Palestine, chapter by chapter
Begin under Ottoman rule and follow Palestine through the British Mandate, the Nakba, exile and occupation. The seven chapters work best in order, but you can also go straight to a particular period.
Ottoman Palestine
For four centuries Palestine was a province of the Ottoman Empire: a mixed, mostly agrarian society of Muslims, Christians and a small Jewish minority.
The British Mandate
Britain took Palestine from the Ottomans and, through the Balfour Declaration, promised a 'national home for the Jewish people' in a land it did not own. Three decades of immigration, land sales and revolt followed.
Partition and the Nakba
The UN voted to partition Palestine. War followed. More than 700,000 Palestinians were driven from or fled their homes, and some 500 villages were destroyed. Palestinians call it the Nakba, the catastrophe.
Exile and military rule
Palestinian refugees built new lives in camps across the region. Those who stayed inside the new state of Israel lived for nearly two decades under military rule. In 1964 the PLO was founded.
Occupation and the Intifada
The Six-Day War put the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem under Israeli military occupation. Settlement building began almost immediately. In 1987 a mass uprising, the First Intifada, broke out.
Oslo and its unravelling
The Oslo Accords promised a path to statehood but delivered fragmented self-rule under continued occupation. A second, bloodier intifada followed, then Israel's withdrawal from Gaza and, within two years, a blockade.
Siege, war and the present
Gaza has lived under blockade for close to two decades and endured repeated wars. Since October 2023 it has faced the most destructive of them. This chapter carries the story to today.