At the center of one of the world's most intractable conflicts are a people who number fewer than 12 million worldwide: the Palestinians. For centuries these people of Arab ancestry lived in the eastern Mediterranean region known as Palestine or, because of its religious significance, as the Holy Land. In 1948 a United Nations plan to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab states led to what Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip areas under Israeli military rule. Since that time, Palestinians and Israelis have been locked in bloody conflict. The continued violence has prevented the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, and fueled unrest elsewhere in the Middle East.