My understanding is that after ww2 lots of Jews moved to Israel until they made up a sizable portion of the population of Palestine. There was enough conflict between the 2 races/religions that Britian petitioned the UN to come up with a solution. The solution was breaking Palestine up into Israel and Palestine. There has been on and off conflict between the two groups ever since with Israel being the most successful in the conflict. I would say it's recently been largely a cold conflict with a few little skirmishes between them. Conventions of War only apply if there someone willing to enforce them.