state.

Israel still occupies the West Bank and claims the whole of Jerusalem as its capital, while the Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of a hoped-for future Palestinian state. The US is one of only a handful of countries to recognise the city as Israel's capital.

In the past 50 years Israel has built settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, where more than 700,000 Jews now live.

Settlements are held to be illegal under international law - that is the position of the UN Security Council and the UK government, among others - although Israel rejects this.

What is the Gaza Strip?

Gaza is a narrow  piece of land sandwiched between Israel and the Mediterranean Sea, but with a short southern border with Egypt.

Just 41km (25 miles) long and 10km wide, it has more than two million inhabitants and is one of the most densely populated places on Earth.

As a result of the 1948-49 war, Gaza was occupied by Egypt for 19 years.

 

Palestinians

• 14.3 million:Total population

• West Bank3 million
• Gaza Strip2 million
• Jordan2 million
• Israel2 million
• Syria0.5 million
• Lebanon: 0.25 million

Israel occupied Gaza in the 1967 war and stayed until 2005, during that time building Jewish settlements.

Israel withdrew its troops and settlers in 2005, though it retained control over its airspace, shared border and shoreline. The UN still considers the territory occupied by Israel.

What are the main problems between Israelis and Palestinians?

There are a number of issues which the two sides cannot agree on.

These include:

• What should happen to Palestinian refugees
• Whether Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank should stay or be removed
• Whether the two sides should share Jerusalem
• And - perhaps trickiest of all - whether a Palestinian state should be created alongside Israel

What efforts have been made to resolve these problems?

Israel-Palestinian peace talks were held on and off between the 1990s and 2010s, with occasional outbreaks of violence.

A negotiated peace did seem possible in the early days. A series of secret talks in Norway became the Oslo peace process, forever symbolised by a ceremony on the White House lawn in 1993 supervised by President Bill Clinton.

In a historic moment, the Palestinians recognised the State of Israel and Israel recognised its historical enemy, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), as the sole representative of the Palestinian people. A self-governing Palestinian Authority was set up.

Cracks soon appeared, though, with then opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu calling Oslo a mortal threat to Israel. The Israelis accelerated their project to settle Jews in the occupied Palestinian territories. The recently emerged Palestinian militant group Hamas sent suicide bombers to kill people in Israel and wreck the chances of a deal.

The atmosphere in Israel turned ugly, culminating in Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassination by a Jewish extremist named Yigal Amir on 4 November 1995.

In the 2000s attempts were made to revive the peace process - including in 2003 when a roadmap was formed by world powers with the ultimate goal of a two-state solution, but this was never implemented.

Peace efforts finally stalled in 2014, when talks failed between Israelis and Palestinians in Washington.

The most recent peace plan, prepared by the U.S. when Donald Trump was president - was called "the deal of the century" by Prime Minister Netanyahu, but was dismissed by the Palestinians as one-sided and never got off the ground.

Why are Israel and Gaza at war now?

Gaza is ruled by Hamas, an Islamist militant group that is committed to the destruction of Israel and is designated as a terrorist group by the UK and many other powers.

Hamas won the Palestinians' last elections in 2006, and took control of Gaza the following year by ousting the rival Fatah movement of West Bank-based President Mahmoud Abbas.

Since then, militants in Gaza have fought several wars with Israel, which along with Egypt has maintained a partial blockade  to isolate Hamas and try to stop attacks, particularly the indiscriminate firing of rockets towards Israeli cities.

Palestinians in Gaza say Israel's restrictions and its air strikes on heavily populated areas amount to collective punishment.

This year has been the deadliest year on record for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. They also complain of the restrictions and military actions being carried out there in response to deadly attacks on Israelis.

Israel

• 9.8 millionPopulation

• 73.6%Jews
• 21.1%Arabs
• 5.3%Other

These tensions could have been one of the reasons for Hamas's latest attack.

But the militants may also have been seeking to boost their popularity among ordinary Palestinians, including by using hostages to pressure Israel to free some of the estimated 4,500 Palestinians held in its prisons.

Who supports Israel in the current conflict, and who does not?

The US, the European Union and other Western countries have all condemned the Hamas attacks on Israel.

The US, Israel's closest ally, has over the years given the Jewish state more than $260bn in military and economic aid, and is promising additional equipment and ammunition.

