THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MONDAY, JULY 21, 2014
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PAGE 7
OVERVIEW
Israel-Hamas conflict explained
JAMES HOYT
news@kansan.com
What's the reason for the current conflict?
On June 12, three Israeli teenage boys were abducted in the West Bank, the eastern part of the Palestinian territories. The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) conducted a search-and-rescue operation in the area, arresting 350 Palestinians and killing five others. According to the Jerusalem Post, the three boys were found dead, bound and left in a field. Two days later, three Israeli nationalists (who have since been arrested and confessed to the crime) kidnapped, beat and burned alive a 16-year-old Palestinian boy, escalating Israeli-Palestinian tensions to the current conflict. Since July 8, Israel said it has taken 18 military and two civilian casualties, while the United Nations says that 436 Palestinians, 68 percent of them civilians, have been killed as of July 20.
Who's involved?
Hamas, the democratically elected majority in the Palestinian Parliament, is the primary Palestinian force opposing Israel at this moment. Hamas is the de facto ruler of the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian National Authority controls the West Bank—there has been no shortage of tension between the two groups.
Israel is the Jewish state established
in 1948 on top of them-British Palestine. Israel's existence in the region and its alleged occupation of the Palestinian territories has been the cause of many of the grievances toward Israel in the Middle East. Israel is known to have one of the most powerful militaries in the Middle East and has neither confirmed nor denied that it possesses nuclear weapons. Its conduct in Palestine has come under criticism by some: Amnesty International says that Israel continues to militarily occupy Palestine and that "both Israeli and Palestinian civilians continue to bear the brunt of the violence in the region," as a result.
What is the Iron Dome?
The Iron Dome is an anti-artillery system developed by Israeli defense contractor Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. The system has been in use since 2011. When rockets are fired at Israel, eight batteries fire missiles that then attempt to intercept any ordinance aimed at Israeli urban areas. Rafael says that the Iron Dome does not attempt to destroy artillery that hits the sea or uninhabited areas, in order to conserve ammunition. The Israeli government says that the Iron Dome has intercepted 90 percent of the rockets it has targeted during Operation Protective Edge.
Edited by Kaitlyn Klein and Emma LeGault
FIND MORE CONTENT ONLINE AT KANSAN.COM
More explanation of the conflict
KU Students for Justice in the
— Full column by Ben Lipowitz
Q&A with a student living in Tel Aviv, Israel
Middle East perspective
Footage of rockets
intercepted by the Iron Dome
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