The Gaza Border Events – General Background

Hamas, an internationally recognized terrorist organization, has been waging an armed conflict against Israel for almost two decades, with the stated purpose of killing Jews and destroying the State of Israel.

Since violently taking control over the Gaza Strip from the Palestinian Authority in 2007, Hamas has used its control over the territory bordering Israel to increase its attacks and their effectiveness, including by embedding rocket and mortar launch systems within the urban environment, conducting cross-border shooting attacks, cross-border infiltrations, launching incendiary balloons, and by digging numerous underground military tunnels within Gaza and cross-border assault tunnels reaching into Israeli residential areas.

Hamas has also used its control over the population, and the financial and material resources that result from this control for the same purpose. This has included using its control over the education, media and social services to incite and recruit supporters and new members, its control over land crossings and the maritime area to smuggle in weapons and military materiel, actively using the civilian population as shields in military operations, and utilizing urban areas to support offensive and defensive operations (for more information on the armed conflict with Hamas, see The 2014 Gaza Conflict: Factual and Legal Aspects).

In 2018, alongside the Gaza border events, Hamas increased its military activities against Israel significantly. Hamas fired over 1,300 rockets and mortar shells towards Israeli civilian population centers, a marked increase from 2017. Hundreds of other attacks were carried out, including firing ground-to-ground missiles and machine guns into Israel and detonating mines and other explosives on the fenceline, resulting in harm to persons and property damage. Both from within the Gaza border events and separate from it, Hamas launched thousands of incendiary and explosive balloons into Israel.

Simultaneously, Hamas continued to invest in building-up its military arsenal and capabilities. Hamas continues to develop and conduct testing of rocket technology, and has continued to develop its array of internal underground military tunnel network as well as cross-border assault tunnels. Since the end of 2017, approximately 20 cross-border tunnels have been neutralized by the IDF, including tunnels under and close by the Kerem Shalom and Erez crossings, as well as under UN facilities inside Gaza. Extensive sections of Hamas’ internal underground military tunnel network within Gaza were struck by the IDF during the May 2021 Gaza conflict.

Hamas continued to import military equipment and materials, and conducted smuggling operations into the Gaza Strip via Israel and Egypt. Hamas has also continued to conduct large-scale military trainings, including a joint-forces exercise on 27 March 2018, which involved training infiltrating into Israel, taking over buildings, kidnapping soldiers and retreating into the Gaza Strip (see for example this publication and a video of the exercise). 

Other terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip also carried out attacks against Israel during 2018, including Palestinian Islamic Jihad, funded and directed by Iran. Many of the different terrorist organizations in Gaza act in cooperation with Hamas, including in a joint-operations room commanded by Hamas. In other cases, these groups have purportedly acted independently.

In the face of such threats, Israel took various steps to protect its population from the armed conflict, including investing in defensive infrastructure (such as bomb shelters), developing and constructing the underground obstacle, deploying and employing the Iron Dome active-defense interception system and improving Homefront Command emergency procedures. Israel has also worked to constrain Hamas’s military build up, including by conducting security checks of goods entering Gaza from Israel and regulating the import of goods from Israel that could be used for military purposes. Israel also carried out attacks against Hamas military objectives, primarily consisting of aerial strikes in response to attacks emanating from the Gaza Strip.

What were the Gaza border events?

It is within the above context that violent riots and attacks took place along the Gaza border from 30 March 2018. While these riots declined at the end of 2019 and ended in 2020 due to the covid-19 pandemic, some violent riots of a similar nature also took place later, such as the violent riot during August 2021 which led to the killing of Border Police solider, Sgt. Barel Hadaria Shmueli. Purportedly beginning as a civilian initiative, these events were appropriated by Hamas in order to further its attacks against Israel, to create heightened security tension in the Gaza arena and to increase political and diplomatic pressure on Israel, internally and internationally.

During these events, IDF forces have contended with months of simultaneous gatherings of sometimes tens of thousands of people along the border, each of which have involved varying levels of violence. This has included gunshots, grenades, Molotov cocktails and other explosive devices, marbles and rocks launched using different high-velocity launching devices, coordinated maneuvers to sabotage and destroy the security infrastructure, mostly under cover of large clouds of smoke from burning tires, and the launching of incendiary and explosive airborne devices (primarily kites and balloons) into Israel in order to kill and harm, destroy military infrastructure, and cause widespread damage to homes, nature and agriculture.

Under the cover of this violence, breaches in Israel’s security infrastructure have occurred, followed by infiltrations into Israeli territory and attacks on IDF forces, IDF positions and military infrastructure. These breaches have threatened to evolve into mass breaches of the security infrastructure and infiltration en masse into Israel.

Besides these threats, Hamas also intended to exploit breaches created by the rioters and Hamas operatives in the security infrastructure in order to penetrate into Israel territory and conduct military attacks inside Israel. Hamas’s other military assets (such as rockets, missiles and mortars) have been constantly primed and ready so as to rapidly provide ancillary support to successful military attacks inside Israel.

At the same time as these violent riots and attacks in the Gaza border area, Hamas organized and maintained mass gathering sites further from the border, each site consisting of between eight and twenty four marquees, social activities and political and religious speeches which often include incitement to violence against Israel. These sites did not involve the types of activities described above, and the following information generally refers to the activities occurring in the Gaza border area itself, unless noted otherwise. The number of people congregating at the focal points and the border area ranges between several thousand and 45,000 each day.

What is the Gaza-Israel border area?

