Kidnapping of Liri Albag

Naama Levy (Hebrew: נעמה לוי; born 22 June 2004) is an Israeli woman who was serving in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) when she was abducted from the IDF surveillance base at Nahal Oz near the Gaza–Israel barrier on the morning of 7 October 2023, during the Hamas-led attack on Israel. Later that day, Hamas released footage on social media showing Levy in the Gaza Strip, hands tied behind her back, as armed militants dragged her from the trunk of a Jeep and forced her inside the vehicle. One of the first viral videos of the Gaza war, the footage showed Levy with multiple visible injuries and a large bloodstain on the seat of her gray sweatpants, which gave rise to widespread speculation that she had been sexually abused. Images from the footage came to symbolize sexual and gender based violence against Israeli women during the attacks. On 22 May 2024, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum released footage compiled from Hamas militants' bodycams, showing Levy and other female soldiers being held captive at the surveillance base on the morning of 7 October. The families approved the release of the footage partly to pressure the Israeli government to resume hostage negotiations with Hamas. On 25 January 2025, Levy and three other female soldiers, who had served and been abducted with her, were released as part of the 2025 Gaza war ceasefire, after spending 477 days in captivity.

Nahal Oz (Hebrew: נחל עוז, lit. "Mighty Stream") is a kibbutz in southern Israel. Located in the northwestern part of the Negev desert close to the border with the Gaza Strip and near the development towns of Sderot and Netivot, it is under the jurisdiction of Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council. In 2021, it had a population of 471. A nearby IDF military base is known by the same name.

The Nahal Oz attack was an assault on the kibbutz of Nahal Oz and the adjacent military base near the northern Gaza Strip on the morning of 7 October 2023 as part of a 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel. In the attack, more than 60 Israeli soldiers and more than a dozen kibbutz residents were killed. Some soldiers and residents were kidnapped and taken to the Gaza Strip.

The Battle of Be'erot Yitzhak was a military engagement between the Israel Defense Forces and Egyptian army in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. It was fought on July 15, 1948, in the ten-day period between the first and second truces of the war. The Egyptian army, after unsuccessful attacks on Negba on July 12 and Gal On on July 14, assaulted the lightly defended outlying Negev village Be'erot Yitzhak. They managed to penetrate the village perimeter, but the Israelis concentrated in an inner position in the village, and fought off the Egyptian advance until reinforcements arrived and drove out the attackers.

The Karni border crossing attack was a suicide bombing on January 13, 2005, at the pedestrian/cargo terminal Karni Crossing located on the Israeli Gaza Strip barrier. Six Israeli civilians were killed in the attack and five Israelis were injured in the attack. Hamas, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and the Popular Resistance Committees claimed joint responsibility for the attack.

The Karni Crossing (Arabic: معبر كارني or معبر المنطار, Hebrew: מעבר קרני) was a cargo terminal on the Israel-Gaza Strip barrier located in the north-eastern end of the Gaza Strip that existed between 1994 and 2011 and used for the export and import of goods from/to the Gaza Strip. This was done as a 'back-to-back' transfer, meaning that Palestinian products meant for export were removed from a Palestinian truck and placed in an Israeli truck, and vice versa for incoming goods. The Karni Crossing was also used by the residents of Netzarim since the Karni road was the only route to that isolated Israeli settlement on which Jewish travel was allowed after the 1994 implementation of the Oslo Accords. The crossing has been affected by the Israeli Blockade of the Gaza Strip. At the end of March 2011 Israel permanently closed the Karni Crossing. Ten years later, in 2022, the last remaining structures of the crossing were demolished by the Israeli military.According to the management, the crossing was named after Joseph Karni, an Israeli who had set up a modern packing warehouse in the Gaza Strip near the present-day cargo terminal shortly after Israel captured the strip in 1967. The Palestinians called it Al-Montar, after the nearby Ali Montar hill.

The Battle of Shuja'iyya occurred between the Israel Defense Forces and the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades on 20 July 2014 during 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict in the Shuja'iyya neighborhood of Gaza City, in the Gaza Strip.: 71  Shuja'iyya, with 92,000 people in 6 sq-kilometres, is one of the most densely populated areas of the Gaza Strip. According to the IDF, it had become a "terrorist fortress", that between 8 and 20 July had fired over 140 rockets into Israel after the outbreak of hostilities. Casualty figures are not known with precision, partly because bodies were recovered long after the fighting, and people had also died of injuries afterwards. The UN Protection Cluster states that between the 19-20th, 55 civilians, including 19 children and 14 women, were killed as a result of the IDF's actions. At the time, estimates varied from 66 to about 120 Palestinians killed, with a third of them women and children, and at least 288 wounded. The UN figures of Palestinian casualties are preliminary and subject to revision. 16 Israeli soldiers were killed.On 16 July, Israeli forces told residents of Shuja'iyya to leave and relocate to central Gaza City until further notice by means of leaflets, loudspeaker announcements, telephone calls, text messages, and radio messages. Residents interviewed afterwards by The Independent claimed lack of safe refuges and the difficulty of fleeing as reasons for staying put. By 19 July, OCHA reported that while the majority ignored the warnings and had not left their homes, up to half had gone as bombardments intensified. Israel condemned Hamas for using "human shields". According to Amnesty International, the UNRWA shelter facilities were overflowing and many of the residents had nowhere to go. Residents interviewed later also cited confusion due of lack of electricity and communications. The official Israeli view was that Hamas had compelled residents of Shujai'iya to stay behind in the face of IDF warnings to evacuate prior to the IDF assault, holding civilians as "hostages".The assault on Shuja'iyya, involving a combination of F-16, tank and mortar fire, began at 11 pm on 19 July. Initially the attack led by the Golani Brigade encountered little resistance, until late on Saturday Hamas units emerged from tunnels to engage and put up stiff resistance, surprising the Israelis with their tenacity and effectiveness in taking on armoured units. According to Israeli military and intelligence sources, Israel then made use of heavy aerial bombardment and artillery fire, in what was described as a "risky and unusual step to save Israeli soldiers' lives" and "a battle against the hub of Hamas' terror infrastructure, primarily the so-called 'terror tunnels'". Palestinians attempting to flee the area described the scene as a "massacre", as did Mahmoud Abbas, Richard Falk, Norwegian physician Dr. Mads Gilbert and journalist Sharif Abdel Kouddous in The Nation. The conclusion of U.S. military experts interviewed by Mark Perry was that the IDF did not target Hamas sites specifically or try solely to destroy Hamas tunnels, but rather laid down a "walking barrage" to "crater the neighbourhood". This bombardment was carried out instead of using suppressive fire to protect IDF forward troops, a strategy they deemed "indefensible". The operation was condemned internationally, with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon calling it an "atrocious action" and the European Union stating that it "is particularly appalled by the human cost of the Israeli military operation in Shuja'iyya", while also criticising Hamas calls for using "human shields".

