The October 7 Hamas attack on Israel in 2023 marked the beginning of a new era of the Israel-Palestine conflict. More than 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals were killed in the attack and 251 more were taken back to Gaza as hostages.
The anniversary comes with Israel engaged in another new war in Lebanon against Hezbollah and preparing to retaliate against Iran, thereby raising fears of an even bigger conflict.
The northern town of Beit Hanoun, only 2km from the border, was one of the first areas hit by Israeli strikes which sustained heavy damage.
Israel continued to bomb Gaza City and other urban centres in the north and ordered civilians to move south of the Wadi Gaza River for "safety and protection" before it began its ground invasion at the end of October.
But Israel was also launching air strikes on the southern cities which hundreds of thousands of Gazans from the north were fleeing towards. By the end of November, parts of the south of the territory lay in ruins, as did much of the north.
Israel intensified its bombing of southern and central Gaza at the start of December, before launching a ground offensive on Khan Younis, and by January more than half of Gaza's buildings had been damaged or destroyed.
One year of conflict has probably damaged close to two-thirds of buildings across the Gaza Strip, with Gaza City suffering the heaviest destruction, according to experts from CUNY Graduate Center and Oregon State University who have been analysing satellite data.
Throughout the year, Hamas - designated as a terrorist organisation by Israel, the UK and many other countries - and its allies have been engaged in intense battles against Israeli forces on the ground. They have also been firing thousands of rockets into Israel.
Gaza, only 41km (25 miles) long and 10km wide, is now, in large parts, uninhabitable. Entire districts have been razed to the ground.
Origins of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
The conflict pits Israeli demands for a secure homeland in what it has long regarded as a hostile Middle East against Palestinians' unrealised aspirations for a state of their own.
In 1947, while Palestine was under British mandate rule, the United Nations General Assembly agreed upon a plan to partition it into Arab and Jewish states and for international rule over Jerusalem. Jewish leaders accepted the plan, which gave them 56% of the land. The Arab League rejected the proposal.
Israel's founding father, David Ben-Gurion, proclaimed the modern state of Israel on May 14, 1948, a day before the scheduled end of British rule, establishing a safe haven for Jews fleeing persecution and seeking a national home on land to which they cite ties dating to antiquity.
In the late 1940s, violence intensified between Arabs, who comprised about two-thirds of the population, and Jews. A day after Israel was created, troops from five Arab states attacked.
In the war that followed, some 700,000 Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes, ending up in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, and in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Palestinians lament this as the "Nakba", or catastrophe. Israel contests the assertion that it forced out Palestinians.
Armistice agreements halted the fighting in 1949 but there was no formal peace. Descendants of Palestinians who stayed put in the war make up about 20% of Israel's population now.
Wars fought since then
In 1967, Israel made a pre-emptive strike on Egypt and Syria, launching the Six-Day War. Israel captured the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem from Jordan, the Golan Heights from Syria, and the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt.
A 1967 Israeli census put Gaza's population at 394,000, at least 60% of them Palestinian refugees and their descendants.
In 1973, Egypt and Syria attacked Israeli positions along the Suez Canal and Golan Heights, starting the Yom Kippur War. Israel pushed both armies back within three weeks.
Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 and thousands of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) guerrillas under Yasser Arafat were evacuated by sea after a 10-week siege. Israeli troops pulled out of Lebanon in 2000.
In 2005, Israel withdrew settlers and soldiers from Gaza. Hamas won parliamentary elections in 2006 and seized full control of Gaza in 2007. Major fighting flared between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza in 2006, 2008, 2012, 2014 and 2021.
In 2006, Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah militants captured two Israeli soldiers in the border region and Israel launched military action, triggering a six-week war.
There have also been two Palestinian intifadas, or uprisings, from 1987 to 1993 and 2000 to 2005. In the second, Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups carried out suicide bombings in Israel, and Israel conducted tank assaults and airstrikes on Palestinian cities.
Since then, there have been several rounds of hostilities between Israel and Hamas, which refuses to recognise Israel and is regarded as a terrorist organisation by Israel, the European Union, United States and other countries. Hamas says its armed activities are resistance against Israeli occupation.
Attempts to make peace
In 1979, Egypt became the first Arab state to sign a peace treaty with Israel, under which the Sinai Peninsula was returned to Egyptian rule.
In 1993, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Arafat shook hands on the Oslo Accords establishing limited Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza. In 1994, Israel signed a peace treaty with Jordan. But a summit six years later attended by Arafat, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and U.S. President Bill Clinton at Camp David failed to secure a final peace deal.
In 2002, a proposed Arab League plan offered Israel normal relations with all Arab countries in return for a full withdrawal from the lands it took in the 1967 Middle East war, the creation of a Palestinian state and a "just solution" for Palestinian refugees. The presentation of the plan was overshadowed by Hamas, which blew up an Israeli hotel full of Holocaust survivors during a Passover seder meal.
Further Palestinian-Israeli peacemaking efforts have been stalled since 2014.
Under U.S. President Donald Trump in 2020, Israel reached deals known as the Abraham Accords to normalise ties with several Arab states, including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco.
Palestinians stopped dealing with the U.S. administration after Trump broke with U.S. policy by recognising Jerusalem as Israel's capital. The Palestinians seek East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.
Qatar and Egypt have acted as mediators in the latest war, securing a truce late last year that lasted seven days, during which some hostages held by Hamas were exchanged for prisoners held by Israel, and more humanitarian aid flowed into Gaza.
Current state of peace efforts
Months of on-off talks on a further Gaza truce have so far proven fruitless, circling the same issues.
Above all, Hamas says it will free its remaining hostages only as part of a peace deal that ends the war. Israel says it will not end the war until Hamas is destroyed.
Other issues holding up a deal have included control over the border between Gaza and Egypt, the sequencing of reciprocal steps in any agreement, the number and identity of Palestinian prisoners to be released alongside Israeli hostages and free movement for Palestinians inside Gaza.
U.S. President Joe Biden's administration has sought a "grand bargain" in the Middle East that would include normalisation of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Riyadh says this would require progress towards creating an independent Palestinian state, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ruled out.
Main Israeli-Palestinian issues
A two-state solution, Israeli settlements on occupied land, the status of Jerusalem, agreed borders, and the fate of Palestinian refugees.
Two-state solution
An agreement that would create a state for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza alongside Israel. Netanyahu says Israel must have security control over all land west of the Jordan River, which would preclude a sovereign Palestinian state.
Settlements
Most countries deem Jewish settlements built on land Israel captured in 1967 to be illegal. Israel disputes this and cites historical and biblical ties to the land. Continued settlement expansion is among the most contentious issues between Israel, the Palestinians and the international community.
Jerusalem
Palestinians want East Jerusalem, which includes the walled Old City's sites sacred to Muslims, Jews and Christians alike, to be the capital of their state. Israel says Jerusalem should remain its "indivisible and eternal" capital.
Israel's claim to Jerusalem's eastern part is not recognised internationally. Trump recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital, without specifying the extent of its jurisdiction in the disputed city, and moved the U.S. Embassy there in 2018.
Refugees
Today about 5.6 million Palestinian refugees - mainly descendants of those who fled in 1948 - live in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Israeli-occupied West Bank and in Gaza. About half of registered refugees remain stateless, according to the Palestinian foreign ministry, many living in crowded camps.
Palestinians have long demanded that refugees and their millions of descendants be allowed to return. Israel says any resettlement of Palestinian refugees must occur outside its borders.