The Gaza–Israel conflict is a localized part of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict beginning in 1948, when about 200,000 of the more than 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes settled in the Gaza Strip as refugees. Since then, Israel and Palestinian militant groups have fought 15 wars in the Gaza Strip. The number of Palestinians killed in the Gaza war (ongoing since 2023) (73,000+) is higher than the combined death toll of all other wars in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Israel fought three wars in the Egyptian-administered Gaza Strip: the 1948 Palestine war, the Suez Crisis during which Israel first occupied Gaza for a period of four months, and the Six-Day War in 1967 during which Israel captured Gaza from Egypt. During the first Israeli occupation, 1% of the Gaza Strip's population was killed, tortured, or imprisoned by Israel. Following two periods of low-level Palestinian insurgency, a major uprising against Israeli rule erupted in 1987, starting a period of unrest known as the First Intifada. The 1993 Oslo Accords brought a period of relative calm which was nevertheless disrupted by various events, including Israeli settler violence, suicide attacks by Palestinian militant groups, the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre, and the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. In 2000, the Second Intifada began. In 2005, towards the end of the Second Intifada, Israel disengaged from Gaza. Shortly thereafter, Hamas won the 2006 election in Gaza and seized control of the Strip in 2007. That same year, Israel imposed a land, air and sea blockade of the Gaza Strip, turning it into an "open-air prison". The blockade was widely condemned as a form of collective punishment, while Israel defended it as necessary to stop Palestinian rocket attacks. Hamas considered it a declaration of war. The 2008–2009 Israeli invasion of Gaza resulted in more than 1,000 deaths and widespread destruction of homes, schools and hospitals. A 2012 Israeli operation also killed more than 100 people. In 2014, Israel invaded Gaza in a major war that resulted in the deaths of 73 Israelis (mostly soldiers) and 2,251 Palestinians (mostly civilians). The invasion resulted in "unprecedented" destruction, damaging 25% of homes in Gaza City and 70% of homes in Beit Hanoun. After 2014, notable events in the conflict included the "Great March of Return" (2018–2019) and clashes in November 2018, May 2019 and November 2019. The 2021 crisis saw 256 Palestinians and 15 Israelis killed. On 7 October 2023, Palestinian militants attacked Israel, killing 1,195 people (mostly civilians), committing war crimes, taking hostages, and beginning the Gaza war. Israel responded by invading and bombing the Gaza Strip, killing more than 73,000 Gazans as of September 2026 and causing a humanitarian crisis and famine. Many scholarly sources and international organizations have concluded that Israel's actions in Gaza constitute genocide.
Background
The Green Line of the 1949 Armistice Agreements that formally ended the 1948 Palestine war formally established the territories of the Gaza Strip and the State of Israel in what had been Mandatory Palestine at the start of the war. Israel and Gaza have fought six wars since their establishment.
Military engagements
1948 Palestine War
In Operation Barak, part of Plan Dalet, the Zionist offensive in the civil war phase aiming to capture territory in advance of the establishment of the State of Israel, the Givati Brigade of the Haganah attacked, depopulated, and demolished Arab villages north of Gaza. On 22 December, large IDF forces started Operation Horev. Its objective was to encircle the Egyptian Army in the Gaza Strip and force the Egyptians to end the war. The operation was a decisive Israeli victory, and Israeli raids into the Nitzana area and the Sinai Peninsula forced the Egyptian army into the Gaza Strip, where it was surrounded. Israeli forces withdrew from Sinai and Gaza under international pressure and after the British threatened to intervene against Israel. The Green Line established in the 1949 Armistice Agreements at the end of the war, which delineated the boundaries of the Gaza Strip, corresponded to the military front of the 1948 war. The All-Palestine Protectorate (September 1948 – 1959) was established in the territory under the control of the Kingdom of Egypt and, after the Egyptian revolution of 1952, the Republic of Egypt.
