Sources and corrections
The history chapters draw on books, UN and archival records, and reporting by Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights organisations. Disagreements between historians are noted in the text. Casualty and displacement figures should be read with their attribution and date, especially in the chapter covering events since 2023.
The list below is a guide to the sources used, not a sentence-by-sentence bibliography. Links in the chapters point to relevant entries here. For memoir, fiction and poetry as well as more history, see further reading.
Institutional and archival records
UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA)
Situation reports and registration data on Palestine refugees since 1949.
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, oPt (OCHA)
Humanitarian situation updates for the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
UN General Assembly Resolution 181 (1947) and Resolution 194 (1948)
The partition plan, and the refugee right of return.
International Court of Justice, advisory opinions on the separation barrier (2004) and the occupation (2024)
The Court's assessments of the legality of specific Israeli policies under international law.
Historical scholarship
Rashid Khalidi, The Hundred Years' War on Palestine (2020)
A history of the conflict told through six defining episodes, by a Palestinian-American historian.
Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited (2004)
An Israeli historian's archival account of the 1948 exodus, drawing on newly declassified Israeli military records.
Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006)
A more contested, critical account of 1948 by an Israeli historian associated with Israel's 'New Historians'.
Edward Said, The Question of Palestine (1979)
An early and influential statement of the Palestinian national narrative for an English-language audience.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 'Palestine' and 'Israel'
General reference entries used to check dates, figures and place names.
Human rights reporting
B'Tselem
Israeli human rights organisation documenting the occupation from within Israel.
Al-Haq
Palestinian human rights organisation based in Ramallah, documenting violations in the oPt since 1979.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International
International organisations' country reporting on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
Reporting on international humanitarian law as it applies to the occupation and to conduct in Gaza.
Gaza war reporting, 2023 to present
Gaza's Ministry of Health
The Gaza health authorities' running casualty count for the war, run under Hamas but assessed by the UN in this and prior conflicts as broadly reliable.
World Bank Group, joint damage and needs assessments
Assessments produced with the UN and European Union of destroyed housing, hospitals and infrastructure across Gaza.
UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
The UN's human rights office, led since 2022 by Volker Türk, monitoring conduct in Gaza and the West Bank.
Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC)
The UN-backed international system for classifying food insecurity and famine, which found famine conditions in parts of Gaza in 2025.
International Criminal Court (ICC)
The Hague-based court that issued arrest warrants over the war in November 2024.
Found an error?
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