Israel and Gaza have a long history of armed conflict

Israel and militants in the Gaza Strip have fought a series of armed conflicts in recent years, including some of the wars that have defined recent history in the region.

Palestinians take control of an Israeli tank after crossing the border fence with Israel from Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on October 7.

Israel and militants in the Gaza Strip have fought a series of armed conflicts in recent years, including some of the wars that have defined recent history in the region.

After occupying Gaza in 1967, Israel agreed to give Palestinians partial self-governance in part of the territory following the signing of the 1993 Oslo peace accords. Israel withdrew its remaining settlers and soldiers from the strip in 2005, paving the way for a policy that increasingly sealed off the enclave from the world.

After years in which Palestinians from Gaza often worked in Israel and moved freely in the country, Gaza has more recently come under blockade by both Israel and Egypt, penning in a territory the size of Washington, D.C., that is now home to more than two million people.

The Islamist group Hamas won Palestinian legislative elections in 2006 and seized greater control of Gaza in 2007 in an attempt to prevent a takeover by the rival Fatah group. It has been ruled by Hamas ever since.

2008-2009: Operation Cast Lead

In late December 2008, Israeli forces launched a three-week military operation in Gaza that killed more than 1,300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis, including 10 soldiers. The war came after an Israeli raid in Gaza the previous month, which broke an Egyptian-brokered truce that had resulted in a lull in violence between militant groups and Israel. The breakdown of the truce resulted in an escalation of Israeli attacks on Gaza and Palestinian rocket fire into Israel.

Israel launched three weeks of intense aerial bombardment of the Gaza Strip, resulting in widespread destruction of infrastructure and the bombing of a United Nations headquarters in Gaza City. Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups also fired rockets into Israel.

2012: Operation Pillar of Clouds

In November 2012 Israel launched an eight-day offensive on Gaza that began with a drone strike that killed a senior Hamas military commander, Ahmed Jaabari. The conflict again resulted in intense Israeli bombardment of Gaza and another wave of Palestinian rocket attacks inside Israel. The war killed more than 100 Palestinian civilians, two Israeli soldiers and four Israeli civilians.

People mourn the death of Palestinians who were killed in the latest infiltration operation into Israel, outside al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on October 7.

The 2012 conflict ended relatively quickly due to intensive diplomacy by the government of Egypt, which was then led by President Mohammed Morsi, who had been elected that year in the wake of the country’s 2011 uprising.

2014: Operation Protective Edge

Israel’s longest and most intense military operation in Gaza so far took place in the summer of 2014 when Israeli forces launched a 50-day operation against Palestinian militants, resulting in the killing of more than 2,000 Palestinians and the destruction of more than 7,000 homes and damage to 118 U.N. installations in Gaza, according to the U.N. In addition 67 Israeli soldiers, five Israeli civilians and a Thai civilian were killed. The Israeli military operation included both airstrikes and a ground operation.

Smoke billows from a power station in Ashkelon on October 7, as barrages of rockets were fired from the Palestinian enclave into Israeli territory.

After years in which Palestinian military groups had used only makeshift rockets, mortars and other weapons with a limited range, Gaza armed groups showed an upgraded capability to fire deep into Israeli territory, with rockets reaching Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

2021 Gaza conflict

Following weeks of escalating confrontations in Jerusalem, which included Israeli security forces raiding the Al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, the third-holiest site in Islam, Hamas and Islamic Jihad fired a barrage of rockets into Israel. Israel then launched a campaign of airstrikes that resulted in the killing of more than 250 people in Gaza. On the Israeli side, 14 civilians and one soldier were killed. During the escalation, Israeli forces destroyed a high-rise building in Gaza City that housed the offices of several news organizations, including the Associated Press and Al Jazeera.

This round of fighting ended after 11 days with an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire.

The Wall Street Journal