How did the last crisis between Israelis and Palestinians come about?

By Yuliya Talmazan - NBC News

The tensions have been latent for more than a month, but in the last week they overflowed when violence broke out between Israelis and Palestinians.

Hostilities escalated over the past week, marking the worst fighting in the territory home to 2 million Palestinians since the devastating 2014 war between Israel and Hamas.

About 200 Palestinians have died, as well as 10 Israelis.

But

what has caused the latest escalation of violence?

Palestinian rescuers transport the remains of a man found next to a cafe on the beach after it was hit in an Israeli airstrike, in Gaza City, Monday, May 17, 2021.AP / Khalil Hamra

The roots of the current crisis

Tensions began to rise at the beginning of Ramadan, the holy month of Islam, which is celebrated in mid-April,

when Israeli police put up barriers at the Damascus Gate,

on the north side of the walled Old City of Jerusalem, where the Muslims gather after their evening prayers at the Al-Asqa mosque.

[The Israeli Army launches its deadliest attack in the last week, killing dozens of people in Gaza]

Thousands of Palestinians flocked to the area to protest the policy

, and dozens of them were injured in clashes with police and Israeli nationalists, in which crowds fired rockets, stones and other objects, while police responded with stun grenades. and water cannons.

Meanwhile, in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, tension was raised by an

old court case in which four Palestinian families faced eviction from their homes

on land claimed by Jewish settlers.

The Israeli Supreme Court was to try the case, although the hearing was postponed as protests increased.

Ten members of the same family die after Israeli Army bombing of Gaza

May 15, 202101: 28

Then

clashes broke out in

and around the

Al-Aqsa Mosque

, the third holiest shrine in Islam, which stands in a

precinct sacred to both Muslims and Jews

, and which led to the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, to threaten that Israel would pay a heavy price.

Hamas began firing rockets into Jerusalem on Monday.

Israel initially responded with shelling on tiny and impoverished Gaza but on Thursday tanks within Israel's borders began to join the attacks on positions in the enclave as Hamas rockets continued to strike.

High point in Jerusalem

After the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, East Jerusalem was controlled by Jordan, while the west of the city was controlled by the Israelis.

This changed after Israel captured the eastern part of the city during the Six Day War in 1967, when it also took the Golan Heights, the West Bank and the Sinai Peninsula, although this was later returned to Egypt.

A fireball and plume of smoke rise over buildings in Gaza City as Israeli forces bombard the Palestinian enclave early on May 17, 2021.MAHMUD HAMS / AFP via Getty Images

East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and Gaza continue to be considered occupied territory

according to United Nations Security Council resolutions.

Israeli settlements in occupied territory are also considered illegal

by most nations.

Within the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem there is a vast plateau, which the Jews call the Temple Mount, the holiest place in Judaism and historically known as the site of the two biblical temples.

The walled plateau, referred to by Muslims as the Noble Shrine, is also home to the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Islamic Shrine of the Dome of the Rock, and is also revered by Christians.

[Latinos in Israel fear for their lives in the face of escalating conflict with Palestine]

Israel considers all of Jerusalem its eternal and indivisible capital, while the Palestinians want the eastern

(or eastern) part

as the capital of a future state.

That's why former President Donald Trump's decision to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in 2018 enraged Palestinians, some of their Western allies, and Muslims around the world, and left many Arabs in fear. that they are finally forced to leave the city.

Evictions in East Jerusalem

Anger over the

lengthy judicial process affecting the homes of the four Palestinian families on land claimed by Jewish settlers

has increased tensions

in the city.

Palestinian families have lived in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood for decades, but settler groups claim that the land on which the houses were built was originally owned by Jewish organizations before 1948.

Israel has tried to present the case as a real estate dispute between private parties, but the

treatment of the homeowners has drawn international criticism.

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May 16, 202101: 59

Activists claim that the legal battle in Sheikh Jarrah is part of a systematic effort by settler groups to change the demographics of East Jerusalem by displacing Palestinians and relocating Jews to the area.

[Israeli bombings kill 8 children and demolish another building in Gaza: it was the headquarters of media such as AP and Al Jazeera.

Violence intensifies]

Jewish settlements in this part of Jerusalem are home to some 220,000 people.

They have severely limited the growth of Palestinian neighborhoods, causing overcrowding and the unauthorized construction of thousands of homes that are at risk of being demolished.

Israel's Supreme Court was scheduled to hear appeals against the planned evictions last Monday, but delayed the hearing due to escalating fighting.

Politics plays an important role

The rise in tensions has come amid a

power vacuum in

both Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

After the country's fourth elections in two years failed to win a government majority, Israeli Prime Minister

Benjamin Netanyahu

- who is on trial for corruption -

missed the deadline to form a new government

earlier this month. , giving the opportunity to the opposition to do so.

But the violence of the past week has sidelined those efforts, with negotiations to form a new coalition suspended due to the deteriorating situation and Netanyahu appears keen to stay in power at least in the short term.

On the other hand,

the Palestinians were due to hold their first elections in more than 15 years this month,

but they were postponed by President Mahmoud Abbas, whose Fatah party controls much of the West Bank.

He blamed Israel for refusing to allow voting in East Jerusalem, but many Palestinian voters saw it as an excuse to avoid the elections, which Abbas looked like he was going to lose.

Palestinians rescue a survivor from the rubble of a residential building destroyed after the deadly Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City, Sunday, May 16, 2021.AP / Khalil Hamra

Hamas, considered a terrorist organization by the United States and Israel, has

ruled Gaza since 2006. Since then, it has been blockaded by Israel and Egypt, leaving the economy in shambles.

Human rights groups claim that residents are forced to live with

shortages of food, medicine and electricity.

However, Hamas was expected to do well in the elections.

Peace process?

The United States, along with many other nations, has long supported the so-called

two-state solution,

accepted in diplomatic circles since the mid-1990s as the

only way to guarantee peace and justice for Palestinians and Israelis.

But decades of peace talks, sometimes mediated by the United States, have not achieved a solution.

Trump made the conflict a centerpiece of his foreign policy.

He proposed a peace plan early last year that he said would create a conditional path to state-building for the Palestinians, while also recognizing Israeli sovereignty over a significant part of the West Bank.

The plan was rejected by the Palestinians and criticized by many analysts.

President

Joe Biden has shown little interest so far in reviving the peace process.

But the latest escalation, and pressure from his own party, could force him to go one step further on his agenda.