Suez Crisis
Israel occupied the Gaza Strip for four months during the Suez Crisis in 1956. During this occupation, 930–1,200 Palestinians were killed, most notably in the Khan Younis massacre and Rafah massacre. In total, about 1% of the population of the Gaza Strip was either killed, wounded, tortured or imprisoned by Israel. In 1957, Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip after American pressure.
1967 war
In the 1967 war, Israel occupied Gaza Strip, along with Sinai, Golan Heights and the West Bank. During the war, and shortly after, between 40,000 and 45,000 civilians fled or were expelled from the Gaza Strip. Many Palestinian civilians were killed as they fled. On 11 June, a grenade killed 8 Gaza civilians and a shooting killed another 10. After the 1967 war, several Israeli leaders argued against turning the Armistice Demarcation Lines into permanent borders on the grounds of Israeli security:
Prime Minister Golda Meir said the pre-1967 borders were so dangerous that it "would be treasonable" for an Israeli leader to accept them (The New York Times, December 23, 1969). The Foreign Minister Abba Eban said the pre-1967 borders have "a memory of Auschwitz" (Der Spiegel, November 5, 1969). Prime Minister Menachem Begin described a proposal for a retreat to the pre-1967 borders as "national suicide for Israel."
First Intifada
During the First Intifada, in the Gaza Strip alone, 142 Palestinians were killed, while no Israelis died: 77 were shot dead, and 37 died from tear-gas inhalation. Seventeen died from beatings at the hand of Israeli police or soldiers.
Israel–Gaza barrier
Israel completed the initial Gaza–Israel barrier in 1996. It has helped reduce infiltration from Gaza Strip into Israel. Special permits to enter Israel for medical purposes were also greatly reduced, which has made travel for Palestinians difficult. Daniel Schueftan, in his 1999 book, Disengagement: Israel and the Palestinian Entity ("The Need for Separation: Israel and the Palestinian Authority"), reviews new and existing arguments underlying different separation stances, in order to make the case for separation from the Palestinians, beginning with those in the West Bank and Gaza. Schueftan favors the "hard separation" stances of politicians like Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak. Yitzhak Rabin was the first to propose the creation of a physical barrier between the Israeli and Palestinian populations in 1992, and by 1994, construction on the first barrier—the Israel–Gaza barrier—had begun; it is actually a wire fence equipped with sensors. Following an attack on Bet Lid, near the city of Netanya, Rabin specified the objectives behind the undertaking, stating that:
This path must lead to a separation, though not according to the borders prior to 1967. We want to reach a separation between us and them. We do not want the majority of the Jewish residents of the state of Israel, 98% of whom live within the borders of sovereign Israel, including a united Jerusalem, to be subject to terrorism."
Second Intifada
The Second Intifada, also known as the al-Aqsa Intifada, began in September 2000. Many Palestinians considered the Intifada to be a struggle of national liberation against Israeli occupation imposed on them following the 1967 War, whereas many Israelis considered it to be a terrorist campaign. Palestinian tactics ranged from carrying out mass protests and general strikes, as in the First Intifada, to mounting suicide bombing attacks and firing Qassam rockets into southeastern Israeli residential areas. Israeli tactics ranged from conducting mass arrests and locking up Palestinians in administrative detention to setting up checkpoints and building the Israeli Gaza Strip barrier and West Bank barrier to carrying out assassinations targeting militants and leaders of Palestinian organizations. After the 2006 Palestinian legislative election, Israel negotiated with Mahmoud Abbas and the PLO, but simultaneously targeted and bombed Hamas activists and militants and arrested Hamas's elected legislative council politicians. The death toll, both military and civilian, over the entire period in question (2000–2007) is estimated to be over 4,300 Palestinians and over 1,000 Israelis; 64 foreign citizens were also killed (54 by Palestinians, and 10 by Israeli security forces).
