I haven't checked this out. But if it's true . . .
Here's an excerpt from the Wikipedia article "Operation Protective Edge":
The 2014 Gaza War, also known as Operation Protective Edge (Hebrew: מִבְצָע צוּק אֵיתָן, Miv'tza Tzuk Eitan, lit. "Operation Strong Cliff")[note 3][26][27][28] was a military operation launched by Israel on 8 July 2014 in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.[note 4] Following the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers by Hamas members, the IDF conducted Operation Brother's Keeper to arrest militant leaders, Hamas fired rockets into Israel and a seven-week conflict broke out. It was one of the deadliest conflicts between the Palestinians and Israel in decades. The combined Israeli airstrikes and ground bombardment and Palestinian rocket attacks resulted in thousands of deaths, the vast majority of which were Gazans.[29]
The Israeli operation was designed to stop rocket fire from Gaza into Israel, which increased after an Israeli crackdown on Hamas in the West Bank was launched following the 12 June kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers by two Hamas members.[30][31][32] Conversely, Hamas's goal was to bring international pressure to bear to lift Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip, end Israel's offensive, obtain a third party to monitor and guarantee compliance with a ceasefire,[33] release Palestinian prisoners and overcome its political isolation.[34] According to the BBC, in response to rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, Israel launched air raids on Gaza.[35]
On 7 July, after seven Hamas militants died in a tunnel explosion in Khan Yunis which was caused by an Israeli airstrike (per Hamas, Nathan Thrall, BBC and a senior IDF official[36]) or an accidental explosion of their own munitions (per the IDF), Hamas assumed responsibility for rockets fired into Israel and launched 40 rockets towards Israel.[37][38] The operation officially began the following day, and on 17 July, the operation was expanded to an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza with the stated aim of destroying Gaza's tunnel system;[39] Israeli ground forces withdrew on 5 August.[40] On 26 August, an open-ended ceasefire was announced.[41] By that date, the IDF reported that Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other militant groups had fired 4,564 rockets and mortars from Gaza into Israel, with over 735 intercepted in flight and shot down by Iron Dome. Most Gazan mortar and rocket fire hit open land. More than 280 fell on areas in Gaza,[42][43][44] and 224 struck residential areas.[45][46] Militant rocketry also killed 13 Gazan civilians, 11 of them children.[47][48] The IDF attacked 5,263 targets in Gaza; at least 34 known tunnels were destroyed[45] and two-thirds of Hamas's 10,000-rocket arsenal was used up or destroyed.[49][50]
Between 2,125[20] and 2,310[18] Gazans were killed and between 10,626[18] and 10,895[51] were wounded (including 3,374 children, of whom over 1,000 were left permanently disabled[52]). Gazan civilian casualty rates estimates range between 70% by the Gaza Health Ministry,[14][22][51] 65% by United Nations Protection Cluster by OCHA (based in part Gaza Health Ministry reports),[19] and 36% by Israeli officials,[53][20] The UN estimated that more than 7,000 homes for 10,000 families were razed, together with an additional 89,000 homes damaged, of which roughly 10,000 were severely affected by the bombing.[54] Rebuilding costs were calculated to run from 4–6 billion dollars, over 20 years.[55] 67 Israeli soldiers, 5 Israeli civilians (including one child)[56] and one Thai civilian were killed[14] and 469 IDF soldiers and 261 Israeli civilians were injured.[17] On the Israeli side, the economic impact of the operation is estimated at NIS 8.5 billion (approximately US$2.5 billion) and GDP loss of 0.4%.
0 comments:
Post a Comment