2006 Gaza cross-border raid

The 2006 Gaza cross-border raid, known by Palestinian militants as Operation Dispersive Illusion was an armed incursion carried out by seven or eight Gazan Palestinian militants on 25 June 2006 who attacked <a href="/facts/Israel_Defense_Forces/9hPaqcAM">Israel Defense Forces</a> (IDF) positions near the <a href="/facts/Kerem_Shalom_Crossing/UAYEXdxH">Kerem Shalom Crossing</a> through an <a href="/facts/Palestinian_tunnel_warfare_in_the_Gaza_Strip/YXv9YTkN">attack tunnel</a>. In the attack, two IDF soldiers and two Palestinian militants were killed, four IDF soldiers were wounded, one of whom was <a href="/facts/Gilad_Shalit/J8k8dPfU">Gilad Shalit</a>, who was captured and taken to the <a href="/facts/Gaza_Strip/GodcCxlV">Gaza Strip</a>.
<a href="/facts/Hamas/VjIkApsc">Hamas</a>'s military wing, the <a href="/facts/Izz_ad-Din_al-Qassam_Brigades/yggRS8Mm">Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades</a>, claimed responsibility, together with the <a href="/facts/Popular_Resistance_Committees/8229fDt3">Popular Resistance Committees</a> (which includes members of <a href="/facts/Fatah/43bcYlrX">Fatah</a>, <a href="/facts/Palestinian_Islamic_Jihad_Movement/M97thxoP">Islamic Jihad</a>, and <a href="/facts/Hamas/VjIkApsc">Hamas</a>), and a previously unknown group calling itself the <a href="/facts/Palestinian_Army_of_Islam/P6dIMb4K">Army of Islam</a>. They stated the raid was in retaliation to an Israeli shelling and a series of air raids that had killed 22 Palestinians earlier that month.
The abduction of Shalit caused Israel to launch <a href="/facts/Operation_Summer_Rains/577XVpGq">Operation "Summer Rains"</a> which consisted of a series of incursions into Gaza. The operation failed to retrieve Shalit who was eventually released on 18 October 2011 as part of a <a href="/facts/Gilad_Shalit_prisoner_exchange/TgpLD648">prisoner swap</a>. It was the first time since the <a href="/facts/Abduction_and_killing_of_Nachshon_Wachsman/3oB0p63G">capture of Nachshon Wachsman</a> in 1994, that Palestinian fighters had captured an Israeli soldier.

2006 Gaza cross-border raid open-in-new

2006 Gaza cross-border raid