Israel's unilateral disengagement
Israel implemented its Disengagement Plan in August–September 2005, withdrawing its civilian and military presence from the Gaza Strip, and retaining control over the Gaza airspace, maritime access and borders even with Egypt according to the 2005 agreement with the Palestinian authority. Qassam rockets were fired regularly prior to the Israeli disengagement and the frequency of Qassam attacks increased after the Disengagement from Gaza. Palestinian militants have targeted a number of military bases and civilian towns in Southern Israel. Since 2001, Palestinian militants have launched thousands of rocket and mortar attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip, killing, injuring and traumatizing Israeli civilians. In July 2006, Israel briefly re-occupied parts of northern Gaza Strip and used the occupied areas as bases for raids into Jabalya and Beit Lahya. Hamas responded by launching rockets.
Ascendancy of Hamas
When the Islamic party Hamas won the January 2006 Palestinian legislative election, gaining a majority of seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council, the conflict between Israel and Gaza intensified. Israel sealed its border with the Gaza Strip, largely preventing the free flow of people and many imports and exports. Palestinians shot Qassam rockets at Israeli settlements located near the Gaza borders, and staged cross-border raids aimed at killing or capturing Israeli soldiers. In one such raid, on 25 June 2006, Palestinians captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, leading to massive retaliation by the Israeli army which included air strikes against Hamas targets. In June 2007, internal fighting broke out between Hamas and Fatah, and Hamas fully consolidated its power by staging an armed coup d'état and taking control of the Gaza Strip. Following the internecine fighting that occurred between 7 and 15 June 2007, also known as the Battle of Gaza in which 118 Palestinians were killed and over 550 were wounded, the entire Gaza Strip came under full control of a Hamas government. As a response to the Hamas takeover, Israel sharply restricted the flow of people and goods into and out of Gaza. About 70% of Gaza's workforce became unemployed or without pay, and about 80% of its residents lived in poverty. Since Hamas' takeover, Palestinian armed groups in Gaza and Israel continued to clash. Palestinian armed groups fired rockets into Israel, killing Israeli civilians, including children, and wounding others, as well as causing damage to infrastructure; and Israel launched attacks and shelled Gaza with artillery, killing Palestinian combatants as well as civilians, including children, and causing devastating damage to infrastructure. According to Human Rights Watch, the Palestinian deliberate attacks against civilians violated international humanitarian law. Because Hamas exercised power inside Gaza, it was responsible for stopping unlawful attacks even when carried out by other groups.
2006–2007
Large-scale conventional warfare beyond the peripheries of the Gaza Strip began when Palestinian militants abducted Corporal Gilad Shalit, and Israel responded by launching Operation "Summer Rains" on 28 June 2006. The operation became the first major mobilization within the Gaza Strip since Israel unilaterally disengaged from the region between August and September 2005. The Gaza beach blast was an event on 9 June 2006 in which eight Palestinians were killed—including nearly the entire family of seven-year-old Huda Ghaliya—and at least thirty others were injured in an explosion on a beach near the municipality of Beit Lahia in the Gaza Strip. The incident received considerable attention from news media worldwide, with blame for the explosion hotly disputed in the following weeks. Israel maintains that it mobilized thousands of troops in order to suppress Qassam rocket fire against its civilian population and to secure the release of Gilad Shalit. It is estimated that between 7,000 and 9,000 Israeli artillery shells were fired into Gaza between September 2005 and June 2006, killing 80 Palestinians in 6 months. On the Palestinian side, over 1,300 Qassam rockets have been fired into Israel from September 2000 to 21 December 2006. Israeli forces also continued to search for tunnels, used by militants to smuggle weapons, as well as monitor operations at checkpoints (with some assistance from the European Union at Rafah) for security reasons, specifically possible weapons transfers and uninhibited return of exiled extremist leaders and terrorists. As of 18 October 2006, Israel has discovered 20 tunnels used for illegal arms smuggling under the border of