• Tensions between Israel and Palestine have soared following last week’s police raid on Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound during the holy month of Ramadan.

• Israeli forces stormed Al-Aqsa mosque, also commonly known as Al-Qibli mosque, arresting more than 350 people, according to media reports.  

• Israeli police raid triggered rocket attacks from Gaza, south Lebanon and Syria that drew Israeli air and artillery strikes.

Where is Al-Aqsa mosque situated?

• The Al-Aqsa is at the heart of Jerusalem’s Old City on a hilltop.  

• The hilltop compound where the mosque sits is the emotional ground zero of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

• For Jews, it is known as the Temple Mount, their faith’s holiest site and the place where two Temples stood in antiquity. For Muslims, it is known as the Noble Sanctuary, home of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, after Mecca and Medina.

• Al-Aqsa is the name given to the whole compound and is home to two Muslim holy places: the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque, also known as Al-Qibli mosque, which was built in the 8th century AD.

• Israel captured the site in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed it with the rest of East Jerusalem and adjoining parts of the West Bank in a move not recognised internationally.

• Jordan acts as custodian of the site under a status quo arrangement in place since the 1967 war.

• Violent clashes took place there two years ago, sparking 11 days of deadly conflict between Israel and Palestinian armed groups in Gaza.

Israel-Palestine conflict

• Politics, history and religion all place Jerusalem at the centre of the broader Israel-Palestine conflict.

• The status of Jerusalem is one of the biggest obstacles to reaching a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

• Israel considers Jerusalem its eternal and indivisible capital and wants all embassies based there. Palestinians want the capital of an independent state of theirs to be in the city’s eastern sector, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed in a move never recognised internationally.

• Violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has intensified since the new government of veteran Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took power in December 2022.

• Israeli-Palestinian violence has surged with frequent military West Bank raids amid a spate of Palestinian street attacks. More than 90 Palestinians, most of them fighters in militant groups but some of them civilians, have been killed since January and at least 19 Israelis and foreigners have died.

• The US-brokered peace talks aimed at establishing a Palestinian state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza territories Israel captured in a 1967 war have stalled and show no sign of revival.

Key events related to the conflict:

1947: The United Nations recommends partition of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states, with international control over Jerusalem and its environs.

1948: Israel declares independence as British mandate ends.

1948-49: First Arab-Israeli war. Armistice agreements leave Israel with more territory than envisaged under the partition plan, including western Jerusalem. Jordan annexes the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, Egypt occupies Gaza.

June 1967: After months of tension, Israel launches a pre-emptive attack on Egypt. Jordan and Syria join the war. The war lasts for six days. Israel seizes Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, from Jordan and the Golan Heights from Syria. The West Bank was not annexed by Israel but came under Israeli military control.

November 1977: Egyptian President Anwar Sadat visits Jerusalem and begins the process that leads to Israel’s withdrawal from Sinai and Egypt’s recognition of Israel in the Camp David Accords of 1978. Accords also pledge Israel to expand Palestinian self-government in the West Bank and Gaza.

December 1987: The First Intifada, a Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, begins. Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza forms the Hamas movement, which rapidly turns to violence against Israel.

1993: Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat sign the Oslo Declaration to plot Palestinian self-government and formally end the First Intifada. The agreements created the Palestinian Authority, to oversee most administrative affairs in the West Bank and Gaza. The PLO is recognized by Israel and the United States as a negotiating partner. Key issues such as Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the status of Jerusalem were left unresolved. 

March 2002: Hamas suicide attack kills 30 Israeli civilians. Israel launches Operation Defensive Shield and invades and occupies much of the West Bank.

September 2005: Israel withdraws all settlements and military personnel from the Gaza Strip, marking the end of its 38-year occupation of the territory.

January 2006: The Palestinian militant group Hamas wins an overwhelming victory in parliamentary elections, sparking a struggle for primacy with its rival, the Fatah movement of Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

June 2007: Hamas violently ousts Fatah forces from the Gaza Strip and solidifies its control of the territory. Israel and Egypt tighten their blockade of Gaza, which will devastate Gaza’s economy over the next decade. Two rival governments emerge, Hamas in Gaza and the Abbas’ Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

July-August 2014: Following the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenagers by Hamas members, Israel conducts a sweep against Hamas in the West Bank, prompting rocket attacks from Gaza and Israeli air raids in response. The conflict lasts for seven weeks. 

March 2015: Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu declared that there would be no two-state solution to the conflict.

December 2017: US President Donald Trump reversed decades of US policy and recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. He announced that his administration would begin a process of moving the US embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

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