Gaza War (2008–2009)
The Gaza War, also known as the First Gaza War, Operation Cast Lead, or the Gaza Massacre, and referred to as the Battle of al-Furqan by Hamas, was a three-week armed conflict between Gaza Strip Palestinian paramilitary groups and the Israel Defense Forces that began on 27 December 2008 and ended on 18 January 2009 with a unilateral ceasefire. The conflict resulted in 1,166–1,417 Palestinian and 13 Israeli deaths. Over 46,000 homes were destroyed in Gaza, making more than 100,000 people homeless.
A six month long ceasefire between Israel and Hamas ended on 4 November, when the IDF made a raid into Deir al-Balah, central Gaza to destroy a tunnel, killing several Hamas militants. Israel said the raid was a preemptive strike and Hamas intended to abduct further Israeli soldiers, while Hamas characterized it as a ceasefire violation, and responded with rocket fire into Israel. Attempts to renew a truce between Israel and Hamas were unsuccessful. On 27 December, Israel began Operation Cast Lead with the stated aim of stopping rocket fire. In the initial air assault, Israel attacked police stations, military targets including weapons caches and suspected rocket firing teams, as well as political and administrative institutions, striking in the densely populated cities of Gaza, Khan Yunis and Rafah. After hostilities broke out, Palestinian groups fired rockets in retaliation for the aerial bombardments and attacks. The international community considers indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian structures that do not discriminate between civilians and military targets as illegal under international law.
An Israeli ground invasion began on 3 January. On 5 January, the IDF began operating in the densely populated urban centers of Gaza. During the last week of the offensive, Israel mostly hit targets it had damaged before and struck Palestinian rocket-launching units. Hamas intensified its rocket and mortar attacks against mostly civilian targets in southern Israel, reaching the major cities of Beersheba and Ashdod for the first time during the conflict. Israeli politicians ultimately decided against striking deeper within Gaza amid concerns of higher casualties on both sides and rising international criticism. The conflict ended on 18 January, when the IDF first declared a unilateral ceasefire, followed by Hamas' announcing a one-week ceasefire twelve hours later. The IDF completed its withdrawal on 21 January.
In September 2009, a UN special mission, headed by the South African Justice Richard Goldstone, produced a report accusing both Palestinian militants and the Israeli army of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity, and recommended bringing those responsible to justice. In 2011, Goldstone wrote that he does not believe that Israel intentionally targeted civilians in Gaza as a matter of explicit policy. The other authors of the report, Hina Jilani, Christine Chinkin, and Desmond Travers, stated that no new evidence had been gathered that disputed the report's findings. The United Nations Human Rights Council ordered Israel to conduct various repairs of the damage. On 21 September 2012, the United Nations Human Rights Council concluded that 75% of civilian homes destroyed in the attack were not rebuilt.
Background
Since 1967, Israel had occupied the Palestinian territories. Following the death of Yassar Arafat in November 2004, his successor to the Palestinian Authority, President Mahmoud Abbas, and Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon signed a ceasefire agreement on 8 February 2005, essentially bringing an end to the Second Intifada. On 17 March 2005, the 13 main Palestinian factions including Hamas and Islamic Jihad agreed to be bound by the February agreement, conditional on cessation of Israeli attacks. Israel maintains that its occupation of Gaza ended following the completion of its unilateral disengagement plan in September 2005. Because in the post-disengagement period Israel has continued to control and occupy Gaza's airspace and territorial waters, and continues to restrict or prohibit the movement of people or goods in or out of Gaza and to unilaterally dictate what Gazans may do in a border strip of variable and undefined width in their own territory, the UN, the International Criminal Court Human Rights Watch, and many other NGOs consider Israel still to be the occupying power.Hamas refrained from firing rockets toward Israel for 14 months in accordance with the February ceasefire agreement, until IDF naval shelling hit a Gaza beach, killing seven civilians, on 10 June 2006.
Israel and the Quartet failed to anticipate Hamas's electoral victory in the January 2006 legislative elections, which the U.S. had pushed for. The victory permitted the formation of a Hamas-led Palestinian Authority government in March 2006. The Quartet conditioned future foreign assistance to the Hamas-led PA on the future government's commitment to nonviolence, recognition of the state of Israel, and acceptance of previous agreements. Hamas rejected the demands, calling the conditions unfair and endangering the well-being of Palestinians, leading to Quartet suspension of its foreign assistance program and to Israel imposing economic sanctions. In a widely cited article, David Rose outlined material suggesting that the United States and Israel then attempted to have the Palestinian National Authority stage a coup to overturn the election results, a manoeuvre Hamas is said to have preempted in Gaza with its takeover from Fatah.