the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Israel had said it would withdraw from the Strip and end the operation as soon as Shalit was released. The Palestinians had said that they were willing to return Shalit in exchange for the release of some of the Palestinians held in Israeli jails. The Palestinians and others have also said the assault was aimed at toppling the democratically elected Hamas-led government and at destabilizing the Palestinian National Authority, citing the targeting of civilian infrastructure such as a power station and the captures of government and parliament members. Some 300 Palestinians had been targeted by the IDF in the Gaza Strip since the kidnapping of Corporal Gilad Shalit. In July 2006, first reports emerged about mystery injuries after Israeli attacks. Previously unseen injuries included severely damaged internal organs, severe internal burning and deep internal wounds often resulting in amputations or death. Bodies arrived severely fragmented, melted and disfigured. There were speculations about a new experimental weapon, particularly Dense inert metal explosives (DIMEs). Attempting to curb Qassam rocket attacks fired at Southern Israel by Palestinian militants from the northern Gaza Strip, Israel launched Operation "Autumn Clouds" on 1 November 2006. On 8 November 2006, a day after Israel's withdrawal following Operation "Autumn Clouds", Israel Defense Forces shells missed their target—possibly due to a "technical malfunction"—and hit a row of houses in the Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun, killing 19 Palestinians and wounding more than 40. Israeli Defense Forces launched an investigation into the Beit Hanoun November 2006 incident (and later apologized for the incident), and the then-Israeli President Ehud Olmert offered humanitarian assistance to those affected. The 2006 Franco–Italian–Spanish Middle East Peace Plan was proposed after Israel invaded the Gaza Strip in Operation "Autumn Clouds" by Spanish premier José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero during talks with French president Jacques Chirac. Italy's prime minister Romano Prodi gave his full support to the plan. On 26 November, a ceasefire was signed by Palestinian organisations and Israel, and Israel withdrew its troops while the Palestinian Authority forces deployed to stop Qassam rocket launchings. Following the truce over 60 Qassam rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip at Israel, and one Palestinian (armed with guns and grenades) was killed by the IDF. On 19 December, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad began taking open responsibility for the Qassam rocket firing, because they said Israel killed two of their members in Jenin. A series of battles between Palestinian militants in Hamas-governed Gaza and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) that began in mid-May 2007, with the inter-Palestinian violence flaring in the meantime. Palestinians fired more than 220 Qassam rocket attacks on Israel (Sderot and the western Negev) in more than a week. The Israeli Air Force fired missiles and bombs at the launching sites. The fighting came amid serious Palestinian factional violence and reports of growing level of humanitarian crisis in the region. Hamas said they will continue to retaliate against Israeli strikes.
2007–2022
In September 2007, Israel declared Gaza "hostile territory." Historian Jean-Pierre Filiu finds this assertion "absurd", given that up to this point Israel had already fought 9 wars against Gaza. The declaration allowed Israel to prevent the transfer of electricity, fuel, and other supplies into Gaza. Hamas considered this a declaration of war, while Israel stated its purpose was to pressure Hamas into ending Qassam rocket attacks (which Israel said were intensifying). Israel's decision to cut fuel supplies to Gaza were widely condemned (including by the European Union) as "collective punishment." Israel has also arrested Hamas officials in the West Bank, including two cabinet members. Such arrests have been strongly condemned by international organizations and politicians. By January 2008, according to a United Nations study, the economic effects of Israel's blockade on Gaza reached a critical threshold. Finally, on 17 January 2008, Israel sealed the border completely following a rise in rocket attacks. The breach of the Gaza-Egypt border began on 23 January 2008, after gunmen in the Gaza Strip set off an explosion near the Rafah Border Crossing, destroying part of the former Israeli Gaza Strip barrier. The United Nations estimates that as many as half the 1.5 million population of the Gaza Strip crossed the border into Egypt seeking food and supplies.
