2022 Gaza–Israel Clashes

Israeli forces arrested senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad member Bassam al-Saadi in Jenin on August 1, 2022, several days before the fighting began.[1] Al-Saadi was a PIJ commander in the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria.[5] Israeli military officials said intelligence indicated that PIJ was preparing a retaliatory cross-border attack, including an anti-tank missile attack against targets near Gaza.[6] In anticipation of such an attack, Israel closed roads and train routes near the Gaza border, restricted residents’ movements, and deployed forces.[6]

The restrictions affected civilian life before the first airstrikes: towns near Gaza were evacuated or closed, while roads and train routes were interrupted as Israeli authorities assessed the threat.[7][6] An intelligence warning about a planned anti-tank attack had reached Israel’s Southern Command approximately two weeks before the operation.[6] The subsequent arrest in Jenin and preparations for retaliation brought that threat into the immediate decision-making surrounding the Gaza border closures.[6]

Israel described the purpose of the operation as preempting an imminent terrorist attack rather than responding to an already sustained rocket barrage.[1] Its stated military goals included concentrating strikes on PIJ, degrading the organization’s capabilities, killing senior officials, and preventing attacks against Israel.[8] The anticipated methods of attack included anti-tank missiles and sniper fire directed toward roads and communities near the border.[9]

The Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs characterized the four days of restrictions before the operation as a response to imminent PIJ attack preparations and emphasized the element of surprise in Israel’s eventual opening strikes.[9] Its analysis also argued that Israel and Egypt sought to prevent Hamas from joining the confrontation and that Israel consequently focused on PIJ rather than Hamas targets.[9]

The confrontation was the first round of fighting in Gaza since the 2021 Israel–Hamas war.[6] It nevertheless developed along a different organizational pattern: Hamas remained outside the fighting, as it had during an earlier Israel–PIJ confrontation in November 2019.[3] This left PIJ, rather than Hamas, as Israel’s principal adversary during the August operation.[3]

Operation Breaking Dawn began at 4:16 p.m. on Friday, August 5, with an Israeli strike on an apartment in Gaza City that killed Tayseer Jabari, PIJ’s northern Gaza commander.[10] The opening sequence lasted approximately 170 seconds and included attacks on other squads that Israeli officials said were preparing operations against Israel.[10] One account put the number of targets struck during that sequence at 40 and reported that Jabari and eight other PIJ members were killed.[6]

The opening attacks also targeted Abdallah Kadum, a senior commander in PIJ’s anti-tank missile units.[8] Israeli forces struck the commander of the northern Gaza anti-tank unit and armed groups preparing to launch anti-tank missiles or shoot at Israelis near the perimeter within approximately three minutes.[2] The Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs described Jabari’s apartment as being in the Palestine Tower in central Gaza City and identified two additional targets as cells preparing anti-tank attacks on roads near Israeli border communities.[9]

PIJ’s rocket fire began approximately four hours after the opening Israeli attack, initially targeting communities close to Gaza before extending to cities farther inside Israel.[6] PIJ and other armed groups fired both rockets and mortars, while Israeli forces attacked commanders, launch teams, weapons stockpiles, command posts, and rocket and mortar production facilities.[2] By the second day, more than 449 rockets had been fired toward Israel, including launches toward the southern outskirts of Tel Aviv.[11]

Rocket fire was concentrated on communities near the Gaza border, but launches also sought to reach central Israel, the Tel Aviv area, and Jerusalem.[2] PIJ secretary-general Ziyad al-Nakhalah declared, “Tel Aviv will fall to the rockets of resistance, like all the towns of Israel,” in a statement that also criticized Hamas for remaining outside the fighting.[2] A running assessment published on August 7 placed the number of rockets fired by that stage at approximately 600.[2]

On the evening of August 6, an Israeli strike in Rafah killed Khaled Mansour, PIJ’s southern Gaza commander.[6] Alongside Jabari’s death, Mansour’s killing was one of the operation’s principal attacks on the organization’s senior command.[6] Israeli forces also struck observation posts, weapons stores, manufacturing facilities, and missile-related targets during the fighting.[8]

Footage released by the IDF showed that the attack on Mansour’s location had been postponed three times because civilians, including children, were nearby.[6] In one recorded exchange, soldiers said, “I saw kids in the trees running around, cancel the attack.”[5] The strike was carried out on a later attempt after the children were no longer in the area.[5]

On the morning of August 7, PIJ launched rockets toward the Jerusalem area as Jewish visitors were going to the Temple Mount for Tisha B’Av.[2] Rockets fired toward Jerusalem after Mansour’s death were intercepted near Abu Ghosh.[12] These launches extended the geographic reach of the attacks beyond the southern communities that had borne much of the rocket fire.[2]

