Israel
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Daily SENTINEL briefSITUATION REPORT — IAF STRIKE ON 15 MAY IN GAZA CITY'S RIMAL DISTRICT KILLS IZZ AL-DIN AL-HADDAD, COMMANDER OF HAMAS'S MILITARY WING AND THE LAST SENIOR SURVIVING ARCHITECT OF 7 OCTOBER 2023; THREE IAF FIGHTERS DROP THIRTEEN BOMBS ON A RESIDENTIAL BUILDING, ISRAELI OFFICIAL FRAMES HADDAD AS THE OPERATIONAL BLOCK ON HAMAS DISARMAMENT AND THE STRIKE AS REMOVING THE PRIMARY OBSTACLE TO PHASE TWO OF THE TRUMP PLAN; THIRD ROUND OF DIRECT ISRAEL-LEBANON TALKS CONVENED AT US STATE DEPARTMENT 14 AND 15 MAY UNDER US BROKERING, CLOSING WITH A FORTY-FIVE-DAY EXTENSION OF THE LEBANON CEASEFIRE FRAMEWORK BUT NO AGREEMENT ON FULL IDF WITHDRAWAL OR LAF DEPLOYMENT TIMETABLE; ISRAELI STRIKES CONTINUED THROUGH THE TALKS WINDOW, ON 14 MAY HITTING HEZBOLLAH SITES ACROSS SOUTHERN LEBANON HOURS BEFORE THE FIRST SESSION AND ON 15 MAY STRIKING NEAR TYRE INCLUDING AN NGO CENTRE NEAR A HOSPITAL THAT WOUNDED SEVEN INCLUDING TWO NURSES; HEZBOLLAH DRONE STRIKE ON A PARKING LOT AT THE NORTHERN BORDER ON 14 MAY WOUNDED FOUR ISRAELI CIVILIANS WITH ONE IN CRITICAL CONDITION, FIRST HEZBOLLAH STRIKE ON ISRAELI CIVILIANS IN WEEKS, AND A SECOND IDF SOLDIER KILLED IN LEBANON THE SAME DAY; EU SANCTIONS ON HAMAS LEADERS AND ISRAELI WEST BANK SETTLERS ADOPTED 11 MAY AFTER LOSS OF HUNGARIAN VETO; TRUMP IRAN-PEACE TRACK STILL PAUSED WITH OPERATION PROJECT FREEDOM ON HOLD AFTER ONE-DAY RUN ON 4 MAY, TEHRAN STILL TIES ANY WIDER DEAL TO ISRAELI HALT OF THE LEBANON CAMPAIGN; IDF ANNOUNCES 26 MAY THAT GOLANI BRIGADE RECONNAISSANCE UNIT EXECUTED A WEEKLONG COVERT GROUND RAID NORTH OF THE LITANI RIVER ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF ZAWTAR AL-SHARQIYAH ROUGHLY 10 KM FROM THE BORDER, ACHIEVING OPERATIONAL CONTROL OVER THE AREA AND CLEARING HEZBOLLAH TUNNELS, WEAPON DEPOTS AND ROCKET LAUNCHERS WHILE KILLING DOZENS OF HEZBOLLAH OPERATIVES IN CLOSE-QUARTERS COMBAT AND AIRSTRIKE DIRECTION, ARMOURED VEHICLES CROSSED THE RIVER WITH ENGINEERING WORK COMPLETED TO ENABLE FOLLOW-ON CROSSINGS, THE FIRST IDF GROUND CROSSING OF THE LITANI SINCE THE 8 APRIL ETERNAL DARKNESS PACKAGE OPENED THE CAMPAIGN AND THE OPERATIONAL FOLD-THROUGH OF THE ESCALATION INDICATOR PREVIOUSLY HELD IN STANDING; STAFF SGT NOAM HAMBURGER OF THE 401ST ARMORED BRIGADE KILLED 22 MAY BY HEZBOLLAH DRONE NEAR THE NORTHERN BORDER, FOURTH IDF KIA ON THE LEBANON FRONT SINCE THE 23 APRIL EXTENSION; HOME FRONT COMMAND TO BEGIN ISSUING ADVANCE ALERTS ON INCOMING HEZBOLLAH ROCKET FIRE IN THE COMING DAYS, FORMALISING THE SHIFT FROM RECIPROCAL DETERRENCE TO SUSTAINED CIVILIAN-DEFENCE TEMPO. As of 24 May 2026. Israel manages an unstable equilibrium across three theatres — Iran (ceasefire holding pendingly), Lebanon (ceasefire technically in force, daily violations), and Gaza (Phase 1 nominally complete, Phase 2 stuck) — while domestic politics fracture under the cumulative cost of war, an unpopular Iran ceasefire, and an October legislative election.
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History
544 wordsThe land that comprises modern Israel has been inhabited continuously since prehistoric times and lies at the crossroads of ancient Near Eastern civilisations. Canaanite city-states are documented from the third millennium BCE, and Egyptian sources of the Late Bronze Age refer repeatedly to the region. Israelite kingdoms emerged in the early Iron Age, with biblical and archaeological tradition recording a unified monarchy under David and Solomon around the tenth century BCE that subsequently divided into the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Israel fell to the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 722 BCE, and Judah to the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 586 BCE, an event that destroyed the First Temple in Jerusalem and initiated the Babylonian exile.
Successive empires governed the territory thereafter. The Achaemenid Persians permitted a Jewish return and the building of the Second Temple; Alexander the Great's conquest in 332 BCE inaugurated Hellenistic rule under the Ptolemies and Seleucids. A Hasmonean Jewish state arose after the Maccabean revolt of 167 BCE before falling under Roman authority in 63 BCE. Roman repression of Jewish revolts in 70 CE and 135 CE, including the destruction of the Second Temple, scattered much of the Jewish population. The land then passed through Byzantine, early Islamic (Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid), Crusader, Ayyubid, and Mamluk hands before being incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517, which administered it for four centuries as part of the province of Greater Syria.
Ottoman rule ended during the First World War when British forces occupied the region in 1917, the same year the Balfour Declaration expressed British support for a Jewish national home in Palestine. The League of Nations granted Britain the Mandate for Palestine in 1922. Jewish immigration grew substantially during the Mandate, especially after the rise of Nazism in Europe, and intercommunal tensions between Jewish and Arab populations escalated. Following the Second World War and the Holocaust, the United Nations General Assembly approved a partition plan in November 1947. Britain withdrew on 14 May 1948, and on the same day David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel. Neighbouring Arab states intervened militarily, and the ensuing 1948 war ended with armistice lines that left Israel in control of more territory than the partition plan had assigned, while displacing a large Palestinian Arab population.
Subsequent decades were shaped by recurring conflict, including the Suez Crisis of 1956, the Six-Day War of 1967 (which brought the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula, and Golan Heights under Israeli control), and the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Israel signed peace treaties with Egypt in 1979 and with Jordan in 1994. The Oslo Accords of 1993 and 1995 established the Palestinian Authority and a framework for limited Palestinian self-government, though a final-status settlement was not reached. Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000 and from the Gaza Strip in 2005, while the West Bank remains under a mix of Israeli and Palestinian administration.
Israel is a parliamentary democracy whose government rests on a series of Basic Laws rather than a single written constitution. Executive authority is held by a cabinet led by the prime minister and accountable to the unicameral Knesset, while a largely ceremonial president serves as head of state. An independent judiciary, headed by the Supreme Court, completes the principal organs of the contemporary state.