Category: ISRAEL AFTER 1967

When the War of Independence broke out in 1947, the Jewish community of Hebron fled. During the fighting, nine Jewish communities were captured by the Jordanian army – Kibbutz Beit Ha’arava and Kaliya north of the Dead Sea, four kibbutzim in Gush Etzion west of Bethlehem, Atarot and Neve Yaakov north of Jerusalem, and the Jewish Quarter of its Old City. Kfar Darom, in the Gaza strip, was captured by the Egyptian army.

In August 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew its civilian population and military bases from the Gaza strip, removing 21 communities from the Jewish enclave of Gush Katif, removing some 7000 citizens amid protests.

The Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty was signed on March 26, 1979, following the Camp David Accords of September 18, 1978, which set the framework for a peace treaty between both countries.

The Yom Kippur War began on October 6, 1973 when the armies of Egypt and Syria attacked Israel across the Suez Canal and in the Golan Heights on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. After a few days of torrid fighting, Egypt established itself on the eastern side of the Suez Canal and the Syrians captured most of the Golan. A counterattack by Israeli forces pushed back Egyptian forces, with the IDF crossing the Canal and approaching Cairo. On the Golan, Syrian forces were repulsed; the IDF penetrated deep in Syrian territory and recaptured Mount Hermon.

Jerusalem’s ancient walled city is roughly a kilometer square and divided into Moslem, Christian, Armenian Quarter, and Jewish Quarters On the eastern site of the Old City is the Temple Mount, on which is today placed the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. The Temple’s western retaining wall is considered holy by Jews.

In May and early June of 1967, tensions between Israel and the surrounding states built to a crisis.