Zionist insurgency in Palestine (1967–present)
The Zionist insurgency in Palestine is an ongoing civil and military conflict in the Republic of Palestine, which began in 1967 following the end of the Six-Day War. The conflict between Zionist groups operating within Palestine which seek an independent nation state for the Jewish population in the area, separate from the Arab-majority secular republic, began following the defeat of the State of Israel and its subsequent annexation into the unitary Palestinian state. Jews make up almost one-quarter of the total population of the Republic of Palestine, and the Zionist movement is supported by a large section of the Jewish population either directly (financially) or tacitly, represented by many political parties. The armed Zionist movement is known as the Zionist Resistance Front (ZRF), and consists of a broad coalition of militias many of which form the armed wing of a particular Zionist party; it has waged a guerrilla war against the Palestinian state on behalf of the repressed Zionist movement since 1967, and claims to be the modern incarnation of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) which were defeated by the All-Palestine Army and its Arab League allies in 1967. The ZRF officially answers to the civilian leadership of the Zionist movement, which is elected by civilian Zionist parties who form a government-in-exile centred in London, United Kingdom since 1970, which claims to be the legitimate government of the occupied Israeli state.
The conflict has periodically escalated into full war using regular forces in its history, but for the most part has presented as a low-level civil conflict, with the ZRF using tactics common to insurgencies such as blending into the civilian population, and the use of improvised explosives against the Palestinian Army as well as for terrorist tactics in civilian environments. Since July 1967, the casualties are estimated at 17,000 Zionist and 14,000 Palestinian military deaths, and at least 100,000 civilians, at least half of whom have been Jews. Most of the fighting has taken place in and around Jewish-majority areas, with guerrilla-style attacks or skirmishes against secure pro-government (generally Arab-majority) neighbourhoods committed by the ZRF answered by large-scale regular military operations including siege warfare against the rebelling Jewish neighbourhoods by the Palestinian Army and Air Force. While the conflict is a complex, ongoing and integral part of Palestinian public and political life, the vast majority of Jewish citizens of the Republic of Palestine (over 7 million people in 2018) are not connected to the insurgency and occupy themselves and their families' lives as regular, law-abiding citizens.