France, Oct. 7 -- "What is unfolding in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem are not isolated incidents, but rather a malicious colonial project aimed at making life more difficult for Palestinians in their homeland and forcing them to leave," Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told the United Nations on 24 September.

Few territorial disputes are as visibly reflected in changing maps as that of Palestine - from British Mandate Palestine in 1946, the 1947 UN Partition Plan, the borders that emerged after the 1948-1949 Arab-Israeli war to the fragmented Palestinian territories of today.

Even before the Hamas-led attacks on Israel of 7 October, 2023 and the war that followed, the territory envisaged for a Palestinian state had...