Across the operation, the IDF reported striking approximately 170 PIJ targets, including launch pits, military positions, weapons depots, production facilities, and an offensive tunnel.[6][8] Another military accounting identified 45 long-range rocket launchers and 17 observation points as destroyed.[5] Israeli forces also apprehended suspected PIJ members in the West Bank during the operation.[5] A separate accounting recorded 147 Israeli airstrikes, rather than a total of individual targets or attacks.[1]

PIJ’s armed wing carried out most of the Palestinian launches, with smaller contributions from the armed wings of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Popular Resistance Committees.[13] Hamas’s armed wing did not participate in the rocket fire.[13] Hamas remained outside the confrontation throughout the three days, despite PIJ’s public criticism of its abstention.[2][3]

Campaign-wide figures placed the number of rockets and mortars launched at about 1,100, with more than 200 falling short inside Gaza.[6] The IDF reported more than 380 interceptions of projectiles headed toward populated areas and a 96 percent Iron Dome interception rate.[6] A more specific total used in another account was 1,175 launches; the State Department reported that more than 200 misfired and landed in Gaza and cited a 96 percent interception rate.[14] The IDF also reported that more than 990 rockets crossed into Israel.[14]

Egypt mediated contacts between the parties as the fighting continued, and a ceasefire took effect at 11:30 p.m. on Sunday, August 7.[4] The announced understanding included an Egyptian undertaking to work toward the release of al-Saadi and Khalil al-Awawdeh, a hunger-striking detainee.[15] Israel said it had not agreed to release prisoners as part of the ceasefire.[15] PIJ said it would stop firing at the agreed time while reserving the right to respond to what it called Israeli aggression.[13]

The ceasefire followed approximately a day and a half of negotiations involving Egypt and Hamas leaders.[4] A further salvo was fired around the scheduled start, followed by Israeli airstrikes, before the rocket fire quickly diminished.[4] Rockets were also reported shortly after the truce began, but the ceasefire subsequently held sufficiently for Israel to begin lifting restrictions the following Monday.[15][16]

Israel reopened roads and train lines and began restoring access through Gaza crossings after the ceasefire.[15] Rail service between Sderot and Ashkelon resumed, and crossings were reopened for humanitarian needs.[16] The lifting of restrictions ended measures that had affected border communities before and during the fighting.[6][16]

Seventy Israelis were reported injured, with 47 taken to hospitals.[14] An emergency-service breakdown of those transported listed three people injured by shrapnel, 31 hurt while running to protected spaces, and 13 treated for anxiety.[6] Other accounts described injuries from shrapnel and movement to shelters as mostly superficial.[13] Rocket impacts damaged homes in Sderot and nearby communities, damaged factories in Sderot and Ashkelon, and caused fires.[13]

There were no reported Israeli fatalities directly from the rocket fire.[17] Shlomo Atias, a 60-year-old Ashkelon resident, suffered a heart attack while running to a shelter and later died in hospital.[17] State Department and humanitarian summaries likewise recorded no Israeli fatalities; the State Department attributed the absence of deaths from rocket impacts to Iron Dome interceptions, rockets falling in open areas, and launches falling inside Gaza.[1][14]

A later humanitarian tally recorded 49 Palestinians killed, including 17 children, and 360 injured, including 151 children and 58 women.[14] An earlier Palestinian health ministry tally had placed the death toll at 44, including 15 children and four women.[6] PIJ announced that 12 members of its armed wing had been killed, including its two senior commanders.[5] Hamas separately said that two of its members were among the dead.[6]

Israeli airstrikes damaged approximately 1,700 housing units and displaced 535 Gaza residents.[14] Israeli-controlled crossings had been closed for nine days before and during the fighting, interrupting fuel deliveries for more than a week.[18] Gaza’s sole power plant shut down, leaving residents with approximately four hours of electricity daily and jeopardizing medical services, water desalination, and wastewater treatment.[18]

PIJ fired rockets from civilian locations toward civilian targets in Israel, including densely populated areas.[14] Failed launches also caused Palestinian civilian deaths inside Gaza.[6] Separately, five minors were killed in an Israeli airstrike at al-Faluja Cemetery east of Jabalya on August 7 while the IDF was targeting a rocket-launching site in the area.[7] The IDF stated that it had made every reasonable effort during the fighting to minimize harm to civilians and civilian property.[7]

