Who is Israel at war with? Who owned Gaza before Israel?

As of October 2023, Israel is at war with Hamas, a Palestinian militant group that controls the Gaza Strip. The latest conflict between Israel and Gaza began with Hamas terrorists launching rocket attacks and invading Israeli territory by sea, air, and ground at dawn.

Israel said it was on a war footing and began its own strikes against Hamas targets in Gaza, with Israeli media reporting gun battles between bands of Palestinian fighters and security forces in southern Israel.

The conflict has escalated with both sides exchanging heavy cross-border fire. Before Israel became a nation, the majority of people dwelling in the region were Arabs who lived in what was then known as Palestine.

On May 14, 1948, Israel was officially declared a state, marking the first Jewish state in over 2,000 years. Just one day later, war broke out between Israel and five Arab countries—Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Egypt and Lebanon.

At the end of this conflict, known as the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Egypt was given control of the Gaza Strip. In the aftermath of the war, scholars estimate that more than 700,000 Palestinians left or were forced to flee their homes in the newly-formed Jewish Israel.

Thousands of Palestinian refugees settled in the Gaza Strip. Many were essentially trapped between two countries—Egypt and Israel—that wouldn’t grant them easy passage. During the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel seized control of the Gaza Strip from Egypt.