Fifty days. If the current ceasefire holds, that is how long intense, cross-border rocket fire into Israel by Gaza terrorists was met with retaliatory attacks on Gaza by the Israel Defense Forces and Israel Air Force. Here is a look at some of the numbers from the 2014 Gaza war.
Ynet reports that since July 8, 2014, when the operation began, 4,564 rockets and mortars were fired at Israel from Gaza.
However, 923 of those rockets–20%–never made it over Israeli territory. Of the 3,641 which exploded in Israeli territory, 224 hit residential areas, and the remaining rockets fell in open areas; Iron Dome, designed to intercept only those rockets destined to hit strategic or populated areas, intercepted 735 rockets.
The IDF said it attacked 5,263 targets across the Gaza Strip. Those targets included terror infrastructure, rocket launch sites, arms storehouses, and munitions factories. In addition, the IDF hit the homes and offices of Hamas and its regime leaders.
The IDF destroyed 34 known terror tunnels leading under the Israel-Gaza border.
There are disputed numbers regarding the numbers of Palestinians killed and wounded, as well as the percentage of those who were civilians. Gaza health officials say 2,139 people, most of them civilians, have been killed since the operation began, while over 11,000 were injured. Israel estimates that nearly half of those killed were fighters.
Even accepting the Palestinian numbers, that comes to roughly two civilians killed for every five IDF attacks, or about 0.4 per attack; using Israel’s estimate of the ratio of civilian casualties, this is even lower at roughly .2 per attack. Either number supports Israel’s claims that it was avoiding civilian casualties and contradicts Palestinian accusations of genocidal tactics used by the Israelis.
There are also disputed numbers regarding the number of Palestinians displaced by the fighting. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights claims 540,000 people–about 30% of Gaza’s population–had been displaced in the Gaza Strip and roughly 100,000 are homeless. That would translate into nearly 20 people made homeless for each and every target Israel attacked, a rate which sounds implausibly high.
Even if those numbers are accurate, Israel maintains that Hamas bears responsibility for civilian casualties and displacement because it operates among civilians and uses schools and mosques to store weapons and as launch sites for rockets.
On Israel’s side, the death toll stood at 64 soldiers and 6 civilians.
Approximately 3,000 claims for damage have been submitted by Israelis to the Israel Tax Authority, which has so far paid some $20 million for direct damages and another $21 million for missed work days and other indirect damage.
Tourism to Israel, responsible for 7 percent of Israel’s economy, dropped by 26 percent in July from the same period in 2013. That translates to losses of over $500 million for the sector.
Israel’s Manufacturers Association estimated the total economic impact on Israeli manufacturers for the conflict at about $350 million.
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