2014 IsraelGaza conict

On 8 July 2014, Israel launched a military opera- 8,000[61] citizens temporarily ed their homes due to the
tion which it designated Operation Protective Edge threat of rocket and mortar attacks.[60]
(Hebrew: , Miv'tza Tzuk Eitan, lit. Operation Strong Cli)[note 1] in the Hamas-ruled Gaza
Strip. Thereafter, seven weeks of Israeli bombardment, Palestinian rocket attacks, and ground ghting 1 Background
killed more than 2,200 people, the vast majority of them
Gazans.[21][28][36][37]
Main article: IsraeliPalestinian conict
The stated aim of the Israeli operation was to stop
rocket re from Gaza into Israel, which increased after
an Israeli crackdown on Hamas in the West Bank was
launched following the kidnapping and murder of 3 Israeli teenagers[38] by two Hamas members.[39][40][41][42]
On 7 July, after seven Hamas militants died in a tunnel
explosion in Khan Yunis which was caused by an Israeli
airstrike (per Hamas) or an accidental explosion of their
own munitions (per the IDF), Hamas assumed responsibility for rockets red from Gaza and launched 40 rockets
towards Israel.[38][43][44][45][46][47] On 17 July, the operation was expanded to an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza
with the stated aim of destroying Gazas tunnel system;[48]
Israeli ground forces withdrew on 5 August.[49]

In 2005, then Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon

unilaterally withdrew Israeli forces and settlements from
the Gaza Strip.[62] Nonetheless, the ICRC,[63] the UN[64]
and various human rights organizations[65][66][67] consider
Israel to still be the de facto occupying power due to
its control of Gazas borders, air space and territorial
waters.[68][69] The following year, Hamas won a majority of seats in the Palestinian legislative elections. The
outcome disconcerted Israel, the United States and the
Quartet, and they demanded Hamas accept all previous agreements, recognize Israels right to exist, and renounce violence; when Hamas refused,[70] they cut o
aid to the Palestinian Authority. In mid-2006 an Israeli soldier was captured by Hamas in a cross-border
raid. The United States, in response to Fatah moves in
October 2006 to form a unity government with Hamas,
tried to undo the elections by arming Fatah to overthrow Hamas in Gaza.[71] Hamas preempted the coup and
took complete power by force.[72][73][74][75] Israel then
dened Gaza as a hostile territory forming no part of
a sovereign state and put Gaza under a comprehensive
economic and political blockade,[76] which also denied
access to a third of its arable land and 85% of its shing areas. It has led to considerable economic damage and humanitarian problems in Gaza.[77][78][79][80] The
overwhelming consensus of international institutions is
that the blockade is a form of collective punishment and
illegal.[81][82][83][84][85] Israel maintains that the blockade
is legal and necessary to limit Palestinian rocket attacks
from the Gaza Strip on its cities and to prevent Hamas
from obtaining other weapons.[86][87][88][89][90] Israel carried out Operation Cast Lead in December 2008 with
the stated aim of stopping rocket attacks from Hamas
militants.[91] It lead to a decrease in Palestinian rocket
attacks.[92] The UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza
Conict concluded that the operation was a deliberately
disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and
terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for
itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability.[93] The Israeli governments

On 26 August, an open-ended ceasere was

announced.[37] By this time, the IDF reported that
Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other militant groups had red
4,564 rockets and mortars from Gaza into Israel,[50][51]
while the IDF attacked 5,263 targets in Gaza; at least
34 known tunnels were destroyed[50] and two-thirds
of Hamass 10,000-rocket arsenal was used up or
destroyed.[52][53] A bomb disposal expert in the Palestinian Interior Ministry said that by 22 August, 20,000
tons of explosives had been dropped on Gaza.[54][55]
Between 2,127[31] and 2,189 [25] Gazans were killed (including 513 children) [25][28] and between 10,895[29] and
11,100[28] were wounded. 66 Israeli soldiers, 5 Israeli
civilians (including one child)[56] and one Thai civilian
were killed[21] and 469 IDF soldiers and 261 Israeli civilians were injured.[23] The Gaza Health Ministry, UN
and some human rights groups reported that 6975%
of the Palestinian casualties were civilians;[21][27][29] Israeli ocials estimated that around 50% of those killed
were civilians.[30][57] On 5 August, OCHA stated that
520,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip (approximately
30% of its population) might have been displaced, of
whom 485,000 needed emergency food assistance[58] and
273,000 were taking shelter in 90 UN-run schools.[59]
17,200 Gazan homes were totally destroyed or severely
damaged, and 37,650 homes suered damage but were
still inhabitable.[21] In Israel, an estimated 5,000[60] to
1