2014 Gaza War



The 2014 Gaza War, also known as Operation Protective Edge (Hebrew: מִבְצָע צוּק אֵיתָן, Miv'tza Tzuk Eitan, literally 'Operation Strong Cliff'), and Battle of the Withered Grain (Arabic: معركة العصف المائكول, Mʿa-rakkat Al-ʿasf Al-Ma’kool), was a military operation launched by Israel on 8 July 2014 in the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian territory that has been governed by Hamas since 2007. Following the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank by Hamas-affiliated Palestinian militants, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) initiated Operation Brother's Keeper, in which some 350 Palestinians, including nearly all of the active Hamas militants in the West Bank, were arrested. Hamas subsequently fired a greater number of rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip, triggering a seven-week-long conflict between the two sides. It was one of the deadliest outbreaks of open conflict between Israel and the Palestinians in decades. The combination of Palestinian rocket attacks and Israeli airstrikes resulted in over two thousand deaths, the vast majority of which were Gazan Palestinians.This includes a total of six Israeli civilians who were killed as a result of the conflict.

Quotes

 * Had this 'Spring' been genuine, it would've started in the backward Arab countries. Were it a call for freedom, democracy, justice, it would've began in the most oppressive and tyrannical states... There is no clearer evidence than their current stand regarding the Israeli aggression against Gaza. Where is the 'alleged' zeal and passion that they showed towards Syria or the Syrian people? Why haven't they supported Gaza with money and arms? Where are their jihadists and why didn't they send jihadists to defend our people in Palestine?
 * Bashar al-Assad, 2014 Presidential Inauguration Speech (2014)