2014 Gaza War

Overview

The 2014 Gaza War was fought between Israel and armed groups led by Hamas in and around the Gaza Strip. Hamas is a terrorist organization. Escalating rocket fire from Gaza prompted Israel to launch Operation Protective Edge on July 8, 2014. Israel sought to stop attacks on its population and destroy Hamas military infrastructure, particularly tunnels dug beneath the border for assaults inside Israel. Fighting continued through July and August, beginning with air operations and expanding into a ground campaign. An August 26 ceasefire ended the main hostilities after 51 days. The war caused heavy loss of life, injuries and housing damage in Gaza, while rockets and mortars killed civilians and soldiers in Israel.

The Israel Defense Forces, led by Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, fought Hamas formations equipped for rocket, mortar, anti-tank, sniper and infantry operations. Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades also operated naval commando units. Islamic Jihad and its Al-Quds Brigades participated in attacks on Israel. Combat reached dense urban areas, including Khan Yunis, Rafah, Jabaliya, Al-Bureij and Shejaia. Those settings heightened danger to residents and made assessment of individual attacks, military targets and deaths especially consequential.

Background

In 2005, Israel removed its 21 Jewish communities in Gaza and northern Gaza, evacuated about 8,000 residents and withdrew its forces. Hamas violently seized power in Gaza in 2007. It subsequently built armed formations, accumulated rockets and developed tunnels reaching beneath the border into Israel. The withdrawal and Hamas’s seizure of power are essential to the war’s background: by 2014, Hamas governed Gaza and could use territory from which Israel had withdrawn to organize attacks across the border.

Rocket fire remained a recurring threat before the summer war. Shortly after the January 13, 2014, funeral of former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, two rockets fired from Gaza landed in Israel’s western Negev without causing casualties or damage. On March 12, Islamic Jihad launched a rocket barrage into Israel, and its Al-Quds Brigades defended the fire on their official website. A 2014 Al-Quds Brigades poster depicted rockets launched from Gaza and landing in Jerusalem, Dimona, Netanya and Tel Aviv. Such attacks and messaging showed that armed groups intended to threaten communities well beyond the immediate border area.

Weapons supply formed another part of the background. In March 2014, Israel intercepted the Klos-C, which carried concealed rockets and ammunition sent by the Iranian regime. The vessel was headed toward Port Sudan, where its cargo was to be unloaded for an overland smuggling route through Sinai into Gaza. The interception stopped that shipment before it reached its planned destination. During June and early July, rocket and mortar fire from Gaza increased in frequency and intensity. Hamas rocket fire triggered Operation Protective Edge; Israel began the broader operation on July 8 to confront the attacks and dismantle Hamas terrorist infrastructure.

Course of the war

Israel’s first phase centered on air operations against armed groups and their infrastructure. Rocket and mortar attacks continued, while Hamas also attempted attacks by sea and through cross-border tunnels. On July 17, Israel authorized a limited ground entry into Gaza to locate and neutralize the assault tunnels. Their openings and routes ran through or beneath built-up areas, bringing soldiers into close combat near homes and civilian facilities. The Israeli operation targeted the tunnels as a direct means of preventing armed infiltrations into Israel.

Major fighting followed during the second half of July. The Golani Brigade fought in Shejaia and lost soldiers when a rocket-propelled grenade struck an armored personnel carrier. Israeli forces also fought in the Khan Yunis area, where tunnels and Hamas positions were part of the ground campaign. On July 20, Israel struck a structure in Al-Bureij used as an active Hamas command and control center. Mohammed Muqadama, a senior figure in Hamas’s military observation force, also used that structure. In an urban war, a building’s outward residential appearance did not by itself resolve whether it served a military function; its actual use and the information available to commanders mattered.

