50 Fun Facts About Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Which fruit became a symbol of Palestinian identity because its colours match those of the Palestinian flag?

Watermelon stood in for the flag after its display was suppressed following the 1967 war; in 1980 an officer closing a West Bank gallery told artists even a painted one could be confiscated.

Which anonymous street artist designed the Walled Off Hotel beside the West Bank barrier in Bethlehem?

Banksy set the hotel up in March 2017, at first only as a temporary exhibition; its name is a pun on the Waldorf chain.

Israel's 1949 armistice boundary takes which name from the ink used to draw it on the map?

The Green Line was drawn in green ink during the 1949 armistice talks, and the agreements said it was not a permanent border; it is still widely cited as the 'pre-1967 borders'.

At which city's 1972 Olympics did Palestinian militants take members of the Israeli team hostage?

Munich's Olympic Village was infiltrated by eight members of the group Black September; two Israelis were killed at once and the nine hostages died during a failed rescue attempt.

Which Israeli prime minister was shot dead in 1995 by an extremist opposed to his peace deals with the PLO?

Yitzhak Rabin was leaving a rally held in support of the peace process when law student Yigal Amir shot him; he remains the only Israeli prime minister to be assassinated.

Which 1993 agreements, signed in Washington after secret talks, created the Palestinian Authority?

The Oslo Accords are named after the Norwegian capital, where a research institute hosted months of secret negotiations before the public signing ceremony in the United States.

Which 1917 British statement, a letter to Lord Rothschild, backed a Jewish national home in Palestine?

The Balfour Declaration, signed by Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, added that nothing should prejudice the civil and religious rights of Palestine's existing non-Jewish communities.

In which June 1967 war did Israel capture the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem?

The Six-Day War opened with Israeli air strikes that destroyed nearly all of Egypt's air force, and ended with Israel occupying some 70,000 square kilometres of territory.

Which Palestinian leader wore an empty holster while addressing the UN General Assembly in 1974?

Yasser Arafat told delegates he came bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter's gun; he was the first head of a non-governmental organisation to address a plenary session.

Which Arabic word meaning 'catastrophe' do Palestinians use for their mass displacement in the 1948 war?

Nakba Day is commemorated each 15 May, the day after the date of Israel's 1948 declaration of independence; more than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs were expelled or fled during the war.

Which Arabic word, literally 'a shaking off', names the Palestinian uprising that began in December 1987?

The Intifada erupted after an Israeli truck crashed into cars carrying Palestinian workers home, killing four; funerals that evening drew 10,000 people and became a mass demonstration.

Israeli commandos flew over 4,000 km in 1976 to free hijacked passengers held at which African airport?

Entebbe, in Idi Amin's Uganda, was where hijackers from a Palestinian faction and a German cell had taken an Air France jet; 100 commandos stormed its disused terminal after nightfall.

Which US president hosted the leaders of Egypt and Israel at Camp David for nearly two weeks in 1978?

Jimmy Carter's summit produced two framework agreements and a shared Nobel Peace Prize for his two guests; the full Egypt–Israel peace treaty followed in 1979.

Which Egyptian president flew to Jerusalem in 1977 to address the Knesset, a first for an Arab leader?

Anwar Sadat's visit led to Egypt's 1979 peace treaty with Israel, the first by an Arab state; Islamist soldiers enraged by it assassinated him at a Cairo military parade in 1981.

Which leader proclaimed the State of Israel on 14 May 1948 and became its first prime minister?

David Ben-Gurion helped to write the declaration and was the first to sign it; he later retired to a modest hut on a kibbutz in the Negev desert.

Which Viennese journalist wrote the 1896 pamphlet 'The Jewish State' and then convened a congress in Basel?

Theodor Herzl had been the Paris correspondent of a Vienna newspaper; the Basel congress of 1897 elected him president of the organisation it founded.

Which power ruled Palestine for four centuries until British forces drove its armies out in 1917 and 1918?

