2006 Arab-Israeli conflict
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The 2006 Arab-Israeli conflict began in June 2006 as a series of attacks between Hamas militants and the State of Israel. This situation escalated into an invasion of the Gaza Strip by the IDF, and two weeks later a "second front" opened in Lebanon with Hezbollah militants, tacitly supported by Syria and Iran.
Prelude
- January 2006: Hamas members are elected a legislative majority in the Palestinan Authority. Sometime afterward, militia members begin shelling the Israelis from the Gaza Strip. Monetary support for the government is cutoff to the "terrorist leadership," and a siege situation emerges in Gaza, as they are repeatedly isolated from the outside world. Israel leans on Mahmoud Abbas to pressure Hamas into accepting the existence of Israel: he attempts this with a planned referendum to overrule their stance on Israel. As the Gazan government goes broke, inter-factional fighting erupts between Fatah and Hamas.
- Gaza beach blast: on June 9, 2006, Israeli shelling is implicated in the deaths of 8 Palestinians at a beach in Beit Lahia. This leads Hamas to withdraw from an existing truce with Israel.
Conflict
- On June 24, 2006, cross-border raids begin in the Gaza Strip. An Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, is kidnapped by Hamas, resulting in the June 28, 2006 initiation of Operation Summer Rains: an offensive led into the Gaza Strip that has resulted in the mass arrest of Hamas militants and legislators, and the destruction of a number of government offices.
- As an apparent response to, or copycat of, the situation in Gaza, Hezbollah kidnaps two Israeli soldiers on July 12, 2006. This is the start of 2006 Israel-Lebanon crisis: an offensive and air/sea blockade against Lebanon as a punitive action for that government's "failure to control Hezbollah." Shelling occurs on both sides: militants launch rockets against Haifa, Tiberias, and Israeli naval vessels; Beirut, Hezbollah centers, and the Lebanese highway network are systematically bombed by IDF.
- Coinciding with the invasion of Gaza, the summer home of Syrian President Bashar Assad is "buzzed" by Israeli fighter jets. Since that time, the capital Damascus has also been "buzzed," and on July 15, 2006, Syria announced it would support Hezbollah and the Lebanese in their actions against Israel.
Media viewpoints concerning the regional conflict
- Haaretz suggested Syria and Iran may become further involved to support Hezbollah.
- "I think we are at the beginning phase of the next Middle Eastern war, which is Israel against fundamentalist Islam," said Yossi Klein Halevi, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center policy center in Jerusalem." (Cited from Detroit Free Press article)
- "The escalation has been so quick and immediate that they have nowhere to go now but basically to some kind of war, says Nadia Hijab, a senior fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies in Washington.'' (from the CSM article)
- "This is definitely a war. It's more than a border skirmish. It's a full-blown attack," says Yoram Peri, head of the Chaim Herzog Institute for Media, Politics, and Society at Tel Aviv University and an expert on the Israeli military. (from the CSM article)
References
See Also
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