In a nutshell, the Jewish people had indigenous claims within Israel for many centuries. As did the Palestinians.
The topic of a Jewish state slowly became a serious political conversation in the 1800s with the Zionist movement. Jews were not welcomed in many parts of Europe, historically suffered various penalisations and antisemitism was common, similar to racism and homophobia of the times. Or Islamophobia today.
So in a way, yes WW2 and the holocaust brought it all to the fore and became something the Allied powers wanted to sort. The tragedy is that it should have been a two state solution from the start.
This post is not at all intended to support Israel’s actions in this latest round of war (I see the Israeli government’s actions as genocide), just to shed a very minor light on historical background.