On 7 October 2023, dozens of Hamas militants attacked Alumim, a kibbutz close to the border fence with the Gaza Strip, as part of a surprise attack on Israel. There were 41 Thai and Nepalese foreigners working at the kibbutz. The militants killed between 16 and 17 of these workers and kidnapped between five and eight of them. The kibbutz's security team were too far away and unable save the employees. The militants did severe structural damage to the Kibbutz’s dairy farming operation. After heavy fighting, the security team were able to push the militants back with the help of the Israeli Defense Forces. No deaths among the remaining civilian population of the kibbutz were reported. At least two Israeli soldiers were killed by militants, while a significant number of Hamas militants were killed.

Alumim (Hebrew: עֲלוּמִים, lit. 'Youth') is a kibbutz located in the northwestern Negev desert in southern Israel, near the Gaza Strip. It falls under the jurisdiction of Sdot Negev Regional Council. In 2021 it had a population of 531.

The Nahal Oz Observers Memorial Monument (Hebrew: אנדרטת התצפיתניות) is a commemorative site dedicated to the female observer soldiers who were killed Battle of Nahal Oz during the October 7 massacre in 2023.

Tell Ali Muntar is a tell (a mound created by accumulation of remains) about 2 kilometres (1 mi) south-east of Gaza City in Palestine. The former settlement is thought to have been occupied in the Middle Bronze Age, about the 2nd millennium BCE. The remains of the settlement cover an estimated 100 square metres (1,100 sq ft). It occupied the highest point in the area around Gaza. Tell Ali Muntar was surveyed in 1998 as part of the Gaza Research Project, but it has not been excavated. The archaeologists discovered mud bricks from buildings and pottery that ranged from the Middle Bronze Age to the Ottoman period. It is likely that Tell Ali Muntar was occupied at the same time as the Bronze Age settlement of Tell Gaza; archaeologists Joanna Clarke and Louise Steel suggest that settlement may have shifted from Tell Muntar to Tell Gaza. UNESCO has verified that more than 100 heritage sites have been damaged as a result of the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip starting in 2023, including Tell Ali Muntar.

The First Battle of Gaza was fought on 26 March 1917 during the first attempt by the Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF), which was a British Empire military formation, formed on 10 March 1916 under the command of General Archibald Murray from the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force and the Force in Egypt (1914–15), at the beginning of the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of the First World War. Fighting took place in and around the town of Gaza on the Mediterranean coast when infantry and mounted infantry from the Desert Column, a component of the Eastern Force, attacked the town. Late in the afternoon, on the verge of capturing Gaza, the Desert Column was withdrawn due to concerns about the approaching darkness and large Ottoman reinforcements. This British defeat was followed a few weeks later by the even more emphatic defeat of the Eastern Force at the Second Battle of Gaza in April 1917. In August 1916, the EEF victory at Romani ended the possibility of land-based attacks on the Suez Canal, first threatened in February 1915 by the Ottoman Raid on the Suez Canal. In December 1916, the newly created Desert Column's victory at the Battle of Magdhaba secured the Mediterranean port of El Arish and the supply route, water pipeline and railway stretching eastwards across the Sinai Peninsula. In January 1917, the victory of the Desert Column at the Battle of Rafa completed the capture of the Sinai Peninsula and brought the EEF within striking distance of Gaza. Two months later, in March 1917, Gaza was attacked by Eastern Force infantry from the 52nd (Lowland) Division reinforced by an infantry brigade. This attack was protected from the threat of Ottoman reinforcements by the Anzac Mounted Division and a screen from the Imperial Mounted Division. The infantry attack from the south and southeast on the Ottoman garrison in and around Gaza was strongly resisted. While the Imperial Mounted Division continued to hold off threatening Ottoman reinforcements, the Anzac Mounted Division attacked Gaza from the north. They succeeded in entering the town from the north, while a joint infantry and mounted infantry attack on Ali Muntar captured the position. However, the lateness of the hour, the determination of the Ottoman defenders, and the threat from the large Ottoman reinforcements approaching from the north and north east resulted in the decision by the Eastern Force to retreat. It has been suggested that this move snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.