Combat persisted into August despite ceasefire efforts. During a UN-brokered ceasefire on August 1, Hamas killed and took Lieutenant Hadar Goldin while he was working to destroy a Hamas tunnel. The episode became one of the war’s defining events in Israel. On August 3, Israeli forces identified three people on a motorbike as military operatives using current intelligence. The Israeli Air Force killed Al-Quds Brigades commander Danial Kamel Mansour in Jabaliya on August 4. Israeli ground forces withdrew from Gaza on August 5 after locating and neutralizing 32 cross-border assault tunnels, but rocket and mortar fire and Israeli strikes continued later in the month.

Al-Qassam Brigades reported firing about 3,600 rockets at Israel over the war. Israeli government figures counted a larger total of rockets fired from Gaza by all armed groups. Rockets forced residents into shelters, disrupted daily life and killed civilians. Some rockets and mortars also fell short inside Gaza. Reported impacts at a hospital and a playground killed civilians there, demonstrating why the cause of each death cannot be inferred from its location alone. Fighting ended on August 26 under a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

Israel's conduct and the protection of civilians

The human cost in Gaza was severe. UN statistics recorded 2,251 deaths, more than 11,000 injuries and about 18,000 housing units damaged or destroyed during the July–August war. Two years later, Israeli organization B’Tselem published a database covering more than 2,200 reported fatalities. It classified 63 percent of the 2,202 people in its count as having taken no part in hostilities and recorded 526 people under age 18. Its definition treated participation at the time of death or a continuous combat function in an armed group as participation in hostilities. These figures describe distinct counting and classification exercises; they do not determine responsibility for every death or the legality of every attack.

Fatality classifications and causes require case-specific scrutiny. The Hamas Ministry of Health in Gaza was the primary source for casualty claims circulated during the war. B’Tselem could not send personnel into Gaza while fighting continued and relied on telephone interviews with residents for its independent information. Subsequent identification of armed-group members could change an early classification. For example, three medics reportedly killed in an August 1 ambulance incident had ties to the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization and were classified by B’Tselem as participating in hostilities. After the ceasefire, Islamic Jihad reported that 123 of its operatives had been killed. In September 2014, an Al-Quds Brigades website collection presented 119 photographs and names; 96 listed people were identified as dead operatives. The figures measure different groups and should not be treated as interchangeable totals.

Operational evidence also bears on the cause of particular deaths. Israeli forces carried out no attack near the Siyam family’s Rafah residence on July 21 that could account for the strike attributed to them. Armed groups fired mortars near the home at the relevant time, and some shells aimed at Israel fell inside Gaza. At Al-Bureij, the structure struck on July 20 functioned as a Hamas command center. Neither a casualty tally nor an initial description of a building resolves what happened in such cases. Military use, weapons trajectories, intelligence, timing and civilian presence must be examined together.

Israel’s Military Advocate General reviewed exceptional incidents and gave reasons for opening or closing criminal proceedings. Reports about a July 8 airstrike on a Khan Yunis residential building, a July 20 strike on the Abu-Jama family home in Khan Yunis and the reported death of an ambulance driver near Khan Yunis on July 25 were referred to a fact-finding assessment mechanism. Property-looting complaints concerning Khuza’a and Khan Yunis during July led to four criminal investigations. On August 24, 2016, the Military Advocate General issued findings on 12 wartime incidents involving complaints of potential war crimes. The review process distinguished complaints, established facts and decisions on criminal investigation.

Israel facilitated humanitarian deliveries during the fighting. More than 5,000 aid trucks passed into Gaza through Kerem Shalom; an Israeli government account recorded 5,637 trucks carrying food, medical equipment and other supplies during the conflict. Israel also facilitated aid delivered on American and Italian aircraft. The crossing operated under threat: rocket fire directed toward Kerem Shalom interrupted shipments and endangered workers. Aid passage, medical transfers and infrastructure repairs continued alongside combat, though interruptions and damage constrained the response to civilian needs.

Terrorist tactics and propaganda

Hamas’s war plan joined long-range fire to ground and cross-border operations. Its formations included rocket, mortar, anti-tank, sniper and infantry units; Al-Qassam Brigades also fielded naval commandos. Tunnels offered concealed routes beneath the border into Israel, while positions within crowded Gaza neighborhoods complicated military operations and increased risks to residents. Israeli forces encountered military facilities in buildings that appeared civilian from outside. The July 20 Al-Bureij command center illustrates why the use of a structure, rather than its appearance alone, is central to assessing a strike.

