Israel said food imports into the Gaza Strip have been limited by its inability to operate at border checkpoints that are under constant Palestinian attack, not because of Israeli-imposed borders. [46] He accused Hamas of exacerbating fuel shortages by leading union strikes by power plant workers. [46] He also accused Hamas of underfunding Gaza`s health system and blaming Israel for the situation, even though it freely exchanged medical supplies. He claims that some people who claimed to need medical assistance in Israel were actually planning terrorist attacks and therefore forced the government to impose travel restrictions. [46] He also accused Hamas of continuing to smuggle weapons into the Gaza Strip through tunnels to Egypt, stressing that the rocket attacks had not been completely stopped. [47] On November 4, 2008, Israel invaded Gaza, killing six Hamas fighters. The Israeli military said the target of the raid was a tunnel, which they said planned to capture Israeli soldiers positioned at the border fence 250 meters away. [10] Hamas officials said the tunnel was dug for defensive purposes. After the Israeli raid, Hamas launched a barrage of rocket fire at targets in southern Israel. On December 20, Hamas announced that it would not renew the ceasefire. Israel began on September 27. In December 2008, Operation Cast Lead, an organized ground and air strike on military and police targets in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip that sparked the 2008-2009 Gaza conflict. Hamas “sought to impose the terms of the arrangement” on other Palestinian groups by “taking a series of measures against networks that violated the agreement,” including short-term detention and confiscation of its weapons, but it could not completely end rocket and mortar attacks by these rogue factions in Gaza.
Hamas had sought the support of public opinion in the Gaza Strip for its policy of maintaining the ceasefire. [40] [39] The announcement came a day after a rocket attack by Hamas fighters killed two Thai farm workers and wounded at least seven others at a packaging plant in southern Israel. A week earlier, a Hamas attack killed an Indian woman working as a health worker in the city of Ashkelon. Diplomats from Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations have worked hard to broker the deal between Hamas and Israel, which do not speak directly to each other. In Gaza, Ramadan Smama did not go out to celebrate, he said, but to accept the destruction. The 53-year-old said he admired the growing capabilities of Hamas` rocket arsenal, but it was too early to say whether the fighting would improve the lives of Gaza`s two million residents. But Israeli officials said the ceasefire agreement only called for an immediate halt to military operations. The security cabinet statement stressed that the agreement included a “mutual and unconditional ceasefire.” Cabinet members who later spoke to Israeli media said no concessions had been made regarding Jerusalem. .