The ceasefire prompted diplomatic responses beyond the immediate parties: President Joe Biden thanked Egyptian and Qatari officials for helping bring the hostilities to an end, supported Israel’s right to defend itself, and lamented civilian casualties.[19] Egypt’s undertaking concerning the two detainees remained distinct from Israel’s position that it had made no prisoner-release commitment.[15] Al-Nakhalah publicly said that al-Awawdeh would be released to hospital and then home, while Egypt would work toward al-Saadi’s release.[4]

The killing of PIJ’s northern and southern commanders and strikes against more than 165 PIJ targets formed central elements of Israeli assessments of the operation’s tactical success.[20] An INSS post-operation assessment judged that Israel had achieved the operation’s stated objectives.[20]

The same assessment concluded that the fighting had not improved Israel’s longer-term security or strategic position and had not resolved the underlying Palestinian political conflict.[20] Its distinction between immediate military results and unresolved strategic conditions reflected the limited scope of the campaign’s stated aims.[20]

Hamas’s decision not to participate was a defining feature of the confrontation.[3] It repeated the pattern of the November 2019 Israel–PIJ fighting, when Hamas had also abstained, rather than the broader Israel–Hamas confrontation of 2021.[3][6] Its absence nevertheless raised questions about its role in restraining other armed groups operating in Gaza.[20] Contemporary explanations associated Hamas’s restraint with avoiding renewed losses after the 2021 fighting and preserving economic benefits linked to quiet along the border.[5]

PIJ’s leadership presented a sharply different evaluation of the outcome: al-Nakhalah called the fighting “a historic achievement.”[5] A Gaza-based analyst, by contrast, described it as occurring “for no reason, with no justification, and bringing no benefit.”[5] These reactions accompanied the more concrete military record of the loss of senior commanders, continued rocket capability, and a ceasefire reached through mediation.[15][20]

The regional setting also attracted interpretation, particularly concerning PIJ’s relationship with Iran.[21] The Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs described al-Nakhalah as being in Tehran before and during the operation and reported meetings with Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and Ali Akbar Velayati.[21] It also reported meetings with President Ebrahim Raisi and Revolutionary Guard commander Hossein Salami on August 6.[21] A separate JCFA analysis argued that Iran had orchestrated events surrounding the clashes.[9]

Published accounts use several measures for the operation’s duration: ynet described 55 hours of fighting, while the Jewish Virtual Library gave a figure of 56 hours.[6][5] A Times of Israel report characterized the confrontation as a 66-hour battle.[10] The main chronological sequence remains the opening Israeli strikes on August 5, the killing of Mansour on August 6, and the Egyptian-mediated ceasefire late on August 7.[6][4] The operation’s enduring analytical themes are its concentrated targeting of PIJ’s leadership, the protection provided to Israeli population centers by Iron Dome, and the separation of Hamas from the immediate fighting.[3][6]

Palestinian casualty totals changed across reporting dates and accounting methods. Ynet cited a Palestinian health ministry total of 44 deaths, while a Jerusalem Post report gave a ministry figure of 46 and an Israeli estimate of 47.[6][22] The State Department later reported UNOCHA’s total of 49 deaths.[14] These figures cannot be combined into one final, independently established breakdown.

Classifications of the dead also differed: one humanitarian estimate identified 37 civilians and 12 armed-group members among 49 fatalities, while a later examination classified 20 of 38 people killed in Israeli strikes as armed-group operatives and attributed another 11 deaths to PIJ rocket misfires.[14][23] A separate reconstruction estimated 31 civilian deaths and attributed 33 deaths to Israeli forces.[24] Israeli military estimates relayed in contemporary reporting gave approximately 15 noncombatant deaths from failed Palestinian launches and 11 from Israeli attacks.[6]

The Jabalia incidents require distinction rather than a single explanation: a later reconstruction considered the August 6 road explosion likely to have resulted from a misfired Palestinian rocket, but assessed the separate al-Faluja cemetery attack, which killed five children, as an Israeli attack.[24] Israeli officials subsequently confirmed that the cemetery deaths occurred in an airstrike targeting a rocket-launching site.[7] Broader casualty estimates do not independently settle responsibility for every individual death.[23][24]

Interim reports gave more than 449 rockets by the second day and approximately 600 by August 7.[2][11] Tikvah Ideas reported 780 launches by the previous afternoon, while campaign-wide accounts gave about 1,100 or 1,175.[6][25] Another account gave approximately 550 rockets, without establishing a common counting basis with the higher totals.[4] Interception percentages should also be distinguished from the proportion of all launches intercepted: the IDF’s 96 percent figure accompanied an account of more than 380 interceptions of projectiles headed toward populated areas, not interception of every rocket launched.[6]