Top 10 international military news of 2012 named by PLA Daily (3)

5. Israel took "Defense Pillar" military action against Gaza.

The number of rockets fired into Israel by armed personnel of Palestinians saw sudden increase in Gaza Strip starting from November 10. Israel's Defense Forces initiated a large-scale military operation, code-named "Defense Pillar", against Gaza from November 14 to 21.

This action led to the death of 162 Palestinians, including Jabari, the No. 2 leader of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and leader of the Qassam Brigade, together with the destruction of a great number of infrastructures in Gaza. This was the most intense fire exchange between Israel and Hamas in recent years.

6. Syrian civil war upgraded

The Syrian government forces and the main opposition armed forces successively expressed their willingness on October 25 to accept the proposal made by Brahimi, the special representative of the UN-Arab League's envoy for the Syrian crisis, to cease fire during the Eid al-Adha period.

However, on the first day of the ceasefire, also the first day of Eid al-Adha festival, a car bomb exploded in the south of Damascus, capital of Syria, killing 5 and injuring 32, and nullified the agreement of the Eid al-Adha ceasefire. Under the support from exterior forces, the Syrian opposition armed forces gained rapid growth in their strength and more places kept falling into their control.

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