It also said it was sending an aircraft carrier, other ships and jets to the eastern Mediterranean.

Russia and China have both refused to condemn Hamas, and say they are maintaining contact with both sides in the conflict.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has blamed US policy for the absence of peace in the Middle East.

Regional power Iran, meanwhile, is a key supporter of Hamas, as well as that of another regional enemy of Israel, the Hezbollah movement in southern Lebanon, near the Israeli border.

Questions have been asked about its role in the recent attacks after reports that it gave the go-ahead for them days before.

Tehran has, however, denied any involvement.

1.Vocabulary

    Paragraph 1

1.	hostages	a.	Closing a place to prevent goods or people from entering or leaving.
2.	blockade	b.	A person or thing that precedes the coming or development of someone or something else.
3.	massing	c.	Assemble; get together; gather
4.	bracing themselves	d.	A formal promise
5.	pledge	e.	Done at random or without careful judgement.
6.	indiscriminate	f.	To prepare yourself physically or mentally for something unpleasant
7.	forerunner	g.	someone who is taken as a prisoner by an enemy in order to force the other people involved to do what the enemy wants.

    Paragraph 2

8.	fleeing	h.	a place of safety and refuge
9.	implemented	i.	run away from a place or situation of danger.
10.	turned down	j.	a temporary suspension of fighting; a truce; armistice
11.	haven	k.	the status of being a recognized independent nation.
12.	statehood	l.	reject something offered or proposed.
13.	ceasefire	m.	put a decision, plan, agreement into effect; carry out;execute
14.	sandwiched	n.	put or squeeze between two other people or things, typically in a restricted space or so as to be uncomfortable.

    Paragraph 3

15.	roadmap	a.	when an area, such as a country, region, or city has many people living there compared with other similar-sized areas.
16.	narrow	b.	of small width in relation to length.
17.	settlements	c.	disapprove severely and criticize
18.	dismissed	d.	a plan or strategy intended to achieve a particular goal
19.	ousting	e.	remove from office/power
20.	condemned	f.	treat as unworthy of serious consideration.
21.	densely populated	g.	a place, typically one which has previously been uninhabited, where people establish a community.

 

2. SYNONYM MATCH : Match the following synonyms from the article.

1. culminating
2.  stall
3. on and off 
4. overwhelm
5. trickiest
6. set up 
7. cracks
8. wreck
9. one-sided
10. boost
11. assault
12. forerunner
13. sole 
14. unprecedented
15. handful

1. intermittingly
2. inundate
3. sensitive and problematic 
4.  lead up to 
5.  establish
6.  stop making progress
7.  biased and unfair
8.  increase
9. destroy
10. splits
11. physical attack
12. precursor
13. the only, no one else
14. never done or known before
15. a small amount

3. Agreeing and Disagreeing : 

	The Expression
1.If you agree with someone:	We see  We are on the same	........ to ..........  ..........
2.If you are in the same situation	We are on the same	..........
3.If you want someone to have sympathy with your situation	Put yourself in my	..............
4.If you are having a disagreement with someone but want to end the situation in a respectful way:	Let's agree to	...............
5. If your argument with someone that you know made you stop talking to that person	We had a	....................
6. If you want to make peace with that person	Let's	.......-........

4.Role play

Role  A – Russia - Ukraine What do you know about this conflict and if you were the highest authority in this situation, how would you decide resolve it ? (The other students must point out all the possibilities that Role A student is wrong)

Role  B – North-South Korea   What do you know about this conflict and if you were the highest authority in this situation, how would you decide resolve it ? (The other students must point out all the possibilities that Role B student is wrong)

Role  C – Yemen-Saudi Arabia  What do you know about this conflict and if you were the highest authority in this situation, how would you decide resolve it ? (The other students must point out all the possibilities that Role C student is wrong)

Role  D –  Morocco-Sahara  What do you know about this conflict and if you were the highest authority in this situation, how would you decide resolve it ? (The other students must point out all the possibilities that Role D student is wrong. OR Role E- U.S.A. -Cuba Role F- U.S.A. - Iraq Role G- U.S.A.- U.S.S.R. Role H- Discuss a conflict not on this list following the same instructions as above but it can be either a conflict between countries, celebrities, a personal one etc...

5.Discussion - Israel Gaza War

1.What do you think leaders in the Middle East should do?

