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Background On The War
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A16
January 22 a 2009
he ancient city of Gaza was
mentioned in the Bible and is
believed to be the site where
Samson brought down the Philistine
temple. Jews lived in Gaza from ancient
times until 1929, when Arab riots
forced them to flee.
The Gaza Strip is on the
Mediterranean Sea, borders Egypt and
Israel, and is home to 1.4 million Arabs.
The Strip is 25 miles long and 4 to 8
miles wide.
Israel captured the Strip from Egypt
during the Six-Day War in 1967. The
Palestinian Authority was given inter-
nal control in the 1994 Oslo Accords;
but Israel retained control of security;
borders and air space. But Palestinians
have fired rockets at nearby Israeli
towns, inside the Strip and inside
Israel, since 2000 and the intifadah
(Palestinian uprising). On rare occa-
sions, Israel has fired at the rocket
launchers.
Israel unilaterally withdrew its sol-
diers and settlements from Gaza in
September 2005. Hamas won a plural-
ity of 43 percent of the voters in Gaza's
January 2006 election, but lost interna-
tional support after refusing to stop the
violence or recognize Israel.
Hamas began a civil war against the
Palestinian Fatah faction in January
2007, which ended with the ouster of
Fatah from Gaza in June 2007. At the
same time, Egyptian security forces
discovered 60 tunnels under its bor-
der with Gaza that were being used to
smuggle weapons into the Strip.
On June 17, 2008, llamas agreed to a
cease-fire with Israel. Almost immedi-
ately, terrorists fired rockets into south-
ern Israel.
Israel refrained from military action.
In fact, during the six months the
cease-fire was supposed to be observed,
329 rockets and mortar shells were
fired at Israel.
While there were considerably fewer
Palestinian assaults after the agreement
than before, terror continued.
During this period, Israel also
expected to negotiate the release of
Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier kid-
napped by Hamas in June 2006. Hamas
repeatedly increased its demands for
the number of prisoners it wanted
released in exchange for the lone Israeli
captive, but never agreed to grant his
freedom.
Violence escalated in early November
after the IDF carried out a military
operation close to the border security
fence on the Gaza side that killed seven
Hamas terrorists. Israel acted after dis-
covering that Hamas had dug a tunnel
under the fence and planned to abduct
more Israeli soldiers. llamas responded
by shelling Israeli towns and has con-
tinued the rocket barrage ever since.
When the Hamas-imposed six-
month deadline expired in December,
Israel hoped an agreement could
be reached to extend the cease-fire.
Instead, several weeks before the cease-
fire ended, Hamas began firing what
would be hundreds of rockets into
Israel.
It became apparent Hamas had used
the lull to upgrade its arsenal with
weapons that were too sophisticated
to have been designed or built in Gaza.
These advanced Qassam and Grad
rockets, which have placed one of every
eight Israelis in danger, originated in
Iran. They were smuggled into Gaza
in pieces, assembled, and fired from
launch pads hidden and shielded in
Palestinian population centers.
The above information was provided by
Dr. Mitchell Bard of the American-Israel
Cooperative Enterprise, Alan Hitsky of the
Jewish News and Web sites.
More coverage: JNonline.us