Armed groups also fought over public interpretation of the war. Hamas authorities supplied early casualty figures widely repeated during hostilities, while the later publication of armed-group death notices documented combatant roles in individual cases. Islamic Jihad’s postwar report of 123 dead operatives and its Al-Quds Brigades memorial photographs added names and affiliations that could be checked against casualty records. Such comparisons do not diminish civilian deaths. They help distinguish civilians from fighters and deaths caused by Israeli fire from those caused by rockets or mortars that fell inside Gaza.

Al-Qassam Brigades continued to present the war as a recruiting and military achievement after the ceasefire. On October 9, 2014, they staged a military parade through Gaza as part of a recruitment drive. They held an August 26, 2015, memorial for naval commandos killed in the war and released an August 2015 video displaying tunnels rebuilt after the fighting. These displays showed that the tunnel threat survived the destruction of routes found during Israel’s ground operation and remained a priority for Hamas.

Outcome

The August 26, 2014, ceasefire ended the principal fighting. Israel had destroyed 32 cross-border assault tunnels identified during its ground campaign and struck commanders and infrastructure belonging to Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Hamas retained power in Gaza. The ceasefire did not settle the underlying conflict or prevent the rebuilding of armed capabilities. Israel bore the deaths of 68 soldiers and five civilians; Gaza bore far larger recorded losses of life and extensive damage to homes. Those losses shaped subsequent debate over the war, the protection of civilians and the conduct of each side.

Immediate relief and reconstruction became urgent after the ceasefire. Egypt’s military sent 500 tons of aid by truck through the Rafah crossing. Turkey sent at least $1.5 million in medical supplies and food and brought at least 80 Gaza residents to Turkey for treatment. Through tracked UN channels, Saudi Arabia pledged $83 million in immediate aid, the largest Arab pledge in that category; Kuwait pledged $13.1 million, Qatar $6.5 million and Bahrain $5.2 million. These immediate-aid amounts were separate from multiyear reconstruction commitments.

At a donor conference in Cairo in October 2014, governments announced $5.4 billion in commitments for Gaza’s reconstruction. Qatar, under Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, pledged $1 billion over several years, and Saudi Arabia pledged $500 million. The United Arab Emirates and Kuwait each pledged $200 million. Israel and the United Nations also established a mechanism after the war to oversee the entry of reconstruction materials into Gaza. The scale of promised support reflected the damage to housing and other civilian infrastructure, while rebuilding unfolded amid continued concern that materials could be diverted to Hamas military works.

Aftermath and legacy

Hamas resumed military preparations after the war. Iranian-regime funding helped it rebuild tunnels and replenish rockets. Its October 2014 parade and August 2015 tunnel video made those efforts visible. Yahya Sinwar, already a senior Hamas military leader during the war, gained standing after commanders Raed al-Attar and Mahmoud Abu Shamaleh were killed. During the 2014 ceasefire negotiations, he had pressed Hamas to demand further Israeli concessions before pausing combat. His rise was part of the organization’s continued emphasis on armed confrontation after Operation Protective Edge.

Lt. Hadar Goldin’s killing and capture during the August 1 ceasefire remained an enduring consequence for his family and Israel. Hamas retained his body for more than 11 years. His remains returned to Israel on November 9, 2025. The interval between the ceasefire violation and his return made his case a continuing issue long after the 2014 battlefield fighting had ended.

The war also left a lasting record of disputed incident reports, later identifications of fighters and formal military investigations. The civilian toll and housing damage are central facts of its history. So are the rocket attacks on Israel, the cross-border tunnels, the deaths from projectiles that fell within Gaza, Israel’s wartime aid deliveries and the need to assess alleged violations against evidence from each incident. Operation Protective Edge ended with a ceasefire, but the renewed construction of tunnels and rearmament showed that the military threat it confronted had not ended with the fighting of August 2014.