Operation Cast Lead

In June 2008 Egypt brokered a six-month lull between Israel and Hamas. It frayed after an Israeli raid into Gaza on 4 November, and when it expired in mid-December rocket fire and threats of a major operation escalated. At 11:30 on the morning of 27 December 2008, with no warning to the population, Israel launched Operation Cast Lead, striking some one hundred targets in the first minutes. Among them were police stations: 248 Palestinian police officers were killed in attacks on the police that day, including 42 cadets standing in formation at the Gaza City headquarters. After a week of bombardment, Israeli ground forces entered Gaza on 3 January 2009. The fighting ended on 18 January with unilaterally declared ceasefires.

According to B’Tselem’s investigation, Israeli forces killed 1,387 Palestinians during the operation: 773 who did not take part in the hostilities, including 320 minors and 109 women; 330 who took part; 248 police officers killed in attacks on police; and 36 whose status could not be determined. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights put the toll higher, at 1,417 dead, including 926 civilians. The Israeli military, by contrast, acknowledged only 1,166 dead and claimed that 709 of them were combatants — a classification human rights groups disputed, noting the military never released its list of names. On the Israeli side, Palestinians killed nine people — three civilians and six members of the security forces — and four more soldiers were killed by friendly fire. Thousands of Palestinians were wounded, and, according to UN figures, more than 3,500 homes were destroyed.

The operation’s civilian toll led the UN Human Rights Council to establish a Fact-Finding Mission headed by South African judge Richard Goldstone. Its September 2009 report (A/HRC/12/48), prepared without Israeli cooperation, found that both Israel and Palestinian armed groups had committed war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity — in Israel’s case including deliberate attacks on civilians, and in the armed groups’ case the firing of rockets at Israeli communities. Goldstone later partially reconsidered one finding in a 2011 newspaper op-ed; the mission’s three other members publicly stood by the report. No senior Israeli official was ever held accountable.