In June 2007, following Hamas's takeover of Gaza from Fatah, Israel imposed a ground, air, and maritime blockade, and announced it would allow only humanitarian supplies into the Strip. Palestinian groups were partially able to bypass the blockade through tunnels, some of which are said to have been used for weapons smuggling. According to a US diplomatic cable that quoted Israeli diplomats, Israel's policy was to "keep Gaza's economy on the brink of collapse". After a three-and-a-half-year legal battle waged by the Gisha human rights organization, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories finally released a 2008 document that detailed its "red lines" for "food consumption in the Gaza Strip", in which a calculation was made of the number of calories needed to be provided to Gaza by external sources to avoid malnutrition. COGAT said that the document was a draft, and never discussed nor implemented. An Israeli appeal court disagreed.
Between 2005 and 2007, Palestinian groups in Gaza fired about 2,700 locally made Qassam rockets into Israel, killing four Israeli civilians and injuring 75 others. During the same period, Israel fired more than 14,600 155 mm artillery shells into the Gaza Strip, killing 59 Palestinians and injuring 270. According to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, between 2005 and 2008, 116 Israelis, including civilians and Israeli security forces, which includes Israeli police, Israeli Border Police and members of the armed services, were killed in both Israel and the Palestinian Territories in "direct conflict related incidents" and 1,509 were injured. During this time, 1,735 Palestinians, including civilians and militants from various groups, were killed and 8,308 wounded in "direct conflict related incidents".
2008 six-month ceasefire
Israel had been preparing to intervene militarily in the Gaza Strip since March 2007. In June as talks for a negotiated agreement between the two parties were underway, the defense minister Ehud Barak ordered the IDF to prepare operational plans for action within the Strip. On 19 June 2008, an Egyptian-brokered six-month "lull" or pause in hostilities between Israel and Hamas went into effect. The agreement had no mutually agreed text or enforcement mechanism and eventually collapsed. The lull agreed to was thought necessary to allow time for the IDF to prepare its operation.The agreement required Hamas to end rocket and mortar attacks on Israel, while that country would cease attacks on and military incursions into Gaza, plus progressively ease the blockade of Gaza over a thirteen-day period.
Points on which there was not mutual agreement included an end to Hamas' military buildup in Gaza and movement toward the release of Corporal Shalit.
Hamas called on all of Gaza's militant groups to abide by the truce, and was confident they would do so. Defense Ministry Official Amos Gilad, the Israeli envoy to the talks, stressed that Israel demanded a ceasefire, meaning that even one single rocket fired will be seen as a violation of the agreement. He added that Egypt, on its side, was committed to preventing the smuggling activity from Gaza. Gilad also said that Israel would hold Hamas responsible for attacks from Gaza. In a British Foreign Affairs Committee investigation, Dr Albasoos said that "Unfortunately, on 4 November 2008, the Israeli army killed six Palestinians. I was leaving the Gaza Strip to come to the UK that same night. I remember when the Israeli army invaded the middle area of the Gaza Strip, killing six Palestinians. It was outrageous from their side to come and breach that ceasefire. I believe that Palestinian political factions, including Hamas, committed to that ceasefire and still have the intention to renew it in the near future, as soon as possible." In rebuttal, Ms Bar-Yaacov said that "The Israelis had added a condition to the tahdia, being concerned that Hamas was building tunnels to go under the Israeli border and kidnap more Israeli soldiers. The condition stated that if Hamas came within 500 metres of the border, they would attack and that is exactly what happened." British barrister and professor Geoffrey Nice, and General Nick Parker, opined during a lecture that "Building a tunnel was not a breach of the ceasefire but the armed incursion into Gaza definitely was."
