Citing rocket attacks from Palestinian armed groups, Israel launched a surprise attack against the Gaza Strip, opening the three-week Gaza War.

The Qassam rocket is a simple, steel artillery rocket developed and deployed by the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military arm of Hamas. These rockets cannot be fired to target specific military objectives in or near civilian areas, and are "indiscriminate when used against targets in population centers".

Palestinians are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. They represent a highly homogeneous community who share one cultural and ethnic identity, speak Palestinian Arabic and share close religious, linguistic, and cultural ties with other Levantine Arabs.

The Gaza Strip, also known simply as Gaza, is the smaller of the two Palestinian territories, the other being the West Bank, that make up the State of Palestine in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Inhabited by mostly Palestinian refugees and their descendants, Gaza is one of the most densely populated territories in the world. An end of 2024 estimate puts the population of the Strip at 2.1 million, which was a 6% decline from the previous year due to the Gaza war. Gaza is bordered by Egypt on the southwest and Israel on the east and north. Its capital and largest city is Gaza City.

The Gaza War, also known as the First Gaza War, Operation Cast Lead, or the Gaza Massacre, and referred to as the Battle of al-Furqan by Hamas, was a three-week armed conflict between Gaza Strip Palestinian paramilitary groups and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) that began on 27 December 2008 and ended on 18 January 2009 with a unilateral ceasefire. The conflict resulted in 1,166–1,417 Palestinian and 13 Israeli deaths. Over 46,000 homes were destroyed in Gaza, making more than 100,000 people homeless.