List of Israeli strikes and Palestinian casualties in the 2014 Gaza War
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This is a list of individual Israel Defense Forces (IDF)/Israeli Air Force (IAF) operations in Operation Protective Edge, which began on 8 July 2014, naming the targets and casualties. After Israel's unilateral disengagement from Gaza in 2005, and following on the joint Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the Gaza Strip since 2007, several military operations have been conducted against the area, including Operation Cast Lead in 2008, in which 1,417 Palestinians and 13 Israelis died, Operation Pillar of Defense 2012[1] in which 120-160 Palestinians and 2 Israelis died, and the March 2012 Gaza–Israel clashes.
The nature of casualties reflects the conditions of asymmetric warfare in this region, in differences in weaponry, defensive technologies, operating terrain and local attitudes: the Gaza Strip has high habitation density whereas the contiguous area of southern Israel where most rockets fall, is the sparsely populated Negev.[2] The forces in the conflict are Gaza-based militants, who have stocks of long-range rockets, such as Grad missiles but use mainly home- or factory-made missiles, many of which have inaccurate trajectories,[3][4] especially Qassam rockets, many of which hit open fields,[5][6] versus Israel's combined military forces, naval gunboats to the east, tanks positioned on the land borders, and IAF aircraft,[7] equipped with F-15 fighter jets, AH-64 Apache helicopters, Delilah missiles, IAI Heron-1 drones and Jericho II missiles.[8] Israel's civilian population has, in addition, access to shelters, early-warning sirens and is defended by the Iron Dome missile detection defence system.[9] A spokeswoman for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights queried whether Israeli air strikes targeting homes were compliant with International humanitarian law and International human rights law. Israel states that Hamas places its armouries in densely populated areas to make civilians human shields.[10]
In March 2015, according to UN OCHA, 2,220 Palestinians had been killed, of whom 1,492 civilians (551 children, 299 women), 605 militants and 123 of unknown status.[11] The IDF calculates 2,127 killed claiming 55% were civilians and 45% militants.[12][13] Israeli casualties consisted of 6 civilians (including 1 Thai national) and 66 soldiers,[14][15] 5 of whom reportedly died from friendly fire.[16] The Associated Press, examining 247 airstrikes that hit residential compounds, out of the some 5,000 Israeli bombing raids, determined that of the 844 killed, 60% or 508 were presumed civilian children (280, of whom 19 were babies and 108 preschoolers between the ages of 1 and 5), women and older men. 98 or 11% were confirmed or suspected Hamas militants.[17]
In the wake of Avigdor Liberman's Sunday 20 July comment that the IDF is the "most humane and bravest army in the world", Israel's Ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, in an address delivered before Christians United for Israel on Tuesday, 22 July, remarked that Israel's armed forces merited a Nobel Prize in recognition of the "unimaginable restraint" they had exercised during the Operation.[18] Prime Minister Binjamin Netanyahu blamed Hamas, asserting that the civilian toll is desired by Hamas to use "telegenically dead Palestinians" for their cause. Palestinians stated that, given the overcrowding of the Gaza Strip, they are vulnerable everywhere.[19]
By 21 July, 132 of the casualties to that date were children.[20] B'tselem tried to obtain a radio spot in which the names of those children killed in the conflict were to be read out. The Israeli Broadcasting Authority banned the attempt to air the information on the airwaves. 97% of the children killed in the last five years of the conflict have been Palestinian.[21] Israel's Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC) has alleged that Hamas uses children in their operations in the Gaza Strip, and that some militants killed in action were "falsely reported" as civilians or children.[22]