The Ottoman Empire took the region from Egypt's Mamluks in 1516; after its defeat in the First World War, Britain governed Palestine under a mandate until 1948.

Which Israeli air-defence system, operational since 2011, shoots down short-range rockets fired from Gaza?

Iron Dome tracks each incoming rocket and fires only at those heading for populated areas; its interceptor missile is called Tamir, a Hebrew acronym.

With Jerusalem's status disputed, most countries keep their embassies to Israel in or near which coastal city?

Tel Aviv was where Israel's independence was proclaimed in 1948 and its temporary seat of government; 13 embassies moved there from Jerusalem in the early 1980s.

Which Islamist movement, founded by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in 1987, won the 2006 Palestinian election?

Hamas grew out of an Islamic charity linked to the Muslim Brotherhood; a year after its election win it took control of the Gaza Strip from its rival Fatah.

Which neighbouring country occupied the West Bank in 1948 and governed it until the 1967 war?

Jordan gave the territory its name: it lies on the western bank of the river that separates it from the rest of the kingdom, which formally annexed it in 1950.

Which West Bank city, 10 km north of Jerusalem, serves as the Palestinian Authority's de facto capital?

Ramallah, whose name means 'God's Height', sits nearly 900 metres up in the Judaean Mountains; it was chosen as an interim seat of government only.

Which Palestinian politician, also known as Abu Mazen, was elected president of the Palestinian Authority in 2005?

Mahmoud Abbas was born in Safed in the Galilee and had served for six months in 2003 as the first Palestinian prime minister before resigning.

Which Israeli prime minister, raised in Milwaukee, resigned after the 1973 war caught Israel off guard?

Golda Meir, born in Kyiv, taught school in Wisconsin before emigrating; in 1948 she was one of only two women among the signatories of Israel's declaration of independence.

Which Israeli prime minister, long a champion of settlement building, dismantled all 21 settlements in Gaza in 2005?

Ariel Sharon met such resistance inside his own Likud party that he quit it months later to found a new one, Kadima; a stroke in January 2006 ended his career.

Which UN agency, established in 1949, provides schooling and health care to Palestinian refugees?

UNRWA is the only UN agency dedicated to refugees from one specific conflict; every other refugee population comes under UNHCR, which was set up a year later.

Which international body, founded after the First World War, gave Britain its mandate to govern Palestine?

The League of Nations supervised how Britain treated the territory's inhabitants, the feature that set a mandate apart from an old-style protectorate.

Which US president recognised Israel eleven minutes after the new state came into being?

Harry S. Truman overruled his secretary of state, George Marshall, and later said the decisive advice came from Eddie Jacobson, his former business partner.

Which US president hosted the White House ceremony where Israel and the PLO signed their first accord?

Bill Clinton returned to the role in July 2000, hosting Israeli and Palestinian leaders for a two-week summit at Camp David that ended without an agreement.

Which movement, named after a hill in Jerusalem, arose in 19th-century Europe to seek a Jewish homeland in Palestine?

Zionism was named in 1890 by the writer Nathan Birnbaum, who left the movement within a decade and ended his life staunchly opposed to it.

Which emblem sits at the centre of Israel's flag, between two blue stripes that evoke a prayer shawl?

The Star of David, which recalls the legendary Seal of Solomon, has been a widely recognised Jewish symbol only since the 17th century.

Which black-and-white patterned headdress has been a symbol of Palestinian nationalism since the 1930s?

The keffiyeh was once the mark of farmers and Bedouin, worn against the sun, while townsmen favoured the tarboosh; it became a national emblem during the 1936–39 uprising against British rule.

Which currency of Israel also circulates as de facto legal tender in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip?

Shekel notes serve Palestinians too because the State of Palestine has no currency of its own; the present 'new' version replaced a hyperinflated one in the mid-1980s at 1,000 to 1.

The Gaza Strip, bordered by Israel and Egypt, has its only coastline on which sea?

The Mediterranean shore runs the whole 41 km length of the Strip, which is nowhere more than 12 km wide and covers just 365 square kilometres.

