Al-Aqsa Intifada

The Gaza Strip lies on the Eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, within the Middle East . The Strip borders Egypt on the southwest, 11km long, and... Israel on the east and north, 51km long. It is about 41 kilometres long, and between 6 and 12 kilometres wide, with a total area of 360 square kilometres . It has a 40 km coastline onto the Mediterranean Sea, but has no maritime claims due to Israeli administration. The territory takes its name from Gaza-city, its main city and administrative center. The Gaza Strip has a temperate climate, with mild winters, and dry and hot summers, subject to drought. The terrain is flat or rolling, with dunes near the coast. The highest point is Abu 'Awdah , at 105 metres above sea level. Main resources are arable land , and recently discovered natural gas. Environmental issues include desertification; salination of fresh water; sewage treatment; water-borne disease; soil degradation; and depletion and contamination of underground water resources. The population of Gaza Strip is about 1.
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Israel, officially the State of Israel ; Arabic: دَوْلَة... إِسْرَائِيل‎, Dawlat Isrāʼīl, IPA: [dawlat ʔisraːˈʔiːl], is a parliamentary republic in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan and the West Bank in the east, Egypt and the Gaza Strip on the southwest, and the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea to the south, and it contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area. Israel is defined as a Jewish and Democratic State in its Basic Laws and is the world's only Jewish-majority state. Following the adoption of a resolution by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 29 November 1947 recommending the adoption and implementation of the United Nations plan to partition Palestine, on 14 May 1948 David Ben-Gurion, the Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization and president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, declared the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel, a state independent from the British Mandate for Palestine.
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The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is the ongoing struggle between Israelis and Palestinians that began in the early 20th century. The conflict... is wide-ranging, and the term is also used in reference to the earlier phases of the same conflict, between the Zionist yishuv and the Arab population living in Palestine under Ottoman and then British rule. It forms part of the wider Arab–Israeli conflict. The remaining key issues are: mutual recognition, borders, security, water rights, control of Jerusalem, Israeli settlements, Palestinian freedom of movement and legalities concerning refugees. The violence resulting from the conflict has prompted international actions, as well as other security and human rights concerns, both within and between both sides, and internationally. In addition, the violence has curbed expansion of tourism in the region, which is full of historic and religious sites that are of interest to many people around the world. Many attempts have been made to broker a two-state solution, involving the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside an independent Jewish state or next to the State of Israel .
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The 2006 Israel–Gaza conflict or Operation Summer Rains refers to the series of battles between Palestinian militants and the Israel Defense... Forces during summer 2006, prompted by Palestinian operation which resulted in capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Large-scale conventional warfare in the Gaza Strip that began on June 28, 2006, and its first major ground operation in the Gaza Strip since Israel's unilateral disengagement plan was implemented between August and September 2005. Israel's stated goals in Operation Summer Rains were to suppress the firing of Qassam rockets from Gaza into the western Negev, and to secure the release of Corporal Gilad Shalit, who had been captured by the Palestinian militant group Hamas on June 25. The soldier was captured amid a background of violence between the IDF and Palestinian militant groups since the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. According to statistics published by the Israeli government, 757 missiles from Gaza hit Israel between the withdrawal and the end of June 2006. The IDF had responded with artillery fire and air raids.
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Operation Autumn Clouds is an Israeli military operation that began on 1 November 2006, following numerous Rocket and mortar attacks on southern... Israel, when the Israeli Defense Forces entered the Gaza Strip triggering sporadic fighting near Beit Hanoun. The operation is the largest military endeavor undertaken by the Israeli military since Operation Summer Rains.The operation was launched to stop Palestinian rocket attacks into Israel. Palestinian government officials said on 7 November that IDF troops were beginning to withdraw, thus ending the operation. Fifty-three Palestinians, including 16 civilians, and an IDF soldier, were killed since October 31. On November 1, 2006, in the largest military operation by Israel since Operation Summer Rains, six Palestinians and one Israeli soldier were killed and 35 people were wounded during a raid on Beit Hanoun by the Israeli military. The raid involved three air strikes, sixty tanks backed by helicopter gunships. The AFP news agency reported that three houses were razed by Israeli bulldozers and a dozen homes were hit by tank shells.
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The Ain es Saheb airstrike occurred on October 5, 2003 and was the first overt Israeli military operation in Syria since the 1973 Yom Kippur War. In... response to the suicide bombing in Haifa 12 hours earlier by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, four Israeli Air Force 110 "Knights of the North" Squadron F-16Cs attacked an alleged Palestinian militant training camp about 15 miles northwest of the Syrian capital Damascus. A single civilian guard is reportedly injured in the strike, the first in Syrian territory for nearly thirty years. The jets took off from Ramat David Airbase at 03:00 and headed north over the Mediterranean before turning east, crossing the coastline into Lebanon and approaching the target from the west. It is uncertain whether the aircraft actually crossed the border into Syria proper as the exact type of munitions used is unknown and the target is located close to the Syrian-Lebanese border. The Israel Defense Forces claimed the camp was used to train recruits in bomb assembly and guerrilla warfare and has released footage of the camp taken from the Al-Arabia TV station showing hundreds of weapons and underground tunnels packed with arms and ammunition.
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Timeline of the violence between Israelis and Palestinians in 2007. It includes would-be attacks that were foiled and thwarted by Israeli security... forces. The shaky six-month cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinians collapsed when the military wing of Hamas, one of the leading Palestinian factions, resumed rocket attacks against Israel on May 15 in an apparent attempt to draw Israel into the ongoing Palestinian factional violence. Hundreds of rockets have been fired since then, many of them landing around Sderot, causing several frightened residents to flee and others be treated for wounds and shock. In the months since November 2006, smaller Palestinian factions continued to fire rockets at Israel. They included Islamic Jihad, which rejected the cease-fire, and Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades, which is nominally affiliated with the mainstream Fatah faction headed by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. Israel said it was ending its policy of restraint against the rocket fire on May 16. Since then, the air force has struck mainly at Hamas structures and cells that the army said were involved in terrorist activity.
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