Palestinians

In reported Israel–Gaza exchange arrangements in 2025, the exchange pattern was that for each Israeli hostage returned, Israel released the remains of 15 Palestinians.

The Palestinians seek the West Bank and the Gaza Strip for a future independent state.

Palestinians seek the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip as the territory for a future Palestinian state.

The Israeli–Palestinian conflict has persisted for nearly eight decades as of 2025.

A 2025 Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found that roughly six in ten U.S. adults said President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress had "a great deal" or "quite a bit" of responsibility for the government shutdown.

Millions of Palestinians live under Israeli military occupation in the occupied West Bank and face restrictions on basic rights.

The Gaza Strip has a population of nearly 2 million Palestinians.

By October 2025, the Israel-Hamas war that began in October 2023 had lasted two years and had resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians and widespread destruction, displacement, and famine in parts of the Gaza Strip.

A 2025 plan promoted by U.S. President Donald Trump proposes that Gaza be initially governed by a temporary committee of technocrats, including qualified Palestinians and international experts, responsible for running public services.

A 2025 plan states that Palestinians in Gaza would be allowed to remain in Gaza and that those who wish to leave would be free to do so and free to return.

Israel's retaliatory military campaign following the October 2023 attack resulted in tens of thousands of Palestinian deaths and caused extensive devastation in Gaza as of 2025-10-08.

As of 2025-10-08, Israeli military actions during the Gaza war had reportedly resulted in the deaths of more than 67,000 Palestinians.

As of 2025-10-07, Gaza’s Health Ministry reported 67,160 Palestinian deaths and nearly 170,000 wounded in the war in Gaza; the ministry stated it does not differentiate between civilians and combatants and that more than half of the deaths were women and children, and the ministry is part of the Hamas-run government; the United Nations and many independent experts consider the ministry’s figures to be the most reliable estimate of wartime casualties.

In 2025, Gaza's Health Ministry reported that more than 67,000 Palestinians had been killed and nearly 170,000 had been wounded in the Israel-Hamas conflict.

As of 2025, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank expressed deep distrust toward both Israel and the United States, driven by a prolonged two-year war, ongoing settler violence in the West Bank, and military restrictions.

As of 2025, many Palestinians viewed external ceasefire or peace proposals with skepticism and believed such agreements were unlikely to produce lasting peace, citing past collapsed deals and distrust in the parties involved.

A United Nations commission concluded in 2025 that Israel had committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

The Trump administration supports a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, conditioned on direct negotiation with Israel and the fulfillment of defined security conditions.

A 2025 Gallup poll found about one-third of U.S. adults said they sympathized more with the Palestinians.

The U.S. State Department identifies grounds for visa revocation to include indicators of an overstay, criminal activity, threats to public safety, engagement in terrorist activity, and providing support to a terrorist organization, and the administration has characterized certain public statements (including criticism of U.S. support for Israel or expressions of support for Palestinians) as potentially falling under its broad definition of support for terrorism.

Under the Gaza ceasefire arrangement that began on 2023-10-10, Israel has been releasing the remains of 15 Palestinians for each Israeli hostage returned.

South Africa has a longstanding official stance of support for the Palestinian cause dating back to Nelson Mandela's presidency (1994–1999), and South African officials have compared Israel's treatment of Palestinians to apartheid while Israel rejects that comparison.

The 1993 Oslo Accords aimed to establish a negotiated peace process between Israel and the Palestinians but ultimately collapsed under pressure from extremist groups on both sides.

Israeli authorities commonly characterize Palestinian prisoners as terrorists, while many Palestinians characterize those prisoners as freedom fighters resisting a decades-long Israeli military occupation.

Palestinian prisoners carry strong political significance within Palestinian society because many Palestinians have friends or family members who have been detained by Israeli authorities, particularly young men.