After eight days of fighting and the deaths of 166 Palestinians and six Israelis, a cease-fire was declared on Nov. 21 in an escalating conflict between the country of Israel and the Palestinian Territory.

The cease-fire was brokered by Egypt, due to Israel’s refusal to negotiate with Hamas, and was announced by Hillary Clinton and Mohamed Kamel Amr, the Egyptian Foreign Minister.

This is not the first cease-fire that the two populations have had. One was enacted in 2008. but, immediately after it ended, fighting began again.

In the first attack after the cease-fire in 2008, civilian infrastructure, such as houses, schools, hospitals, and mosques were attacked, with Israel stating that they were housing militants. This time, the number of rockets launched from Gaza have increased, leading to current events.

This round of violence began with rockets fired near the Israel-Gaza border. The attack has been attributed to Hamas’s belief that the Gaza Strip was being unjustly blockaded, and because of their displeasure with Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In response, Israel assassinated Ahmed Jabari, the military leader of Hamas, which Israel and the United States consider to be a terrorist organization. From these events fighting broke out between Israel and Gaza, lasting eight days. The combat was almost entirely aerial, with rockets, missiles, and drones.

There are conflicting reports about the number of casualties. According to the Palestinian Centre for Human rights, 158 Palestinians died, along with 102 civilians, and 30 children. The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) has claimed that 177 Palestinians were killed, 120 of those militants.
Israel has refused to negotiate directly with Hamas, so Egypt and the U.S. have acted as intermediaries between the two groups. They declared the cease-fire Nov.21 at 21:00 GMT.

The Gaza strip, a part of the Palestinian nations, was originally captured by Israel in 1967 during the Six Day War. Since then, Israel has remained an occupying power in Gaza, which is a major factor to the current situation.

Since Israel’s occupation, Israel has faced constant resistance from the Palestinians, and violence has broken out in great bursts several times.

In 2006, Hamas was the controlling political party in the Gaza strip. They have been extremely active in the community. “Approximately 90 percent of its work is in social, welfare, cultural, and educational activities,” writes Israeli scholar Reuven Paz. In fact, Hamas funds schools, orphanages, mosques, health clinics, soup kitchens, and sports leagues. They are also seen as a terrorist organization, due to their use of rockets and suicide bombings. Currently, Israel, the United States, Canada, the European Union, and Japan classify Hamas as a terrorist organization.

After Hamas came to power, there was an uprising in Gaza in which they seized government institutions and displaced the government officials of Fatah, the previous power. Due to the violent nature of the uprising, and Hamas’s violent and generally anti-Semitic attitude, which includes Holocaust denial, Egypt and Israel enacted the blockade of the Gaza Strip. The main purpose of the blockade was to keep weapons from being smuggled into Gaza, and to stop rockets from being launched into Israel. Israel’s measures have not kept these rockets from being launched into Israel. However the blockade’s have kept many commercial goods from entering the area, and trapped most residents, nearing 1.7 million, in an area the size of 141 square miles. In 2010, Israel lessened the blockade, allowing non military goods to cross the border.

Throughout the fighting, Israel has received criticism for the amount of civilians, especially children, killed in their strikes.

However, Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have claimed that Hamas has been using these civilians as human shields in an attempt to put Israel in a negative light to the rest of the world.

Several solutions to the violence between Israel and Palestine, especially Gaza, have been proposed. The most popular of these is the two state solution, which would take away some of Israel’s land and turn it into an official Palestinian State.

However, neither side has been able to come to an agreement on where this line would be drawn, with Hamas wanting Israel returned to its 1967 borders, shrinking it significantly. Israel has refused these terms.