Implementation
Pre-5 November 2008: "The ceasefire has brought enormous improvements in the quality of life in Sderot and other Israeli villages near Gaza, where before the ceasefire residents lived in fear of the next Palestinian rocket strike. However, nearby in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli blockade remains in place and the population has so far seen few dividends from the ceasefire."Hamas was careful to maintain the ceasefire. Despite Israel's refusal to comply significantly with the truce agreement to end the siege/blockade, Hamas brought rocket and mortar fire from Gaza to a virtual halt during the summer and fall of 2008. Hamas "tried to enforce the terms of the arrangement" on other Palestinian groups, taking "a number of steps against networks which violated the arrangement", including short-term detention and confiscating their weapons, but it could not completely end the rocket and mortar shell attacks by these rogue factions in Gaza. Hamas had sought support in Gazan public opinion for its policy of maintaining the ceasefire. On 2 August there were massive clashes in Gaza City after Hamas had stepped up its campaign to curb Fatah from attacking Israel
The truce started uneasily with the UN recording seven IDF violations of the ceasefire between 20 and 26 June. On various occasions Israeli forces shot at farmers, wood collectors and fishermen in Gaza territory, seriously injuring two farmers. Subsequently, between 23 and 26 June, nine Qassam rockets were fired at Israel in three separate violations by Palestinian groups not affiliated with Hamas. No Israelis were injured. Islamic Jihad reportedly fired the rockets in retaliation for Israeli assassinations of their members in the West Bank.
According to sources close to the ceasefire negotiations, after 72 hours from the start of the ceasefire, the crossing points would be opened to allow 30 per cent more goods to enter the Gaza strip. Ten days after that, all crossings would be open between Gaza and Israel, and Israel will allow the transfer of all goods that were banned or restricted to go into Gaza. Therefore, besides firing on and killing Gaza citizens, Israel failed further to comply with these truce obligations to ease the blockade that were crucial to all groups in Gaza. Islamic Jihad put pressure on Hamas to press Israel to comply with this vital part of the truce. The Carter Center recorded, based on U.N. OCHAO data, that instead of easing the blockade according to the agreed schedule, "... despite the 97% drop in attacks, the truce did not do much to ease the siege of Gaza. Imports increased only marginally... only 27% of the amount of goods entering in January 2007" were allowed through at best. No exports were allowed. After the June 2008 ceasefire, the number of Palestinians entering and exiting Gaza at the Rafah crossing with Egypt increased slightly, with 108 people leaving in August 2008, but this number decreased soon after to only one in October 2008. The passage of Gazans through the Erez crossing reveal similar low numbers. Historian Ian Bickerton argues that Israel's failure to comply with the terms of the truce made conditions harder in Gaza.
Even though not part of the generally accepted truce terms, by 23 June 2006 Hamas and Israel began talks, via an Egyptian intermediary, regarding the release of the captured IDF soldier, Shalit.
"As of 15 August, the UN reported that Israel was allowing a few new items into Gaza but said that overall humanitarian conditions had not significantly improved since the cease-fire began". After a few weeks of calm, clashes resumed. On 12 September the IDF shot and seriously wounded an unarmed Palestinian who strayed close to the border. A retaliatory rocket was fired. On 16 September IDF troops entered central Gaza to bulldoze land along the border fence. On 23 September, the UN reported, "Although the cease-fire has afforded the populations in southern Israel and Gaza greater security, there has been no corresponding improvement in living conditions for the population in Gaza." After the initial increase of goods allowed into Gaza to 30% of the 2007 levels, OCHAO data shows that the through-flow then fell rapidly through the September–October lull in rocket fire to below even pre-June levels.
Notwithstanding Hamas not having fired a single rocket during the truce prior to 5 November 2008, Israel accused Hamas of bad faith and of violations of the Egyptian-mediated truce. Even though neither was included as Hamas obligations under the generally accepted terms of this truce, Israel noted that rocket fire from Gaza never stopped entirely and that weapons smuggling was not halted, Hamas, in turn, accused Israel of non-compliance with the truce by never allowing the major renewal of goods' flow into Gaza and of conducting raids that killed Hamas fighters.
During October 2008 Israel-Palestinian violence fell to its lowest level since the start of the al-Aqsa intifada in September 2000. One rocket and one mortar shell were fired at Israel in October. However, during the same period several Israeli violations were reported: In South Gaza on 3 October the IDF fired on two unarmed Palestinians near the border and sent soldiers into the strip to arrest them and detain them in Israel. On 19 October IDF bulldozers entered Gaza. On 27 October IDF soldiers fired into Gaza for unknown reasons damaging a school in Khuza'a and injuring one child. Palestinian fishing boats off the Gaza coast were fired upon on four separate occasions during the month wounding two fishermen, one of them seriously. According to Mondoweiss, for the entire duration of the 2008 Hamas–Israel cease-fire – even after the Israeli raid of a Hamas tunnel on 4 November – not a single person was killed by rocket or mortar fire into Israel.