World War I and the End of Ottoman Rule
World War I dramatically altered the political landscape of the Middle East. The Ottoman Empire sided with the Central Powers (Germany and Austria-Hungary). Britain, viewing the region strategically, launched campaigns against the Ottomans. In Palestine, British forces under General Allenby, after initial setbacks in the Battles of Gaza, eventually broke through Ottoman lines, capturing Beersheba and then Jerusalem in December 1917. This marked the end of four centuries of Ottoman rule.
During the war, Britain made several conflicting promises regarding the future of Ottoman territories. Crucially for Palestine, on November 2, 1917, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration. Communicated in a letter from Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lord Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, it stated that the British government viewed "with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people," and would use its "best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object." However, it crucially added the caveat "it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country". This declaration, born of complex wartime calculations including a desire to gain Jewish support for the Allied cause, laid the foundation for future conflict by endorsing Zionist aspirations while offering ambiguous assurances to the overwhelming Arab majority.
The Mandate for Palestine
After the war, the newly formed League of Nations established the Mandate system to administer former Ottoman territories. In 1922, the League formally granted Britain the Mandate for Palestine. The Mandate document incorporated the Balfour Declaration, legally obligating Britain to facilitate the creation of a Jewish national home while simultaneously safeguarding the rights of the Arab population and developing self-governing institutions. These dual obligations proved fundamentally contradictory and ultimately impossible to reconcile, forming the central dilemma of British rule for the next quarter-century. Britain established a civil administration, invested in some infrastructure development, and maintained control through its military and police forces.
Jewish Immigration, Land Acquisition, and Institution Building
Under the protective umbrella of the Mandate, the Zionist project advanced significantly. Jewish immigration (Aliyah) increased substantially, particularly the Fourth Aliyah (mid-1920s, primarily from Poland) and the Fifth Aliyah (1930s), which brought large numbers of Jews fleeing rising Nazism in Germany and Europe. This influx dramatically altered the country's demographic balance. The Jewish population grew from approximately 84,000 (11% of the total) in the 1922 census to around 630,000 (32% of the total) by 1947.
Alongside immigration, Zionist organizations continued to purchase land, often from absentee Arab landowners, establishing agricultural settlements like kibbutzim and moshavim, as well as expanding urban centers, most notably Tel Aviv. Parallel to this, the Jewish community (the Yishuv) developed sophisticated autonomous political and social institutions, including the Jewish Agency (recognized by the Mandate as representing Jewish interests), a school system, healthcare services, and paramilitary organizations like the Haganah, initially formed for self-defense.
Palestinian Arab Society and Resistance
The Palestinian Arab population, predominantly rural and agricultural, faced significant challenges under the Mandate. While some benefited from economic development, many experienced economic hardship, land dispossession (as land purchased by Zionist funds was often removed from the potential tenancy market for Arab farmers), and growing political marginalization. The rapid increase in Jewish immigration and land acquisition was widely perceived as a direct threat to their presence and aspirations for self-determination in their homeland.
Arab opposition manifested in political organization, protests, and recurrent waves of violence. Major outbreaks included riots in Jaffa in 1921 and widespread disturbances in 1929, triggered by disputes over the Western Wall in Jerusalem, which included a notorious massacre of the ancient Jewish community in Hebron and attacks elsewhere, leading to the evacuation of the small remaining Jewish presence in Gaza. The most significant uprising was the Arab Revolt of 1936-1939, a sustained national insurrection involving a general strike and widespread guerrilla warfare against both British forces and the Yishuv. The British suppressed the revolt harshly, significantly weakening the Palestinian Arab leadership and military capacity ahead of the crucial 1948 conflict.
The Path to Partition
Faced with escalating violence and the irreconcilable demands of both communities, Britain struggled to find a political solution. The Peel Commission in 1937 investigated the causes of the Arab Revolt and, for the first time, recommended partitioning Palestine into separate Arab and Jewish states, with a continuing British mandate over Jerusalem and a corridor to the sea. The Zionist leadership reluctantly accepted partition in principle, while the Arab leadership rejected it outright. In 1939, seeking to quell Arab unrest on the eve of World War II, Britain issued a White Paper that severely restricted Jewish immigration and land purchases, effectively repudiating the partition idea and envisioning an independent Palestine with a shared government within ten years. This policy shift angered the Zionists.
World War II and the revelation of the Holocaust created immense international sympathy for the plight of European Jewry and intensified pressure for the establishment of a Jewish state as a refuge. Post-war, Britain, exhausted and unable to resolve the conflict, decided in 1947 to relinquish the Mandate and hand the problem over to the newly formed United Nations. The UN appointed a Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP), which recommended partition into independent Arab and Jewish states, with Jerusalem placed under an international regime. On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 181, endorsing the partition plan. The Jewish Agency accepted the plan, seeing it as international legitimation for statehood, despite dissatisfaction with the proposed borders. The Arab leadership and Arab states vehemently rejected the plan, viewing it as unjust and a violation of the rights of the Arab majority.
Throughout the Mandate, Gaza City remained a relatively prosperous market town, serving as a hub for the surrounding agricultural district. The wider Gaza area was largely rural. As noted, its small Jewish community had been forced out during the 1929 riots. The conflicting promises embedded in the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate itself, coupled with Britain's vacillating policies, created an environment where the competing nationalisms inevitably clashed, setting the stage for the war that erupted as the Mandate ended.