Gaza City - One year ago, a new war erupted between Israel and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the third in six years.
In the course of the conflict - the longest, deadliest and most destructive - 2 251 Palestinians were killed, including 551 children. More than 10 000 were wounded and 100 000 were left homeless.
On the Israeli side 73 people were killed, of whom 67 were soldiers.
Up to 1 600 were wounded, according to the United Nations.
In June 2014, Palestinians abducted three young Israelis near a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank.
The kidnapping sparked a massive manhunt in which hundreds of Palestinians were arrested and at least five killed.
The teens' bodies were discovered near Hebron 18 days later.
The triple killing also led to the grisly revenge slaying of 16-year-old Palestinian Mohammed Abu Khder, who was snatched in east Jerusalem and burned alive by Israelis last July.
The uptick in violence, and Israel's arrest of senior West Bank Hamas officials in the hunt for its missing teens, triggered a surge in rocket fire from Gaza, where Hamas is the de facto power.
During the evening of July 7 at least 80 rockets were fired into southern and central Israel, the army said.
The military wing of Hamas claimed responsibility.
The next day Israel launched “Operation Protective Edge”, with air strikes on what it said were “approximately 50” Gaza targets and the stated objectives of halting the rocket fire and destroying attack tunnels into Israel.
Israel began a ground offensive on July 17. It withdrew its troops on August 5, saying that all the militant tunnels so far located had been destroyed but there were still “many other missions to complete”.
Air and naval bombardments on the coastal strip continued until an Egyptian-brokered truce was reached in Cairo on August 26.
Each side has denied allegations it breached international law during the hostilities, while accusing each other of abuse.
The Palestinians have signed up to the International Criminal Court to pursue charges against Israel, and last month submitted a first dossier of evidence.
On June 22 a United Nations commission of inquiry announced it had received “credible allegations” that both sides had committed war crimes.
Previously several rights groups had accused Israel of using indiscriminate force against civilians and residential buildings, including UN facilities.
They also accused Hamas of exploiting the fighting to execute Palestinian rivals and alleged Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes with “indiscriminate” rocket fire.
Several rockets have been fired at Israel since the truce and the Jewish state has responded with air strikes.
Palestinian militant groups say they have repaired tunnels, which they used to carry out deadly assaults on Israeli troops and inflict on them the heaviest losses since the 2006 Lebanon war against Hezbollah.
Although both sides speak confidently of their preparedness for a new confrontation, “neither Israel nor Hamas wants a new war now,” Gazan political scientist Mukhaimer Abu Saada says.
There have been indirect talks with a view to a long-term Gaza truce in exchange for Israel lifting or easing its blockade on the territory.
In previous indirect truce negotiations the Palestinians demanded construction of a Gaza seaport, reconstruction of the coastal enclave's bombed-out airport and an end to the blockade.
They failed to achieve those aims, which were to have been raised at further talks in the wake of the war.
AFP