The violent riots and attacks occurred along the length of the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel, both on land and at sea. On land, this border runs for approximately 60 kilometers (37 miles) and varies in topography. Dividing between two parties engaged in an ongoing armed conflict, it has constituted a primary point for attacks and military operations, increasingly so since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in 2007.

Approximately 70,000 Israelis reside in the area of southern Israel that abuts the Gaza Strip, in approximately 80 residential areas (of which three civilian communities of almost 1,500 residents lie directly across the border from Gaza, and another 22 communities lie within four kilometres in addition to the city of Sderot of approximately 30,000 residents). This area also includes schools and other education centers, tourist sites, nature reserves, commercial centers, industrial factories and national infrastructure (including chemical plants and power stations).

The border area is a flashpoint in the armed conflict being waged against Israel. Between 2015 and 2017, over 40 armed attacks were carried out in the border area on land, against IDF forces, military assets, civilian infrastructure and residential communities. In 2018, prior to 30 March, a number of attacks were carried out, including explosives laid on the fenceline, armed cells infiltrating into Israel and sabotaging engineering and military equipment and shooting attacks.

On 17 February 2018, for example, four IDF soldiers were injured, two seriously, when a booby-trapped flag planted on the border fence detonated (a video of the incident was published by the al-Nasser Salah al-Deen Brigades in November 2018, as part of the propaganda campaign carried out during the Gaza border events).On 30 August 2021, a Border Police solider, Sgt. Barel Hadaria Shmueli was killed by a Palestinian gunman on the Gaza border. In addition, along the length of the border numerous infiltrations into Israeli territory have taken place, including for the purposes of carrying out attacks inside Israeli territory. For example, on 25 March 2018, an attempt to sabotage the equipment for constructing the underground obstacle was conducted during an infiltration from Gaza, and grenades and knives were found on the infiltrators. On 27 March 2018, three armed infiltrators were detained 20 kilometers into Israeli territory, next to an IDF base. On 28 and 29 March, two additional infiltrations from Gaza occurred.

This area was also utilized by Hamas for underground military activities, primarily the construction of cross-border assault tunnels into Israel, as well as for intelligence gathering against the IDF and Israeli residential and commercial areas.

The sensitivity of the border area is reflected in the fact that since the end of 2012, there have been understandings in force regarding Palestinian presence and activity in the border area. According to these understandings, Hamas has prohibited the presence of Gazan civilians in the border area without its consent. To enforce these understandings, Hamas set up patrols and dedicated units, and established infrastructure such as roads and guard posts on the Gaza side along the length of the border.

Israel also shares a maritime border with the Gaza Strip. Here too, the border has been the site of numerous attacks and military activity. Over the years, attacks have been conducted on land in Israel via the sea, and attacks have been carried out against Israeli naval forces operating in the area. The coastal city of Ashkelon, for example, consists of 150,000 residents and lies under four nautical miles from Gaza. Further, in recent years Israel has developed offshore gas platforms, which are of national significance, and some of which are located in close proximity to the Gaza maritime zone.

What security infrastructure has Israel established on the border with Gaza?

In 2006, Israel erected a steel fence approximately three meters in height along the entire length of the Israel-Gaza border. The fence contains a technological system consisting of interconnected sensors, camera, and other detection means. Consistent with the primary threat of individual and small-cell infiltrations over the border area, these means are designed to provide early detection and warning of attempted infiltration, and to allow IDF forces to quickly identify where the possible breach is occurring.

In order to provide a rapid response to such indications of attempted breaches, IDF forces constantly patrol the fenceline. These patrols are heavily protected in light of the threat of attack from within Gaza and the detonation of explosives placed on the fenceline. In addition to this fence, Israel has placed sections of barbed wire on the Gaza side, designed to deter and delay potential infiltrators.

In response to the cross-border assault tunnels, Israel has heavily invested in developing a robust obstacle and sophisticated underground technology intended to detect such tunnels. The underground barrier was installed on the border using substantial engineering equipment and resources (including civilian contractors and laborers) throughout the length of the border. At the same time, Israel also upgraded the aboveground security infrastructure. The work on both was completed in December 2021.

 Likewise, in response to the attacks and attempted infiltrations via the maritime area, in early 2018 Israel began building .infrastructure (a 'maritime barrier') to reduce such threats. The maritime barrier was completed at the end of 2018

Due to the threat of infiltration, Israel also invests in individual security for the communities in the vicinity of the Gaza Strip, including indicative fencing and dedicated fast-response units in the area. For example, on the western side of the Kerem Shalom community, which abuts the Gaza border, a concrete wall has been installed to defend from shooting attacks.

How did Hamas organize these events?

The first mass encroachments on the border area began on 30 March 2018. However, Hamas's preparations for these events began much beforehand. These preparations were carried out in order to ensure the presence of the Gazan population at the events and incite them to breach the security infrastructure, as well as to further Hamas’s military aims of executing attacks under the cover of their presence.

Hamas selected five sites along the Gaza border where people would be transported to and congregate. At each of these sites, Hamas conducted engineering works and established between eight and twenty four marquees. Hamas installed electricity (due to the low supply of electricity throughout Gaza, Hamas often rerouted electricity supplied by Israel to the Gaza Strip to these sites), and provided free wireless internet and network connections, food and drink and additional services at each site. Throughout the events, these focal sites have been funded by Hamas and managed by Hamas-affiliated organizations such as local religious centers.

Hamas also undertook a program of incitement and coercion though the local media, television channels and newspapers, calling on the population to attend the events.  Hamas also contracted bus companies to provide transport services from population centers in Gaza to the focal sites.