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 (IDF) 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 entered Deir al-Balah to destroy a tunnel, killing several Hamas militants. Israel said the raid was a preemptive strike in the wake of Hamas intentions to abduct 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. Israel attacked police stations, military targets including weapons caches and suspected rocket firing teams, as well as political and administrative institutions in Gaza, Khan Yunis and Rafah. After hostilities broke out, Palestinian groups fired rockets in retaliation. The international community considers indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian structures as illegal under international law.
The Israeli ground invasion began on 3 January. On 5 January, the IDF began operating in densely populated urban centers of Gaza. During the last week of the offensive (from 12 January), Israel struck Palestinian rocket-launching units. Hamas intensified its rocket and mortar attacks against civilian targets in southern Israel, reaching Beersheba and Ashdod. The conflict ended on 18 January. The IDF 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 did not believe that Israel intentionally targeted civilians in Gaza as a matter of policy. The other authors of the report, Hina Jilani, Christine Chinkin, and Desmond Travers, stated that no new evidence had been gathered to dispute the report's findings. On 21 September 2012, the United Nations Human Rights Council wrote that 75% of the homes damaged in the attacks remained in a state of disrepair.
On February 8, 2005, Mahmoud Abbas, and Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon signed a ceasefire agreement to bring an end to the Second Intifada. On 17 March 2005, the 13 main Palestinian factions including Hamas and Islamic Jihad agreed to the February agreement, conditional on cessation of Israeli attacks. Israel maintained that its occupation of Gaza ended following the completion of its unilateral disengagement plan in September 2005. Because Israel continued to control Gaza's airspace and territorial waters, and restrict the movement of people or goods in or out of Gaza, overseeing the actions of the population in the Gaza Strip, the UN, the International Criminal Court Human Rights Watch, and other NGOs consider Israel the occupying power.
Hamas abided by the ceasefire agreement for 14 months, until IDF naval shelling hit a Gaza beach, killing seven civilians, on 10 June 2006.
After the political victory of a Hamas-led government in March 2006, The Quartet (the United States, Russia, United Nations, and European Union) conditioned future foreign assistance 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 (COGAT) 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".
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 (truce), 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 (the IDF) would attack and that is exactly what happened (on 4 November 2008)." 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."