Which song, whose Hebrew title means 'The Hope', is the national anthem of Israel?

Hatikvah began as a nine-stanza poem written in the 1870s by Naftali Herz Imber; a teenager in Rishon LeZion later set it to a tune he knew from Romania.

Which Jerusalem shrine with a gold-plated roof is the world's oldest surviving work of Islamic architecture?

The Dome of the Rock was built in 691–692 on the orders of the caliph Abd al-Malik; its gold-plated roof is a modern addition of 1959–64, renewed in the 1990s.

Which West Bank city is home to the Cave of the Patriarchs, a holy site split between a mosque and a synagogue?

Hebron is the largest city in the southern West Bank; the wall that surrounds the cave was built by Herod the Great and still stands two thousand years later.

Which region overlooking the Sea of Galilee did Israel capture from Syria in 1967?

The Golan Heights were placed under Israeli law by a 1981 act of parliament, a step the UN Security Council condemned as illegal in its Resolution 497.

Which Israeli intelligence agency ran Operation Wrath of God after the attack on the 1972 Olympic team?

Mossad's campaign went badly wrong in Lillehammer, Norway, in 1973, when its agents killed a Moroccan waiter they had mistaken for a wanted man; six of the team were arrested.

Which 2020 agreements, signed at the White House, opened Israel's diplomatic ties with the UAE and Bahrain?

The Abraham Accords take their name from the patriarch shared by Judaism, Christianity and Islam; Sudan and Morocco agreed to follow within months.

Which crossing links the Gaza Strip to Egypt, the only country other than Israel that it borders?

Rafah was cut in two by barbed wire when Israel withdrew from Sinai in 1982, leaving families on opposite sides of the Egyptian border.

Which European capital hosted the 1991 Middle East peace conference co-sponsored by the US and the Soviet Union?

Madrid's conference lasted only three days, but it launched separate bilateral talks between Israel and its neighbours that moved on to Washington within weeks.

Which underground Jewish militia, founded in 1920, became the core of the Israel Defense Forces in 1948?

Haganah means 'The Defence' in Hebrew; until the end of the Second World War it followed an official policy of self-restraint known as havlagah.

Which Jerusalem hotel, home to Britain's Mandate headquarters, did the Irgun bomb in July 1946?

The King David Hotel bombers came disguised as Arab workmen and waiters and left their explosives in the basement; 91 people died, among them Arabs, Britons and Jews.

Which Swedish count, the UN's mediator in Palestine, was assassinated in Jerusalem in 1948?

Folke Bernadotte had negotiated the release of tens of thousands of prisoners from Nazi Germany during the Second World War; he was shot by members of the underground group Lehi.

Which 1937 British inquiry, sent after an Arab general strike, first recommended partitioning Palestine?

The Peel Commission was the first official inquiry to call Britain's mandate unworkable; the cabinet endorsed its two-state plan in principle, while the Arab leadership opposed it.

Which cartoon child, drawn from behind, did Naji al-Ali create as a symbol of the Palestinian people?

Handala first appeared in a Kuwaiti newspaper in 1969 and turned away from the reader four years later, hands clasped behind him; he became the cartoonist's signature.

Which writer, widely regarded as Palestine's national poet, drafted the 1988 Palestinian Declaration of Independence?

Mahmoud Darwish was seven when his Galilee village, al-Birwa, was captured and razed during the 1948 war, and his family fled across the northern border.

Which Israeli soldier, seized in a 2006 tunnel raid from Gaza, was freed in 2011 in exchange for 1,027 prisoners?

Gilad Shalit was 19 when he was taken, and spent more than five years held in isolation, denied the Red Cross visits due to a captured soldier.

To which North African country did the PLO move its headquarters after being driven out of Lebanon in 1982?

Tunisia hosted the organisation near its capital, Tunis; in 1985 Israeli F-15s bombed the headquarters there in a long-range raid called Operation Wooden Leg.