The Israel-Hamas War (26 days, starting on July/8/2014) began because of serious internal problems in Palestine. Hamas was governing in Gaza thanks to the funds they received from countries such as Qatar, and for the taxes they were charging to anything that went through the tunnels connecting Gaza and Egypt. When the Egyptian president A-Sissi overthrew the Islamist regime from Murci (supporters of Hamas) in July 2013, he closed down the tunnels, accusing Hamas of killing Egyptian military.
Hamas was unable to pay its 42,000 officers; unemployment in Gaza reached 46% and the GDP/per capita was only $4 per day. Hamas tried to form a national united government (with the Palestinian Authority) so they could pay for the salaries of their Islamist employees in Gaza. In order to survive, Gaza required funds urgently and needed to achieve an internal cohesion to distract the latent anger against them; nothing better than to attack Israel by increasing the number of rockets. Also, Hamas was sure that a high amount of Gazan victims would create international pressure and media coverage to force Israel to open a maritime port and an airport to charge taxes (and introduce weapons). At first, Israel tried to manage the increase in the rockets that were being launched (100 per day) without “escalating”. However, the murder of three teenagers by terrorists of Hamas, while they were on a road trip, stopped Israel from continuing its “contention” policy. In the beginning, the Israeli military strategy was focused on weakening the missile capacity of Hamas. Then, they began a partial terrestrial penetration (3-5 km from the border) to destroy the entrances of 32 tunnels leading to Israel. Hamas and Israel agreed on a cease-fire when the selective attacks against Hamas leaders began. Hamas did not achieve its strategic objectives, so a new wave of violence can be foreseen.