[86] Nonetheless, the ICRC,[87] the UN[88] and various human rights organizations[89][90][91] consider Israel still to be the de facto occupying power due to its control of Gaza's borders, air space and territorial waters.

The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that the action was a response to repeated rocket and mortars fire into Israel starting in December 2008, rising to 2,378 attacks over an eleven-month period leading to the operation.

[138] According to Israeli security officials, Hamas, aided by Iranian technical experts and the Sudanese government, smuggled into Gaza Iranian-made Fajr-5 rockets with increased range and lethality.

[139][140] However, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari stated, "We haven't sent any weapons to Gaza because it is under blockade, but we are honoured to announce that we gave them the technology of how to make Fajr-5 missiles.

[143] Israel, which receives billions of dollars of military aid from the US, has a conscript army of 175,000, with 450,000 in reserve equipped with modern weapons systems including F-16 fighter-bombers, Apache helicopter gun ships, and Merkava tanks.

[139][140] However, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari stated "We haven't sent any weapons to Gaza because it is under blockade, but we are honoured to announce that we gave them the technology of how to make Fajr-5 missiles.

[143] Israel, which receives billions of dollars of military aid from the US, has a conscript army of 175,000, with 450,000 in reserve equipped with modern weapons systems including F-16 fighter-bombers, Apache helicopter gun ships and Merkava tanks.

According to Amira Hass, the Israeli Navy routinely fire on Palestinian fishermen, sometimes detaining and transferring them for a minor interrogation at the Shin Bet security service's offices in Ashdod.

On 7 November, the armed wing of the Hamas movement and the Islamic Jihad group fired a volley of rockets at Israel, a day after an Israeli strike against targets in the Gaza Strip.

[205] Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Operation Pillar of Defense had been successful and thanked US President Obama for his "unwavering support for Israel's right to defend itself.

The survivors, who thought the terms of the truce allowed them access to their land, said they ventured into the Israeli-established "buffer zone" inside Gaza's border to pray, while climbing on the Israeli Defense Wall.

[236] The IDF credited the low Israeli casualty rate to a number of factors, both offensive and defensive: its preemptive targeting of launching pads and rocket arsenals, its ability to strike militants in the act of launching rockets, the 80%+ success rate of Israel's Iron Dome missile interception system, the existence of bomb-proof rooms in every Israeli house, the implementation of the Red Color alarm system, and public outreach efforts by its Home Front Command.

[243] Human Rights Watch stated it had found evidence on the ground in Gaza that supported the Israeli's claim that the suspected target, Mohammad Al-Dalou, was a member of Hamas' armed wing.

[251] Some political or armed groups often declare killed persons, including children, one of their members and adopt them as "martyrs" placing their photographs on their websites and commending their contribution to resisting occupation.

An eyewitness said he saw two masked men emerge from a Jeep, drag the victim underneath a Hamas billboard and shoot him multiple times in the head, before hanging a poster citing his alleged crimes.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights stated that "an Israeli warplane fired a missile at a house belonging to Ali Nemer al-Mishrawi in the al-Zaytoun neighborhood in the east of Gaza City.

[239] Both U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay condemned the continuing indiscriminate attacks and targeting of civilians in Israel by militants from Gaza.

HRW's Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson said that Palestinian groups made clear that "harming civilians was their aim" and said that the launching rockets at populated areas had no legal justification.

"[243] Human Rights Watch stated that Palestinian groups endangered civilians by "repeatedly fir[ing] rockets from densely populated areas, near homes, businesses, and a hotel".

[273] In March 2013, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) released a report criticizing Palestinian groups for launching rocket attacks from densely populated areas.

[277] The March 2013 report by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) criticized Palestinian militant groups for "summarily executing alleged Israeli spies in breach of humanitarian law".

"[293][294] Writing for The New York Times, David Carr noted that IDF spokeswoman Avital Leibovich, who said that the journalists were "people who have relevance to terror activity", did not identify the strike as a mistake.

[295] NGO Monitor stated that Hamas in Gaza "terrorizes the international press" because it put its own operational communication antennas on top of buildings whose lower floors house foreign media outlets.

[304] An app based on an idea provided by a 13-year-old was developed to supply up-to-date reports of imminent missile attacks and send information of the location and timing of the public "Color Red" alerts.

[308] Hackers from Kuwait disrupted the website of Likud MK Danny Danon, who had posted an online petition urging the government of Israel to cease providing the Gaza Strip with electricity.

[317] Richard Landes, a blogger and American Associate Professor of history at Boston University, accused Hamas of "brazen hypocrisy" and exploiting a death they had caused in order to garner Western sympathy.

[333] Photographs of a distraught Palestinian man, Jihad al-Masharawi,[243] a BBC journalist, carrying the body of his 11-month-old son, Omar, wrapped in a white shroud were printed in newspapers worldwide and widely distributed on social media.

Masharawi, the BBC Middle East bureau chief, and at least two human rights organizations initially blamed Israel for the incident, and the infant's death quickly became a powerful symbol of the conflict.

However, in March 2013, the report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the eight-day conflict stated that Omar was most likely the victim of "what appeared to be a Palestinian rocket that fell short of Israel.

[335] CNN said that Reuters did not know the source of that film, while the BBC News responded that to the best of their knowledge, the events were not staged, and that the footage had been cut from a longer reel that showed the man lying on the sidewalk, being lifted and receiving treatment, and then walking away having recovered.