The Palestine Chronology

After early morning consultations with senior cabinet mbrs., the IDF launches its major offensive on Gaza, Operation Cast Lead (OCL), at 11:25 A.M. local time (4:25 A.M. EST). Israeli DM Barak acknowledges (WP 12/28) that OCL has been planned for several months, stating that the aim is “to strike Hamas severely so as to change the situation from its base,” cautioning that “it won’t be short.”

Israeli actions: After an initial “shock and awe campaign” lasting 3 min. and 40 sec., with 64 warplanes hitting more than 50 targets across the Strip, the IDF conducts periodic air strikes throughout the day, recording a total of 170 sorties against 150 targets, killing at least 228 Palestinians, wounding more than 700 (140 seriously), marking the highest single-day death toll and Israel’s largest offensive in the territories since 1967. The midday timing of the initial onslaught, just as schools let out for lunch, increases the number of civilian casualties, including an estimated 25 women and children. Israeli Military Intelligence sends automated calls to 20,000 Palestinians across the Strip warning of further air strikes targeting anyone with weapons or guns.

Targets struck are primarily civil police stations, military training bases, Hamas-related command-and-control centers, suspected weapons depots, and sites believed to manufacture rockets. Target areas include Bayt Hanun, Bayt Lahiya, al-Bureij r.c., Dayr al-Balah, Gaza City (the city center and al-Daraj, al-Shuja‘iyya, Tal al-Hawa, alTuffah, al-Zaytun neighborhoods), Jabaliya r.c., Khan Yunis, al-Mughraqa (s. of Gaza City), Rafah, Shati’ r.c., and al-Zahra’ (c. Gaza nr. Jabaliya).

Palestinian actions: Palestinians fire 59 rockets (including some that reach the farthest north to date), 19 mortars into Israel during the day, killing 1 Israeli civilian in Netivot, wounding 4. (The fatality may have occurred before the official launch of OCL.)

Humanitarian notes: Gaza’s hospitals report (BBC 12/27) overflowing wards and not enough surgeons or supplies to cope. Egypt temporarily opens the Rafah crossing to allow transportation of some wounded to Egyptian hospitals.

Of note: During the initial “shock and awe,” the IDF hits a police academy graduation ceremony in Gaza City, killing at least 60 new civil police recruits and the chief of Palestinian police Maj. Gen. Tawfiq Jabber. Other targets include Gaza City’s main jail (the Saraya, holding Hamas opponents, hitting only the gates), the PA Preventive Security headquarters in Gaza City, the PA security compound in Rafah (southern headquarters of the PASF, PA Internal Security Service, and PA civil police), PA naval police facilities in n. Gaza and Khan Yunis, Palestinian Telecommunication Company offices in n. Gaza, a Gaza City mosque identified by the IDF as “a base for terrorist activities,” Hamas’s al-Aqsa TV station, the agriculture control dept. in Khan Yunis, numerous police stations and training sites, at least 9 homes, several workshops (considered rocket-manufacturing sites), and Hamas’s Asda’ media center outside Khan Yunis. One IDF airstrike on a PA ministry building kills 8 Palestinian students at an adjacent UNRWA training center, wounding 19 others (8 seriously). Hamas and Palestinian human rights groups in Gaza estimate that the dead include around 165 civil police officers (including those at the graduation ceremony) and Hamas’s central district governor, Abu Ahmad Ashur. Some targets are hit with U.S.-supplied GBU-39 bunkerbusting munitions received as recently as 9/08 (see Quarterly Update in JPS 150 and the “Israeli Arsenal” document in this issue’s Special Focus section). (al-Arabiyya TV, BBC, HA, IDF, JAZ, Middle East News Agency [Cairo], Palestine News Agency, YA 12/27; AFP, AP, BBC, HA, IFM, JAZ, NYT, Radikal, REU, WP, WT, XIN 12/28; JP, NYT, Zaman [Ankara] 12/29; PCHR 1/1; BBC 12/30; UNOSAT 12/31; JP, WJW 1/1; WP 1/4; Eurasia Daily Monitor [online], NYT, UNOSAT 1/5; IFM, JPI 1/8; NYT 1/11)

In other Israeli-Palestinian violence, the IDF fires tear gas, percussion grenades, rubber-coated steel bullets to disperse Palestinians demonstrating against OCL in the East Jerusalem suburbs of Anata, Issawiyya, Shu‘fat r.c. An E. Jerusalem Palestinian, reportedly angry over events in Gaza, injures an Israeli border police officer in a deliberate hit and run in the city. The IDF also conducts late-night arrest raids, house searches nr. Bethlehem, Jenin. (HA 12/28; PCHR, WJW 1/1)

The IDF demolishes 3 Palestinian homes in the East Jerusalem environs (1 in Issawiyya, 2 in Bayt Hanina), displacing 30 Palestinians, including 14 children; conducts late-night arrest raids, house searches in and around Nablus (including raiding the offices of the International Solidarity Association for Human Rights, confiscating computers and files), in al-Far‘a r.c. (firing on stone-throwing youths, wounding 3) and Qalqilya, and nr. Jenin, Ramallah, Tulkarm. (OCHA 7/16; PCHR 7/17)

The Israeli High Court rejects a petition by human rights groups challenging the legality of fuel cuts to Gaza on the grounds that Israel, as occupier, is not meeting is obligations to Gazans. Overnight in Gaza, the IDF sends troops, bulldozers into Khan Yunis to search homes and offices, demolish 3 Palestinian homes, bulldoze 7 d. of land; troops also fire on residential areas, wounding 1 Palestinian. During the day, the IDF fires a missile from a drone, hitting a Palestinian house in Khan Yunis, killing a 4-yr.-old Palestinian girl, injuring her mother. Hamas mbrs. fire 3 mortars into Israel, hitting a factory in Nir Oz, killing 1 Israeli, wounding 2. Late in the evening, the IDF makes an air strike on a Palestinian police station nr. Bayt Lahiya, destroying the building, wounding 2 police officers, 3 children nearby (ages 1, 6, 13); makes an air strike on a workshop in Gaza City, causing damage but no injuries. In the West Bank, the IDF conducts morning arrest raids, house searches nr. Hebron, firing on stone-throwing youths who confront them, wounding 4 Palestinians (including 2 women, 1 child who were bystanders); conducts late-night arrest raids, house searches nr. Hebron. In Hebron, mbrs. of disputing Palestinian clans exchange fire in an area nr. a Jewish settlement; IDF soldiers protecting the settlement fire on the group, killing 1 Palestinian, wounding 2. Also in Hebron, Jewish settlers fr. Kiryat Arba attack and vandalize nearby Palestinian homes, beating a Palestinian teenager. In Gaza, a bomb explodes outside the home of Hamas’s Gaza security chief Said Siyam, causing damage but no injuries. (NYT, WP, WT 6/6; OCHA 6/11; PCHR 6/12)