The 2006 Gaza–Israel conflict, known in Israel as Operation Summer Rains (), was a series of battles between Palestinian militants and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during summer 2006, prompted by the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit by Palestinian militants on 25 June 2006. Large-scale conventional warfare occurred in the Gaza Strip, starting on 28 June 2006, which was the first major ground operation in the Gaza Strip since Israel's unilateral disengagement plan was implemented between August and September 2005.

Israel's stated objectives 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 Palestinian militants."Operation Summer Rains", Federation of American Scientists Shalit 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 Hamas terror war against Israel", Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, November 30, 2008 The IDF had responded with artillery fire and air raids."The Gaza Strip after disengagement", B'Tselem During the operation, the pace of both rocket fire and shelling increased dramatically, and the IDF mounted numerous ground incursions into the Gaza Strip targeting militant groups and their infrastructure, including smuggling tunnels in the Philadelphi Corridor. On the first day of the conflict, Israel also bombed the only electrical power plant in the Gaza Strip."Act of Vengeance: Israel's Bombing of the Gaza Power Plant and its Effects", B'Tselem

Hamas sought the release of a large number of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel in exchange for Shalit. Publicly, Israel categorically rejected any such offers, but in August it was reported that negotiations were held with Egypt acting as mediator. However, the negotiations broke down as Israel was nοt willing to release as many prisoners as Hamas wanted.

Operation Summer Rains was followed by Operation "Autumn Clouds", launched on November 1. When Operation Autumn Clouds ended on 26 November with ceasefire between Hamas and Israel and an Israeli withdrawal, no deal for the release of Shalit had been reached. The ceasefire broke down completely amid escalating conflict between Hamas and Fatah in 2007.

Background In 2005, Israel's unilateral disengagement plan saw it pulling forces out of Gaza and dismantling Jewish settlements that had been built in the territory in the years of the occupation. Israel remained in control of Gaza's borders, coastline and airspace, with the exception of the southern border which continues to be supervised by Egypt and European Union monitors. Following disengagement in 2005, Qassam rockets continued to be fired out of Gaza into Israel, and the pace of the attacks quickened in 2006 following the victory of the Islamist group Hamas in the Palestinian legislative elections of early 2006. 757 missiles hit Israel between disengagement and the end of June 2006 and Israel responded with artillery fire and airstrikes.

Between the end of March 2006 – when the Hamas government assumed power – and the end of May 2006, Israel fired at least 5,100 artillery shells into the Gaza Strip Qassam launching areas in an attempt to stop them being fired. Hamas had announced a ceasefire in February 2005 and until 10 June 2006, Hamas did not take responsibility itself for the firing of ordnance into Israel, and Israel admitted that Hamas is "largely" sticking to the ceasefire. However, after Israel killed several members of other Palestinian groups (PIJ and Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades) in targeted airstrikes in Gaza, the leader of Hamas said in February 2006 that it wouldn't impede other groups from carrying out "armed resistance" against Israel. This was a significant statement because Israel had often pressured the Palestinian government to stop such attacks in the past, and Palestinian willingness to do so had been seen as a key indicator of intent by Israel. However, Hamas was implicated in rocket attacks and attacks carried out by other groups, as well as engaging in its own attacks, despite the ceasefire.Hamas Must End Attacks Against Civilians, Human Rights Watch, June 8, 2005

In late January and early February 2006, there were fears that an internal struggle in the Palestinian territories between Hamas and the previously dominant party, Fatah, will lead to a civil war (Fatah members and supporters predominated in the Palestinian security forces and the civil service and Hamas complained that they were hampering the new government's capability to function). This did not happen at the time, and after a few days marked by at least one shooting, by what appeared to be an attempted assassination of a Fatah official, and by temporary occupation of the legislature building in Gaza by Fatah-affiliated police, both Hamas and Fatah refrained from escalating.Palestinians, Israel and the Quartet: Pulling Back from the Brink, International Crisis Group Meanwhile, because Hamas refused to recognize Israel's right to exist or reaffirm its commitment to previous agreements between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, the Israeli government and the Quartet (the EU, the UK, the US and Russia) imposed an economic embargo on the Hamas government. Additionally, Israel blocked the Palestinian government's own tax revenue, leaving Palestinian government employees in Gaza (37% of Gaza's workforce) without pay.

