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Conflict between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza

Wrecked cars and damaged buildings in the Israeli city of Ashkelon following rocket launches from Gaza, 07 October 2023. (EPA)
Wrecked cars and damaged buildings in the Israeli city of Ashkelon following rocket launches from Gaza, 07 October 2023. (EPA)
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Conflict between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza

Wrecked cars and damaged buildings in the Israeli city of Ashkelon following rocket launches from Gaza, 07 October 2023. (EPA)
Wrecked cars and damaged buildings in the Israeli city of Ashkelon following rocket launches from Gaza, 07 October 2023. (EPA)

The Palestinian movement Hamas launched its biggest assault on Israel in years early on Saturday, firing a barrage of rockets from Gaza and sending fighters across the border.

Israel said it was on a war footing and began its own strikes against Hamas targets in Gaza, with Israeli media reporting gunbattles between bands of Palestinian fighters and security forces in southern Israel.

The following timeline, which begins with Israel's 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, details the major flare-ups in the conflict between Israel and Palestinian groups in the crowded coastal enclave, which is home to 2.3 million people.

August 2005 - Israeli forces unilaterally withdraw from Gaza 38 years after capturing it from Egypt in the Middle East war, abandoning settlements and leaving the enclave under the control of the Palestinian Authority.

Jan. 25, 2006 - Hamas wins a majority of seats in a Palestinian legislative election. Israel and the US cut off aid to Palestinians because Hamas refuses to renounce violence and recognize Israel.

June 25, 2006 - Hamas militants capture Israeli army conscript Gilad Shalit in a cross-border raid from Gaza, prompting Israeli air strikes and incursions. Shalit is finally freed more than five years later in a prisoner exchange.

June 14, 2007 - Hamas takes over Gaza in a brief conflict, ousting Fatah forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is based in the West Bank.

Dec. 27, 2008 - Israel launches a 22-day military offensive in Gaza after Palestinians fire rockets at the southern Israeli town of Sderot. About 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis are reported killed before a ceasefire is agreed.

Nov. 14, 2012 - Israel kills Hamas's military chief of staff, Ahmad Jabari. Eight days of Palestinian militant rocket fire and Israeli air strikes follow.

July-August 2014 - The kidnap and killing of three Israeli teenagers by Hamas leads to a seven-week war in which more than 2,100 Palestinians are reported killed in Gaza and 73 Israelis are reported dead, 67 of them military.

March 2018 - Palestinian protests begin at Gaza’s fenced border with Israel. Israeli troops open fire to keep protestors back. More than 170 Palestinians are reported killed in several months of protests, which also prompt fighting between Hamas and Israeli forces.

May 2021 - After weeks of tension during the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, hundreds of Palestinians are wounded in clashes with Israeli security forces at the Al-Aqsa compound in Jerusalem, Islam’s third holiest site.

After demanding Israel withdraw security forces from the compound, Hamas unleashes a barrage of rockets from Gaza into Israel. Israel hits back with air strikes on Gaza. Fighting goes on for 11 days, killing at least 250 people in Gaza and 13 in Israel.

Aug 2022 - At least 44 people, including 15 children, are killed in three days of violence that begin when Israeli air strikes hit a senior Islamic Jihad commander.

Israel says the strikes were a pre-emptive operation against an imminent attack by the Iranian-backed militant movement, targeting commanders and arms depots. In response, Islamic Jihad fires more than 1,000 rockets towards Israel. Israel's Iron Dome air defense system prevents any serious damage or casualties.

Jan 2023 - Islamic Jihad in Gaza fires two rockets towards Israel after Israeli troops raid a refugee camp and kill seven Palestinian gunmen and two civilians. The rockets set off alarms in Israeli communities near the border but cause no casualties. Israel responds with air strikes on Gaza.

Oct 2023 - Hamas launches the biggest attack on Israel in years from the Gaza Strip, with a surprise assault combining gunmen crossing the border with a heavy barrage of rockets. Islamic Jihad says its fighters have joined the attack.