2.What do you think will happen in the Middle East in the coming weeks?

3.How worried are you about events in Israel and Gaza?

    4.What is your advice for people in the region?

 5,How much faith do you have in the truth of what you read online?

6.What should happen to people who post inflammatory content?

 

7.	What do you know about what started this conflict?
8.	Do you think Israel should send troops into Gaza?
9.	Why is Hamas firing rockets into Israel?
10.	Is Hamas achieving anything by firing rockets into Israel?
11.	What will it take for there to be a ceasefire?
12.	What would happen if Israel launched a ground offensive in Gaza?
13.	What do you think world leaders think about the situation?
14.	Where is Hamas getting all its rockets?
15.	What do you know about the history of Gaza and Israel relations?
16.	What do you think Gaza residents think of the conflict?
17.	What do you think Tel Aviv residents think of the conflict?
18.	Would peace come to Gaza if Hamas disappeared?
19.	What would bring peace between Palestinians and Israelis?
20.	Which side is more responsible for the conflict?
21.	Will diplomatic efforts do any good?
22.	What questions would you like to ask Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu?
23.	What do you think his answers might be?

 

 Lesson 2 :EU warns X over Israel-Hamas disinformation 

Watch:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxe7pgiaO7A

Social media is awash with information and graphics about the ongoing events in Israel and Gaza. There are concerns about how much of the content posted online is fake. The European Union has just opened an investigation into the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter. The EU says there is an alarming volume of posts containing false information on X. EU officials have expressed concern that X was, "being used to disseminate illegal content and disinformation". X has until the end of next week to answer a series of EU questions about this content. Failure to satisfactorily address these issues could lead the EU to impose a fine on X of up to five per cent of the company's daily global turnover.

The EU probe into X comes under the Digital Services Act. This was established to monitor how large tech companies deal with the hate speech posted on their platforms, and how they police the Internet. An EU spokesperson advised X to introduce, "proportionate and effective mitigation measures" to identify and delete disinformation. He added: "We have, from qualified sources, reports about potentially illegal content circulating on X, despite flags from relevant authorities." Hundreds of bogus accounts have been flooding the Internet with harmful and inflammatory content. The CEO of X said the site had removed hundreds of these accounts. A social media expert lamented this was, "a drop in the ocean".

1. FINES: Students A strongly believe social media sites should face heavy fines if disinformation is posted on their platforms; Students B strongly believe the opposite. Explain 
2. ONLINE DANGERS: How dangerous are these things? How can we deal with them? Complete this table.

	How Dangerous	How To Deal with It
Disinformation
Hate Speech
Cyberbullying
Phishing
Online grooming
Viruses

3. SOCIAL MEDIA: Rank these with your partner. Put the best sites at the top.

• X
• Facebook
• Pinterest
• YouTube
• Instagram
• TikTok
• SnapChat
• LinkedIn

 

4.Vocabulary

    Paragraph 1

1.	awash	a.	A number of events, objects, or people of a similar or related kind coming one after another.
2.	alarming	b.	An amount or quantity of something, especially when great.
3.	volume	c.	Worrying or disturbing.
4.	disseminate	d.	The amount of money taken by a business in a particular period.
5.	series	e.	Containing large numbers or amounts of someone or something.
6.	impose	f.	Spread (something, especially information) widely.
7.	turnover	g.	Require a duty, charge, or penalty to be undertaken or paid.

    Paragraph 2

8.	probe	h.	The action of reducing the severity, seriousness, or painfulness of something.
9.	established	i.	Of speech or writing arousing or intended to arouse angry or violent feelings.
10.	proportionate	j.	Moving continuously or freely through a closed system or area.
11.	mitigation	k.	Set up on a permanent basis.
12.	circulating	l.	Expressed regret or disappointment about something.
13.	inflammatory	m.	A thorough investigation into a crime or other matter.
14.	lamented	n.	In a way that corresponds in size or amount to something else.

5. SYNONYM MATCH: Match the following synonyms from the article.

1. awash
2. ongoing
3. investigation
4. alarming
5. turnover
6. bogus
7. police
8. circulating
9. inflammatory
10. lamented

1. complained about
2. frightening
3. continuing
4. revenue
5. provocative
6. regulate
7. flooded
8. fake
9. spreading
10. inquiry