Operation "Hot Winter"
On 27 February 2008, Palestinian militants fired more than 40 Qassam rockets into southern Israel and the Israeli army fired three missiles at the Palestinian Interior Ministry in Gaza destroying the building. On 28 February 2008, Israeli aircraft bombed a police station near the Gaza City home of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, killing several children. The Israeli military says its air and ground operations against militants firing rockets from northern Gaza have hit at least 23 armed Palestinians, while Palestinian sources have reported higher death tolls and say many civilians have also been killed. Israel began its air and ground operations on 29 February. The IDF's offensive in Gaza has killed more than 100 Palestinians in less than a week. Palestinians fired 150 rockets at Israel which killed three Israelis. The United States called for an end to clashes between Israel and the Palestinians. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has accused Israel of "international terrorism", saying its assault on Gaza constitutes "more than a holocaust." On 3 March Abbas suspended all contact with Israel over its assault on Gaza as the Israeli government sent warplanes to hit more targets early on Monday and vowed to continue its offensive. The European Union condemned what it called "disproportionate use of force" by the Israeli military in Gaza after 54 Palestinians were killed in the highest casualty toll for a single day since fighting erupted in 2000. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also issued a condemnation of what he termed Israel's "excessive and disproportionate" response, and called on Israel "to cease such attacks", while denouncing the ongoing rocket attacks on Sderot and Ashkelon. In the Muslim world, demonstrators took to the streets to protest the IDF attacks. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on Muslims to rise up and their leaders to hit Israel "in the face with their nations' anger." In Lebanon, hundreds of Hezbollah supporters gathered at the Fatima Gate at the border between Lebanon and Israel, shouting "Death to Israel" and waving Lebanese and Palestinian flags. In Egypt, thousands of students held protests at universities across the country calling on Arab leaders to stop Israeli aggression and support the Palestinians. Some protesters burned Israeli and American flags. About 10,000 protesters, mainly from Jordan's mainstream Muslim Brotherhood and smaller opposition groups, took to the streets in one of the country's most vocal and largest anti-Israeli demonstrations in recent years. Saudi Arabia meanwhile compared the IDF offensive to "Nazi war crimes" and called on the international community to stop what it called the "mass killings" of Palestinians. Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the IDF attacks can have "no humanitarian justification" and added that Israel was rejecting a "diplomatic solution" to the dispute. Most Israeli tanks and troops pulled out of northern Gaza 3 March 2008, and an Israel Defense Forces spokesman confirmed that the Israeli military was ending offensive operations there after five days. On 29 February 2008, the Israeli military launched Operation "Hot Winter" (also called Operation "Warm Winter") in response to Qassam rockets fired from the Strip by Hamas. The Israeli army killed 112 Palestinians, and Palestinian militants killed three Israelis. More than 150 Palestinians and seven Israelis have been injured. There was widespread international alarm at the scale of the operation, with the US state department encouraging Israel to exercise caution to avoid the loss of innocent life, and the European Union and the United Nations criticising Israel's "disproportionate use of force". The European Union also demanded an immediate end to Palestinian militant rocket attacks on Israel and urged Israel to halt activities that endanger civilians, saying they were "in violation of international law."
2008 Hamas–Israel ceasefire
The 2008 Hamas–Israel ceasefire was an Egyptian-brokered six-month Tahdia (an Arabic term for a lull) "for the Gaza area", which went into effect between Hamas and Israel on 19 June 2008. Hamas' obligation was to stop the rocket attacks on Israel. During the initial 5-months of the ceasefire, and after a shaky start during the initial week, these attacks from Gaza decreased significantly for a total of 19 rocket and 18 mortar shell launchings, compared to 1,199 rockets and 1,072 mortar shells in 2008 up to 19 June, a reduction of 98%. Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister acknowledged that "there were no Hamas rockets during the ceasefire before November the 4th". Israel's obligation was to cease attacks on Gaza and once the ceasefire held, to gradually begin to ease its punishing blockade of Gaza. The agreement called on Israel to increase the level of goods entering Gaza by 30 percent over the pre-lull period within 72 hours and to open all border crossings and "allow the transfer of all goods that were banned and restricted to go into Gaza" within 13 days after the beginning of the ceasefire. The increase in supplies of food, water, medicine and fuel did improve, but the increase was only to an average of about 20 percent of normal levels, compared to the Hamas compliance in reducing rocket fire by 98%. Two months later the volume of goods arriving was too low to significantly improve living conditions, preventing UNRWA from replenishing its stores. Israel told U.S. officials in 2008 it would keep Gaza's economy "on the brink of collapse".
