A/HRC/29/52 teenager from East Jerusalem was viciously murdered – burned alive – and his body discovered in West Jerusalem in what appeared to be an act of revenge for the murdered Israeli teenagers. Tensions in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, ran high, and were further fuelled by a rise in extreme anti-Palestinian rhetoric. Widespread protests and violent clashes ensued between Palestinians and the Israel Defense Forces. 19. On 7 July 2014, the Israel Defense Forces commenced operation “Protective Edge” in the Gaza Strip, with the stated objective of stopping the rocket attacks by Hamas and destroying its capabilities to conduct operations against Israel. After an initial phase focused on airstrikes, on 17 July 2014, Israel launched a ground operation, which it declared sought to degrade “terror organisations’ military infrastructure, and [… neutralize] their network of cross-border assault tunnels”.5 A third phase began on 5 August, and was characterized by alternating ceasefires and ongoing air strikes. The operation concluded on 26 August, when both Israel and Palestinian armed groups adhered to an unconditional ceasefire. V. Principal findings and conclusions 20. Palestinians and Israelis were profoundly shaken by the events of the summer of 2014. In Gaza, in particular, the scale of the devastation was unprecedented. The death toll alone speaks volumes: 2,251 Palestinians were killed, including 1,462 Palestinian civilians, of whom 299 women and 551 children;6 and 11,231 Palestinians, including 3,540 women and 3,436 children, were injured (A/HRC/28/80/Add.1, para. 24), of whom 10 per cent suffered permanent disability as a result. While the casualty figures gathered by the United Nations, Israel, the State of Palestine and non-governmental organizations differ, regardless of the exact proportion of civilians to combatants, the high incidence of loss of human life and injury in Gaza is heartbreaking. 21. The death of six civilians in Israel and 67 soldiers and the injury of up to 1,600 others were also the tragic result of the hostilities. According to official Israeli sources, rockets and mortars hit civilian buildings and infrastructure, including schools and houses, causing direct damage to civilian property amounting to almost $25 million. 7The hostilities caused immense distress and disruption to the lives of Israeli civilians, especially those living in the southern regions. In addition to the constant threat of rocket and mortar attacks, the Israelis interviewed by the commission expressed particular anxiety about the new threat of assaults from tunnels penetrating into Israel. One Israeli woman said that “the tunnels are scarier than the rockets because there’s no chance of being warned”. The sense of panic among many Israelis was exacerbated by the short, often insufficient, time to conduct effective emergency procedures. 22. In Gaza, as Palestinians struggled to find ways to save their own lives and those of their families, they were confronted with intense attacks, with no way of knowing which locations would be hit and which might be considered safe. People began to move from one place to another, only to encounter attacks in the new neighbourhood, and they would have to move on. Closed into the Strip, with no possibility to exit at times, 44 per cent of Gaza 5 6 7 6 Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “2014 Gaza Conflict, Israel’s Objectives and Phases of the 2014 Gaza Conflict” (available at http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/IsraelGaza2014/Pages/2014-GazaConflict-Factual-and-Legal-Aspects.aspx), p. 3. Data compiled by the OCHA Protection Cluster, 31 May 2015. For its methodology, see A/HRC/28/80/Add.1, para. 24, footnote 43. Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs (see footnote 5), “Hamas’ Violations of the Law”, p. 4.