The 2006 Gaza cross-border raid, known by Palestinian militants as Operation Dispersive Illusion (Arabic: عملية الوهم المتبدد, romanized: ʿAmaliyyat al-Wahm Al-mutabadid) was an armed incursion carried out by seven or eight[3] Gazan Palestinian militants on 25 June 2006 who attacked Israel Defense Forces (IDF) positions near the Kerem Shalom Crossing through an attack tunnel.

[7] The abduction of Shalit caused Israel to launch Operation "Summer Rains" which consisted of a series of incursions into Gaza.

[8] In February 2005, the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced a ceasefire which effectively ended the Second Intifada.

On 8 February 2006 Hamas' leader Khaled Meshaal offered a "long-term ceasefire" with Israel if the latter would withdraw to 1967 boundaries.

Hours previously, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, had promised never to give up control of key components of the occupied West Bank.

[14] On 8 June 2006, while the cease-fire was still in effect, Jamal Abu Samhadana, Hamas' Inspector General in the Ministry of the Interior and founder of the Popular Resistance Committees, was assassinated by an Israeli air-strike on the Salah al-Dein Brigades training camp in Gaza which killed three other Palestinians.

[18] The militants surfaced in Israeli territory shielded by a row of trees, and came up behind IDF border positions facing Gaza.

[citation needed] One cell aligned itself behind a Merkava Mark III tank, another behind a concrete watchtower, and another behind an armored personnel carrier.

[citation needed] The squad's third member was positioned near a road, and fired an RPG at an IDF jeep driven by a captain.

[citation needed] Two militants attacked the watchtower, raking it with RPG and small-arms fire, wounding two soldiers manning the tower.

IDF soldiers in the tower spotted the militant climbing the stairs and opened fire, killing him in the upper part of the stairway.

[citation needed] The third cell attacked an empty armored personnel carrier placed as a decoy before retreating, firing an RPG which damaged it and caused it to burst into flames.

[19][21][22] Immediately afterwards the militants made their way back into the Gaza Strip, with Shalit, through the ground after they blew an opening in the security fence and disappeared.

When it became clear that the fourth crew member was missing, an abduction alert was declared, and, various Israeli forces infiltrated Gaza.

[citation needed] Two Israeli soldiers were killed in the operation; Staff Sergeant Pavel Slutzker, 20, of Dimona[2] and Lieutenant Hanan Barak, 20, of Arad[23] and two Palestinian militants; Muhammed Farawneh, 22, of Khan Yunis, Army of Islam member[24] and Hamed Rantisi, 22, of Rafah, Popular Resistance Committees member.

[24] The day after, on 26 June 2006, three Palestinian militant organization took responsibility for the raid; the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades (the armed wing of Hamas), the Popular Resistance Committees organization (which includes members of Fatah, Islamic Jihad, and Hamas) and the Army of Islam and issued a joint statement on 26 June 2006, in which they claimed responsibility for the raid and offered information on Shalit only if Israel agreed to release all female Palestinian prisoners and all Palestinian prisoners under the age of 18, who were held without charges and tried without the right of defense.

According to David Siegel, a spokesman at the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., "Israel did everything it could in exhausting all diplomatic options and gave Mahmoud Abbas the opportunity to return the abducted Israeli… This operation can be terminated immediately, conditioned on the release of Gilad Shalit.