On 4 November 2008 Israel broke the ceasefire with an attack on Gaza. The Israeli military claimed the target of the raid was a tunnel that they said Hamas was planning to use to capture Israeli soldiers positioned on the border fence 250m away. Hamas officials differed, however, claiming that the tunnel was being dug for defensive purposes, not to capture IDF personnel, according to Dr Robert Pastor (of the Carter Institute), and an IDF official confirmed that fact to him. Hamas replied to the Israeli attack with a barrage of rocket fire. With this incursion into Gaza territory and its non-compliance with the easing of the embargo, Israel had failed to comply with two aspects of the June 2008 ceasefire. When the six-month truce officially expired on 19 December, Hamas launched 50 to more than 70 rockets and mortars into Israel over the next three days, though no Israelis were injured. On 21 December, Hamas said it was ready to stop the attacks and renew the truce if Israel stopped its "aggression" in Gaza and opened up its border crossings. On 27 and 28 December, Israel implemented Operation Cast Lead against Hamas. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said "We warned Hamas repeatedly that rejecting the truce would push Israel to aggression against Gaza."
First Gaza War (2008–2009)
The Gaza War started when Israel launched a large military campaign in the Gaza Strip on 27 December 2008, codenamed Operation "Cast Lead" (Hebrew: מבצע עופרת יצוקה), with the stated aim of stopping Hamas rocket attacks on southern Israel and arms smuggling into Gaza. The conflict has also been called the Gaza massacre in the Arab world (Arabic: مجزرة غزة). A fragile six-month truce between Hamas and Israel expired on 19 December 2008. The Israeli operation began with an intense bombardment of the Gaza Strip, targeting Hamas bases, police training camps, police headquarters and offices. Civilian infrastructure, including mosques, houses, medical facilities and schools, were also attacked, as Israel stated that many of them were used by combatants, and as storage spaces for weapons and rockets. Hamas intensified its rocket and mortar attacks against targets in Israel throughout the conflict, hitting previously untargeted cities such as Beersheba and Ashdod. On 3 January 2009, the Israeli ground invasion began. During the war Hamas would execute many Palestinians and Fatah members during a period of political violence. Human rights groups and aid organisations have accused Hamas and Israel of war crimes. An estimated 1,166–1,417 Palestinians and 13 Israelis died in the conflict. The conflict came to an end on 18 January after first Israel and then Hamas announced unilateral ceasefires. On 21 January, Israel completed its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. On 2 March, it was reported that international donors had pledged $4.5 billion in aid for the Palestinians, mainly for rebuilding Gaza after Israel's offensive. This war was considered to be the largest, most devastating and deadliest military operation in Gaza since the Six-day war in 1967 and until the 2014 Gaza war.
March 2010 events
On 26 March 2010, two Israeli soldiers and two Hamas militants were killed during clashes on the Gaza Strip's southern border. Two other soldiers were wounded during the fighting which broke out east of the town of Khan Younis. They are the first Israeli soldiers to have been killed in hostile fire in or around Gaza since Israel's major offensive there in January 2009, according to the BBC.
2011 cross-border attack
On 18 August 2011, a series of cross-border attacks was carried out in southern Israel near the Egyptian border, by a squad of militants. The militants first opened fire at civilian bus. Several minutes later, a bomb was detonated next to an Israeli army patrol along Israel's border with Egypt. In a third attack, an anti-tank missile hit a private vehicle, killing four civilians.
Operation "Returning Echo"
During the second week of March 2012, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) initiated Operation "Returning Echo". It was the worst outbreak of violence covered by the media in the region since the 2008–09 Operation "Cast Lead" (the Gaza War).