1948 – Nakba
On May 14, 1948, the British Mandate expired and Zionist leaders announced they would be declaring a state, triggering the first Arab-Israeli war.
Zionist gangs expelled some 750,000 Palestinians and captured 78 percent of the land. The remaining 22 percent was divided into the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
1967 – Naksa
During the June 1967 war, Israel occupied all of historical Palestine – including Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem – the Syrian Golan Heights and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.
Shortly after the war, Israel started establishing settlements in territories it occupied, violating the Fourth Geneva Convention which prohibits an occupying power from transferring its population to the area it occupies.
1980 – Israel annexes East Jerusalem
East Jerusalem is on the Palestinian side of the 1949 Armistice Line – or Green Line – the generally recognised boundary between Israel and the occupied West Bank.
1993-1995 Oslo Accords
The Oslo Accords, the first direct Palestinian-Israeli peace agreement, led to the formation of the Palestinian Authority (PA), which was meant to govern internal security, administration and civilian affairs in areas of self-rule for a five-year interim period.
Under Oslo, the occupied West Bank was divided into three areas:
2002 – Israel's separation wall
In 2002, Israel began constructing a wall that snakes more than 700km (435 miles) through the West Bank, dividing villages, encircling towns and splitting families from each other.
Israel says the wall is for security but it doesn't follow the Green Line, 85 percent of it built on occupied West Bank territory.
2024 – Further land grabs and illegal settlements
About 700,000 settlers live in some 300 illegal settlements and outposts dotting the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Finance minister – and a settler himself – Smotrich was incensed by five countries recognising the state of Palestine.
In retaliation, he said: "For every country that unilaterally recognises a Palestinian state, we will establish a settlement," pledging a million new settlers in the occupied West Bank to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state.
The settlements and their infrastructure, including Israeli-only bypass roads, occupy about 35 percent of the land in East Jerusalem and about 10 percent of the West Bank.