Israel's military said it was on a war footing, adding it had carried out strikes targeting Hamas in Gaza and had called up reservists.

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Watching the Sun Rise over a New Damascus

Damascus is seen at sunrise from Mount Qasyun, which for years was off limits to regular people. (AFP)
Damascus is seen at sunrise from Mount Qasyun, which for years was off limits to regular people. (AFP)
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Watching the Sun Rise over a New Damascus

Damascus is seen at sunrise from Mount Qasyun, which for years was off limits to regular people. (AFP)
Damascus is seen at sunrise from Mount Qasyun, which for years was off limits to regular people. (AFP)

After the fall of Bashar al-Assad, Afaf Mohammed did what she could not for more than a decade: she climbed Mount Qasyun to admire a sleeping Damascus "from the sky" and watch the sun rise.

Through the long years of Syria's civil war, which began in 2011 with a government crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, people were not allowed access to the mountain.

But now they can return to look down again on their capital, with its high-rise hotels and poor suburbs exhausted by war.

When night falls, long queues of vehicles slowly make their way up a twisting road to a brightly lit corniche at the summit.

Once there, they can relax, listen to music, eat and, inevitably, take selfies.

On some evenings there have even been firework displays.

Afaf Mohammed told AFP that "during the war we weren't allowed up to Mount Qasyun. There were few public places that were truly accessible."

At her feet, the panorama of Syria's capital stretched far and wide. It was the second time in weeks that the dentist in her thirties had come to the mountaintop.

A man sells tea on Mount Qasyun, from which government artillery used to pound opposition-held areas under Assad's rule. (AFP)

- Ideal for snipers -

Her first was just after a coalition of opposition fighters entered the city, ousting Assad on December 8.

On that occasion she came at dawn.

"I can't describe how I felt after we had gone through 13 years of hardship," she said, wrapped close in an abaya to ward off the chilly breeze.

Qasyun was off limits to the people of Damascus because it was an ideal location for snipers -- the great view includes elegant presidential palaces and other government buildings.

It was also from this mountain that artillery units for years pounded opposition-held areas at the gates of the capital.

Mohammed believes the revolution brought "a phenomenal freedom" that includes the right to visit previously forbidden places.

"No one can stop us now or block our way. No one will harm us," she said.

Patrols from the security forces of Syria's new rulers are in evidence, however.

They look on as a boy plays a tabla drum and young people on folding chairs puff from water pipes as others dance and sing, clapping their hands.

Everything is good-natured, reflecting the atmosphere of freedom that now bathes Syria since the end of Assad rule.

Gone are the stifling restrictions that once ruled the people's lives, and soldiers no longer throng the city streets.

Visitors to Mount Qasyun can now relax, listen to music, eat and snap selfies. (AFP)

- Hot drinks and snacks -

Mohammad Yehia, in his forties, said he once brought his son Rabih up to Mount Qasyun when he was small.

"But he doesn't remember having been here," he said.

After Assad fell, his son "asked if we would be allowed to go up there, and I said, 'Of course'," Yehia added.

So they came the next day.

Yehia knows the place well -- he used to work here, serving hot drinks and snacks from the back of a van to onlookers who came to admire the view.

He prides himself on being one of the first to come back again, more than a decade later.

The closure of Mount Qasyun to the people of Damascus robbed him of his livelihood at a time when the country was in economic freefall under Western sanctions. The war placed a yoke of poverty on 90 percent of the population.

"We were at the suffocation point," Yehia told AFP.

"Even if you worked all day, you still couldn't make ends meet.

"This is the only place where the people of Damascus can come and breathe a little. It's a spectacular view... it can make us forget the worries of the past."

Malak Mohammed, who came up the mountain with her sister Afaf, said that on returning "for the first time since childhood" she felt "immense joy".

"It's as if we were getting our whole country back," Malak said. Before, "we were deprived of everything".