Israel and the Palestinians: From 2010 to the present

In the last of 10 programmes exploring the origins and tracing the history of the Middle East conflict, presenter Jonny Dymond is joined by journalist Jane Corbin, who has covered the region for three decades, and the BBC’s international editor Jeremy Bowen. They start by discussing Israel’s economic success in the 2010s, and the situation in that period for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. This episode also covers Gaza’s “tunnel economy”, continuing Hamas attacks on Israel, the wars in Gaza in 2008, 2012 and 2014, the expansion of Israeli settlements on the West Bank, the stalling of Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts in the 2010s, and the Abraham Accords of 2020 between Israel and several Arab nations. Jonny and his guests conclude the series by looking at the impact and significance of Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October, 2023. How has that event and the war in Gaza that followed affected the long-term prospects for an end to the conflict?

(Photo: Palestinian and Israeli activists take cover as Israeli settlers fire live ammunition, while the activists were accompanying Palestinian landowners in their property, which is threatened with confiscation by Israeli settlers, in Beit Sahour in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, 14 August, 2026. Credit: Mussa Qawasma/Reuters)