The eighteen-day rampage did succeed in undermining the feared unity government and sharply increasing Israeli repression. According to Israeli military sources, Israeli soldiers arrested 419 Palestinians, including 335 affiliated with Hamas, and killed 6, while searching thousands of locations and confiscating $350,000.32 Israel also conducted dozens of attacks in Gaza, killing five Hamas members on July 7.33 Hamas finally reacted with its first rockets in nineteen months, Israeli officials reported, providing the pretext for Operation Protective Edge on July 8.
