Intifadah

Intifadah (‘shaking off’) A violent protest against continued Israeli rule in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, sparked off on 9 December 1987 by rumours of Israeli atrocities. Violence spread and erupted sporadically in the West Bank until 1994. According to Rabin, by April 1994 the Intifadah had cost the lives of 2,156 Palestinians, with 18,967 injured, and of 219 Israelis, with 7,872 injured. Israeli impotence to end the violence despite heavy repression persuaded many to seek a negotiated settlement with the PLO about Gaza and the West Bank, in the interest of peace. After the agreement on the autonomy of Gaza and Jericho, the violence diminished, although Hamas, a rival Palestinian organization, continued to incite violence against Israeli rule. As Arafat's Palestinian National Authority proved unable to assert its full authority over the Palestinian areas, Arafat failed to convince the hesitant Israelis that concessions would bring peace. In turn, Israel's refusal to honour its own peace commitments after Netanyahu's election in 1996 incited further Palestinian violence against Israel. A new Intifadah erupted on 27 September 2000, after Sharon deliberately provoked Palestinian outrage by visiting the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. In the ‘al-Aqsa’ Intifada, suicide bombers infiltrated Jewish civilian and military settlements, provoking an increasingly sharp reaction of the Israeli military. According to Amnesty International, between 1 October 2000 and March 2001 more than 1,000 Palestinian civilians were killed, including 300 children, with 3,000 being arrested. This corresponded to the killing of about 250 Israelis, 200 of them civilians.

Palestine; Israel