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In pictures: Israel at 70 - seven major moments

AFP Young Jews celebrate the proclamation of a new State of Israel on 14 May 1948 in Tel AvivAFP
Israel is marking 70 years, according to the Hebrew calendar, since independence was proclaimed. The day - 14 May 1948, according to the the Gregorian calendar - was a moment of tremendous joy for Jewish people around the world, and came just three years after the Holocaust. The move was rejected by neighbouring Arab countries and five armies attacked the newborn state the next day.
Keystone / Getty Images Young Palestinian children in Israel waiting for a UN project that will decide their future after the creation of the State of Israel, 1949Keystone / Getty Images
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs fled or were driven from their homes in the war that followed Israel's creation, marking the beginning of the Palestinian refugee problem that continues to this day. About 600,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries, as well as some 250,000 Holocaust survivors in Europe, settled in Israel in the first few years of the state's existence, more than doubling its Jewish population.
Getty Images Austrian Nazi war criminal Karl Adolf Eichmann (1906 - 1962) on trial in JerusalemGetty Images
In 1961, Israel put on trial in Jerusalem the top-ranking Nazi Adolf Eichmann, an architect of the Holocaust. Its agents had captured him in Argentina and smuggled him out of the country. For weeks, Israelis were gripped by harrowing testimony from survivors facing Eichmann in court. He was found guilty and hanged in 1962.
David Rubinger / Getty Images Israeli paratroopers gaze at Western Wall moments after recapture of Jewish holy site in Six-Day War, 1967David Rubinger / Getty Images
The 1967 Six Day War changed the landscape of the Middle East. Israel launched a pre-emptive attack on Egypt, whose leader had threatened to wipe out the Jewish state. The ensuing conflict with Egypt, Jordan and Syria ended with Israel occupying the Sinai peninsula, Gaza, East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights. It also placed the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City, one of Judaism's holiest sites, in Jewish hands for the first time in almost 2,000 years.
Keystone An Israeli hostage is greeted on her return to Israel after Operation Entebbe on 3 July 1976Keystone
A defining moment of Israel came in 1976, when Israeli commandos launched a dramatic raid to rescue more than 100 hostages, mostly Israelis or Jews, held by Palestinian and pro-Palestinian hijackers at Entebbe airport in Uganda. The freed hostages were then flown to Israel. The head of the commando force, Yoni Netanyahu - brother of the current prime minister - was killed in the operation.
AFP US President Bill Clinton (centre) stands between PLO leader Yasser Arafat (right) Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, as the two shake hands.AFP
An historic handshake between two old adversaries - Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat - created a rare moment of hope for an end to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. In September 1993, after weeks of secret negotiations, an interim peace agreement was signed on the White House lawn in front of US President Bill Clinton.
AFP Israeli army generals carry the coffin of assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin outside the Israeli Knesset (parliament) in Jerusalem (5 November 1995)AFP
Two years later, Rabin was assassinated at a peace rally in Tel Aviv by a nationalist Jewish extremist opposed to the peace agreement. The murder sent shockwaves across Israel and dignitaries from around the world came to Rabin's funeral, a sign of the esteem in which he was held.