Category: War, from Wikidata’s class “military operation”
2004 Israeli operation in Rafah
Part of: Arab–Israeli conflict
Wikidata classes on our event-class list: military operation (all its classes: Wikidata item)
In 2004, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched Operation Rainbow in Cloud (Hebrew: מבצע קשת בענן, romanized: Mivtza Keshet Be-Anan) in the southern Gaza Strip on 12–24 May 2004, involving an invasion and siege of Rafah. The operation was started after the deaths of eleven Israeli soldiers in two Palestinian attacks, in which M113 armored vehicles were attacked.
Human Rights Watch reported 59 Palestinians killed during 12–24 May, including 11 under age eighteen and 18 armed men. The IDF razed some 300 homes to expand the buffer zone along the Egypt–Gaza border, expanding it far inside the Gaza Strip. Also, a zoo and at least 700 dunams (70 ha) of agricultural land were destroyed.
Israel's declared aims of Operation Rainbow were finding and destroying smuggling tunnels, targeting terrorists, and securing the Philadelphi Route by expanding the buffer zone.
Text retrieved 2026-09-26 from Wikipedia.
Cite this
The link is the Wikipedia revision of August 20, 2026 (revision 1370280168), whose lead is exactly the text shown here.
APA 7
2004 Israeli operation in Rafah. (2026, August 20). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2004_Israeli_operation_in_Rafah&oldid=1370280168
MLA 9
“2004 Israeli operation in Rafah.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 20 Aug. 2026, en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2004_Israeli_operation_in_Rafah&oldid=1370280168.
Chicago (note)
Wikipedia, “2004 Israeli operation in Rafah,” last modified August 20, 2026, 05:03 (UTC), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2004_Israeli_operation_in_Rafah&oldid=1370280168.
Chicago (shortened note)
Wikipedia, “2004 Israeli operation in Rafah.”
Chicago cites well-known reference works such as Wikipedia in notes only, not in the bibliography.
This event on Middle East, 1900–present: https://middleeast.events/event/2004-israeli-operation-in-rafah
If you use the map’s borders: CShapes 2.0 - historical country borders. Schvitz, G., et al. (2022). CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. https://icr.ethz.ch/data/cshapes/ (modified by middleeast.events); West Bank Areas A/B/C: UN OCHA / HDX "Oslo Agreement" Areas A/B/C (West Bank). Distributed under the legacy HumanitarianResponse.info terms: non-commercial use with credit to UN OCHA. https://data.humdata.org/dataset/state-of-palestine-other-0-0-0-0-0; some corrected border points: GeoNames - CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). https://www.geonames.org/
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by Wikipedia contributors, from the article 2004 Israeli operation in Rafah. Classes are Wikidata’s labels (CC0). “Part of” is Wikidata’s statement, in its labels (CC0).