March 2006 brought the surprising launch of a Grad-type rocket (different from previous Palestinian homemade rockets) on Israel by PIJ. May 2006 brought protests by government employees in Gaza, who were deprived of salaries (these protests continued in the following months and overlapped with the Fatah-Hamas friction as many protesters were loyal to Fatah). It also brought ambushes on Hamas members, a series of ambushes on Fatah members claimed inexplicably by a branch of Al-Qaeda, and the death of a bystander, a diplomat, during clashes between those security services sent by President Abbas (Fatah) and those loyal to the Hamas government. On June 8 Israel resumed its policy of the extrajudicial killing of key Palestinian militant leaders, with the IDF assassination of Jamal Abu Samhadana, founder of the Popular Resistance Committees, which regularly launches home-made rockets into Israel. The Israeli military said Samhadana and the other targeted militants were planning an attack on Israel. The policy of targeted killings had ceased with the February 2005 Israeli-PA ceasefire agreement, which Hamas had also pledged to observe. Samhadana had been appointed to the Palestinian Interior and National Security Ministry of the PA's new Hamas-led government on April 20, 2006, to a position similar to the ministry's director-general, as the head of a newly formed security force. In response to Samhadana's assassination, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip fired two rockets into Israel hours after his death, hitting a building in the southern town of Sderot, but causing no casualties. On June 9, Israel responded to the rocket fire with a bombardment of launching sites. During this campaign an explosion occurred on a busy Gaza beach, killing eight Palestinian civilians belonging to one family. Following the blast, an internal Israel Defense Forces (IDF) enquiry was initiated. On June 13, Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz and Chief of Staff Dan Halutz appeared alongside IDF General Meir Klifi to announce the findings of the enquiry, stating "The chances that artillery fire hit that area at that time are nil." In further interviews, Klifi theorised that the deaths could have been caused by old ordnance or by a Palestinian planted mine. In contrast a Human Rights Watch (HRW) investigation found that "the evidence we have gathered strongly suggests Israeli artillery fire was to blame". According to Mark Garlasco, the head HRW investigator, contentious issues was that the injuries sustained by the Palestinian victims were inconsistent with either a typical mine or an explosion from beneath the sand. Israel acknowledged that it had been shelling 250 m away from the family's location. Palestinians claimed that the explosion was caused by this Israeli shelling."CHRONOLOGY-Key events since Hamas rose to power", Reuters, July 4, 2006Der Krieg der Bilder , Süddeutsche Zeitung, June 16, 2006 On June 10, Hamas formally withdrew from its 16-month ceasefire, and began openly taking responsibility for the ongoing Qassam rocket attacks. On June 13, Israel killed 11 Palestinians in a missile strike on a van carrying Palestinian militants and rockets in Gaza. Among those killed were nine civilian bystanders. Reuters called this "the deadliest such attack in four years". On June 20, Israel killed 3 Palestinian civilians in a missile strike on a car in Gaza's Jabaliya refugee camp. On June 24, Israeli commandos entered the Gaza Strip and captured Osama and Mustafa Muamar, whom Israel claimed were Hamas militants. Hamas claimed that they were the sons of a Hamas supporter but not Hamas members themselves. It was Israel's first raid into the Strip since its forces pulled out of Gaza in September 2005."Noam Chomsky interview regarding Gaza and Lebanon" , Democracy Now!, July 14, 2006 On June 25, armed Palestinians crossed the border from the Gaza Strip into Israel via a makeshift tunnel and attacked an IDF post. During the morning attack, two Palestinian militants and two IDF soldiers were killed and four others wounded. The Palestinians captured Corporal Gilad Shalit, who suffered a broken left hand and a light shoulder wound. Hamas claimed that the attack was carried out in response to June 9 killings, but the IDF concluded that the digging of the tunnel must have taken between 3 and 6 months.Gil Hoffman et al., "Shalit's health better than first feared", Jerusalem Post, June 29, 2006 On June 26, Shalit's captors issued a series of statements demanding the release of all female Palestinian prisoners and all Palestinian prisoners under the age of 18. The statements came from Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades (the military wing of Palestinian governing party Hamas), the Popular Resistance Committees (which includes members of Fatah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas), and the Army of Islam. More than 8,000 Palestinians were being held as prisoners by Israel. Approximately two-thirds of these prisoners were convicted in court, while around ten percent were held without charge.B'Tselem, Statistics on Palestinians in the custody of the Israeli security forces On June 29, the IDF issued a summary of activity in the Gaza Strip:

Early this morning, July 29, 2006, the IDF began engineering work in the Erez industrial area in the northern Gaza Strip in order to thwart terror threats and to discover tunnels and explosive devices in area.

In addition, the IDF carried out aerial attacks against a structure used by Hamas to store and manufacture weaponry in Gaza City, as well as a tunnel located along the Israeli-Egyptian border near Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

Prior to the attacks on these targets, in order to ensure the safety of the residents of the Gaza Strip, the IDF warned the population not to stay in structures that are used by terrorist organizations for storing weapons.

Terrorist organizations operate from within civilian population, while cynically exploiting uninvolved civilians and using them as human shields, exploiting their homes to store weapons and launch rockets at Israeli towns from populated areas.

The IDF will continue to act with determination against terrorist organizations and terror infrastructure in order to create the conditions for the return of Corporal Gilad Shalit and to stop terror attacks and the launching of missiles against Israel.

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