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ChemEnhanced has given basically correct answers; I'll post my own in the interests of completeness.
- Most Palestinians are Sunni (not Shiite) Muslim.
- Most Israelis are of Jewish descent but tend to be secular.
- Yes, religion is partly behind the animosity, as radical Islam tends to have a very strong hatred of not only Jews but also western powers, which Israel is closely linked to. Obviously, as others have stated, there is also a legitimate and mostly irresolvable land ownership dispute adding fuel to the fire, as well as a history of war and escalation spanning several generations now.
- I also have not heard anyone say that Israelis are not "real" Jews, although orthodox Judaism is not necessarily widely practiced there, so perhaps that is what you heard.
- Gaza is a tiny and basically useless piece of land, but it has military importance. The constant rocket attacks only started after Israel evacuated its settlers from the Gaza strip; the parts of Palestine beyond Gaza aren't really close enough to any populated Israeli cities to cause real damage with their crappy weapons.
- I wouldn't say that Jordan is actually part of this conflict, but its history is tied very closely to Palestine. In 1951, King Abdullah of Jordan, one of the few moderate Arab leaders at the time, was assassinated by a Palestinian who stated he was afraid of the king making peace with Israel. It was actually a pretty gruesome scene, but I'll spare you the details. Then, later, in September of 1970 ("Black September"), Fatah (the main faction of the PLO at the time) had set up a sort of semi-autonomous state within Jordan; the territory they controlled was rapidly expanding and King Hussein understandably wasn't happy about this, and after several months of armed conflict, expelled most of the PLO and a great many Palestinians to Lebanon and parts of Israel. Jordan today is a vocal supporter of the two-state solution; you might say that they've always had a sort of tenuous support for Israel and this tends to piss off Palestinians.
- Hamas is a radical Islamist group with the stated aim of the elimination of the "zionist entity" (Israel). They are also presently the democratically-elected government in Palestine.
- Hezbollah is another radical (Shiite) Islamist group based in Syria and Lebanon, but backed economically and militarily by Iran (or at least that's the prevailing belief), so they have a lot more resources and are more well-trained than Hamas. They are not exactly a political party, and are not democratically elected, but have a very large number of members in government and are often thought of as the de facto government of Syria and Lebanon. As ChemEnhanced said, they have nothing to do with the recent goings-on being debated in here, it's not clear that they actually want the elimination of the state of Israel, but they are bent on acquiring more territory and have had many run-ins with the IDF, including a major stir two years ago that started with the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier at a time of (relative) peace.
- As for what has been happening recently and why, I don't think it's appropriate to be starting another debate on that in another thread - that's precisely what's being discussed in the other one.
And of course, don't take my word for it, do your own research... this is just to give some starting points that you might not find just by browsing or reading the other responses.
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