“The Six Day War was one of the greatest victories in the history of Israel,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently said.

Israel’s swift surprise victory in the 1967 conflict with its Arab neighbours not only secured the young Jewish state’s survival: it cemented the country’s position as a regional power.

While Israelis and Palestinians are marking the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the war on Monday 5 June, they will do so in very different ways.

Trump: Israelis and Palestinians are 'reaching for peace'

On Jerusalem Day (because of the Hebrew calendar, this year held on 24 May), Israelis celebrate what some see as the reunification of the city in the aftermath of the war, in which Israel annexed the east of the city and parts of the West Bank.

State-organised ceremonies and memorials are held, talks are given in schools, and blue and white flags are paraded through Jerusalem’s streets.

This year, as almost always, some Palestinian residents of the city were evacuated by police after ultra-nationalist marches threatened to turn violent.

Israel’s bold territorial gains in 1967 have never been recognised by the Palestinians or the vast majority of the international community.

Israel: From independence to intifada Show all 7 1 /7 Israel: From independence to intifada Israel: From independence to intifada The proclamation of the state of Israel is read by David Ben-Gurion in Tel Aviv on 14 May 1948 © EPA Israel: From independence to intifada Sixty years on, an illuminated flag is shown in Tel Aviv this week © PA Israel: From independence to intifada Young Jews celebrate the proclamation of the state of Israel in 1948 © AFP/Getty Images Israel: From independence to intifada Palestinian children throw stones at a retreating Israeli tank during an incursion into the West Bank city of Jenin in August 2003 following a suicide bombing in Jerusalem © AP Israel: From independence to intifada How Israel's borders have changed - click image to enlarge © Independent Graphics Israel: From independence to intifada From 1948-50, the world's mostcelebrated war photographer Robert Capa captured extraordinary imagesof Israel's pioneering settlers. Here, Turkish immigrants arrive in Haifa © Robert Capa/Getty Images Robert Capa/Magnum Israel: From independence to intifada The Negba kibbutz, where the walls have been damaged by shells fired during the Israeli-Arab war © Robert Capa/Getty Images Robert Capa/Magnum

For those in the West Bank and Gaza, the Arab-Israeli war is viewed as the naksa, or setback, the second worst event to befall Palestinians apart from the creation of Israel in 1948 (the nakba).

There has long been a vocal Israeli community which says the occupation harms Israel’s claim to legitimate statehood, and damages the chances of reaching peace with Palestinians.

On the 50th anniversary milestone, more than ever are beginning to question whether the struggle to control occupied Palestinian territory is worth it.

Israel must “cloak itself in sorrow also over what has happened to Israel since that terrible summer of 1967, the summer in which it won a war and lost nearly everything,” wrote Gideon Levy, a columnist in the Haaretz newspaper, in April. “Strong, armed and rich as it never was in 1967. Corrupt and rotten as only an occupying country can be.”

US President Donald Trump reiterated on his visit to the region last month his desire to broker a peace deal in the intractable conflict.