More than 160 Palestinian fatalities have been counted in the first six days of Israel's Operation Protective Edge in the Gaza Strip. According to the Palestinian Gaza-based Ministry of Health, more than two-thirds of the fatalities are civilians, and more than 22 of them are children. The devastation in Gaza is enormous and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) estimate that they still have a long way to go and that the operation will last for many days to come. 

To date, the Israeli air force attacked over 1,300 targets, including Hamas institutions, mosques, the residences of the organization's militants and, of course, rocket-launching sites. The initial Israeli proposal — namely, "quiet will be met by quiet" — was answered with a salvo of rockets on Tel Aviv. The movement's leaders went underground into fortified bunkers built to protect their lives, while leaving some 1.5 million residents in the Gaza Strip exposed to Israeli air force airstrikes.

During 5½ years, Gaza has seen three large Israeli military operations that have claimed the lives of some 2,000 people. Thousands were wounded or lost their homes. The devastation to infrastructure in the Gaza Strip was staggering. It took them more than two years to rebuild Gaza after the havoc wreaked during Operation Cast Lead in 2008-2009. The same was true during Operation Pillar of Defense in 2012.

In conversations I held with acquaintances of mine in the Gaza Strip during this current operation, they described much bigger devastation compared with previous confrontations. Moreover, following the nonstop rocket barrages, as well as Hamas' rejection of every attempt to broker a cease-fire, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has warned that this is only the beginning. The next stage of Operation Protective Edge is to call on the residents of the northern Gaza Strip to evacuate their homes, at which point tons of explosives will be dropped from the air to destroy Hamas' booby-trapped tunnels and long-range rocket launchers.