Start with the wider conflict before following its individual battles.
A war brings together events that may unfold on several fronts, involve different forces and continue through distinct phases. This index gives that wider setting. It includes wars and prolonged conflicts as well as campaigns, uprisings and riots, with the type identified for each record. Those labels help organize the history; they do not imply that every event had the same scale, legal status or course.
Open a record to understand the background, the parties involved and the outcome. Links connect the broader account to individual battles and operations, which may have their own objectives and results. A military success in one encounter does not, by itself, explain the outcome of the entire conflict. Where the beginning, endpoint or interpretation is disputed, the account identifies the source and the limits of what can be established.
CampaignJanuary 26, 1915 to October 31, 1918
The First World War campaign between the British and Ottoman empires for Sinai and Palestine, from the Suez Canal to Megiddo and Damascus. It ended Ottoman rule in the country and brought the Jewish battalions into battle.
Riots and disturbancesApril 4, 1920 to April 7, 1920
From April 4 to 7, 1920, during the Nebi Musa festival, Arab crowds attacked Jews in Jerusalem's Old City. Five Jews and four Arabs were killed and over two hundred people injured, and the riots led to the Haganah's founding.
Riots and disturbancesMay 1, 1921 to May 7, 1921
Between May 1 and 7, 1921, violence that began in Jaffa during May Day marches spread to Petah Tikva, Hadera and other colonies. The Haycraft Commission counted 47 Jews and 48 Arabs killed, among them the writer Yosef Haim Brenner.
Riots and disturbancesAugust 23, 1929 to August 29, 1929
A week of Arab attacks on Jews in August 1929, sparked by the dispute over the Western Wall and culminating in the Hebron and Safed massacres. The Shaw Commission counted 133 Jews and 116 Arabs killed.
UprisingApril 19, 1936 to 1939
An Arab uprising against British rule and Jewish immigration that began with a general strike in April 1936, became an armed rebellion and peaked in 1938. Britain crushed it in 1939, but it led to the Peel Commission and the 1939 White Paper.
ConflictFebruary 1, 1944 to November 29, 1947
The armed campaign of the Irgun, Lehi and for a time the Haganah against the British Mandate, from the revolt declaration of February 1944 to the partition vote of November 1947, combining sabotage, attacks and illegal immigration.
WarNovember 30, 1947 to July 20, 1949
The war that began the day after the UN partition vote, became a war against Arab state armies when Israel was declared, and ended with the 1949 armistice agreements. It fixed Israel's lines and created the Palestinian refugee problem.
Conflict1951 to October 1956
Between the 1949 armistice and the Sinai campaign, infiltration into Israel and Israeli reprisal raids fed each other, from Qibya to Qalqilya. The raids reshaped the IDF and helped lead to the 1956 war.
WarOctober 29, 1956 to November 5, 1956
In October and November 1956 Israel captured Sinai and the Gaza Strip in secret coordination with Britain and France. American and Soviet pressure forced a withdrawal, but the Straits of Tiran opened and the Gaza border went quiet.
WarJune 5, 1967 to June 10, 1967
A six-day war in June 1967 between Israel and Egypt, Jordan and Syria that left Israel holding Sinai, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, redrawing the map of the Middle East.
WarJuly 1, 1967 to August 7, 1970
A grinding war of artillery duels, commando raids and air battles, mainly against Egypt along the Suez Canal, in which Soviet pilots and missile crews took part in its final stage. It ended in a ceasefire on August 7, 1970, with the lines unchanged.
WarOctober 6, 1973 to October 25, 1973
On Yom Kippur, October 6, 1973, Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Israel in Sinai and the Golan Heights. Israel halted both offensives, crossed the Suez Canal and advanced into Syria, but the war's cost and the intelligence failure changed the country.
WarJune 6, 1982 to June 1985
On June 6, 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon to push the PLO away from the Galilee, fought the Syrian army and besieged Beirut. The PLO was expelled, but the war led to Sabra and Shatila, the Kahan Commission and a long stay in southern Lebanon.
ConflictJune 1985 to May 24, 2000
For fifteen years the IDF and the South Lebanon Army held a strip of southern Lebanon along the border against a sustained Hezbollah guerrilla campaign, until Israel's unilateral withdrawal on May 24, 2000.
UprisingDecember 9, 1987 to September 13, 1993
A mass Palestinian uprising in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that broke out in December 1987, lasted about six years and reshaped the conflict on the road to the Oslo Accords.
UprisingSeptember 29, 2000 to 2005
An armed Palestinian uprising that began in September 2000 after the Camp David summit failed, marked by suicide bombings in Israeli cities and Israeli operations in the West Bank and Gaza. It buried the Oslo process and faded in 2005.
ConflictSeptember 12, 2005 to October 7, 2023
Eighteen years of rocket fire, blockade, rounds of fighting and ceasefires between Israel and Hamas and the other armed groups in the Gaza Strip, from Israel's 2005 withdrawal to the attack of October 7, 2023.
WarJuly 12, 2006 to August 14, 2006
Thirty-four days of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, triggered by a cross-border raid on July 12, 2006 and ended by UN Security Council Resolution 1701. Close to 4,000 rockets struck northern Israel.
WarOctober 7, 2023 to ongoing
The war that began with the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023 and was fought mainly in the Gaza Strip. A ceasefire took effect on October 10, 2025 and all living hostages were freed, but the war has not formally ended.
WarOctober 8, 2023 to November 27, 2024
A 14-month war on Israel's northern border that Hezbollah opened on October 8, 2023, which became an Israeli offensive in September 2024, killed Hassan Nasrallah and ended with a ceasefire on November 27, 2024.
WarJune 13, 2025 to June 24, 2025
The 12-day war of June 13 to 24, 2025: Israel struck Iran's nuclear program, missile forces and commanders, Iran fired about 550 ballistic missiles at Israel, and the United States bombed Fordow.
WarFebruary 28, 2026 to ongoing
The war Israel and the United States opened against Iran on February 28, 2026, which killed Ali Khamenei and brought about 650 ballistic missiles on Israel; the April 8 ceasefire collapsed between Washington and Tehran in July.
