Israeli airstrikes hit Beit Lahiya, a city in the northern Gaza Strip, the Palestine autonomous region (photo by Reuter/Aflo)

The international community had regarded with apprehension, the great number of civilian casualties in the battles between Hamas, a Palestinian Islamic organization, and Israeli forces,. Israel and Palestine agreed on a ceasefire and reconstruction efforts have now begun in Gaza. However, is it possible to put an end to the conflict between Israel and Palestine that continue to repeat the cycle of conflict and ceasefire?

Three Jewish boys from Israel were found dead at the end of June this year. Several days later, a Palestinian teenager was kidnapped and killed in retribution. The Israeli forces took this occasion to carry out airstrikes on the Palestinian-controlled region of Gaza, which triggered a tit-for-tat exchange between Israel and Hamas.

More than 2000 Palestinians, including civilians, became victims in the 50-day conflict.
Both sides agreed to a ceasefire in October, but Israel began building new settlements in Eastern Jerusalem inside the Palestine autonomous region, leading to further conflict.

The Conflicts over the Holy City, Jerusalem

Since Israel was founded in Palestine in 1948, there have been four major wars and many on-going conflicts in this area. The fight among Jewish, Christians, and Muslims over the Holy City, Jerusalem, serves as a backdrop to this history, and continues with no end in sight.

The Christian nation, the United States, has been taking sides with Israel, the Jewish nation, as its ally. One of the major reasons is that the origins of Christianity are found in Judaism. Another reason is that there are many Jewish Americans among the key figures in the political and the business worlds in the US, and they are actively lobbying the U.S. government to adopt a pro-Israel policy.

Israel has been receiving a lot of military assistance including state-of-the-art weapons from the US, and is the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East. It is natural that the surrounding Arab nations regard it as a threat. So the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has now developed into one of “Judaism and Christianity versus Islam.”

What is the original cause of this conflict? What is the historical background? And what religious truth is hidden behind the conflict?