Palestinian Fedayeen insurgency

The Palestinian Fedayeen insurgency was an armed cross-border conflict, which peaked between 1949 and 1956, involving Israel and Palestinian militants, mainly based in the Gaza Strip, under the nominal control of the All-Palestine Protectorate – a Palestinian client-state of Egypt declared in October 1948, which became the focal point of the Palestinian fedayeen activity. Hundreds were killed in the course of the conflict, which declined after the 1956 Suez Crisis.

Emerging from among the Palestinian refugees who fled or were expelled from their villages as a result of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, in the mid-1950s the fedayeen began mounting cross-border operations into Israel from Syria, Egypt and Jordan. The earliest infiltrations were often made in order to access the lands and agricultural products, which Palestinians had lost as a result of the war, later shifting to attacks on Israeli military and civilian targets. Fedayeen attacks were directed on Gaza and Sinai borders with Israel, and as a result Israel undertook retaliatory actions, targeting the fedayeen that also often targeted the citizens of their host countries, which in turn provoked more attacks.