This is a question I can answer objectively because I’m an historian. While I didn’t focus my studies on this part of the world, the history is key to the current crisis.

The Israelis captured the Gaza Strip and other lands in the area during the Six Day war in June 1967. The reason for going to war then was just. Egyptian forces invaded the Sinai Peninsula. So yes, when a country is invaded by a foreign army, a war is just. The capture of land in a war is just conduct. The Israelis then held the land during the Yom Kippur War in 1973, when a coalition of Arab Nations attacked them. My reckoning is that by the laws of war, this is incontrovertibly Israeli land. Each war that involved Israel has been started by the Arab Nations in this region.

If we are being honest, it has nothing to do with the land and everything to do with religion. They hate each other for worshipping a different God. That’s the real problem and it’s sad.