Israel took control of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip during the Six Day War in 1967 as it defended itself against the military threats of neighboring Arab countries. The Palestinians living in these territories were relatively peaceful from June 1967 until December 1986. Israelis entered the Palestinian areas regularly for shopping and dining, and Palestinians entered Israel proper on a daily basis for work. By the end of 1986, 40% of the Palestinian work force was employed in Israel.
Frustration began to grow in the Palestinian areas as their very high birth rate and lack of employment opportunities in their towns and cities led to very high unemployment. It reached a point in which only one in eight college-educated Palestinians could find work related to their degree.
Palestinians were also frustrated with the construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip which they saw as moving them further away from the possibility of their own Palestinian state in those territories. By 1984, 35,000 Jews lived in those areas and the number crossed 60,000 by 1988.
All of the above, together with the expansion of the Palestinian university system to people in refugee camps, villages and small towns, led to a new Palestinian elite that was more activist and confrontational against Israel, determined to fight against “Israeli occupation” in the form of a civilian uprising or “intifada.”
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But many in the pro-Palestinian world point to a few specific events which triggered the official Palestinian uprising against Israel.
The first was what they describe as “the IDF killing two Bir Zeit University students” in December 1986. Demonstrations began on campus on November 29th in protest of the 39th anniversary of the UN Partition Plan which proposed dividing Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. The protests eventually became violent as 400 students threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at passing cars. Israel arrested Dr. Salah Jawad, a history professor, who was suspected of inciting the students. When an Israeli border policeman and an Israeli civilian were injured in the attacks, the IDF fired in the air, then at the feet of the protesters. When this failed to stop the rioters, the IDF responded with live fire, killing the two students and squelching the violent riots.
Tensions continued to simmer for the next year with sporadic riots and strong reactions from the IDF. And then the episode which most point to as at the straw that broke the camel’s back to start the uprising took place on December 9, 1987, when an IDF truck accidentally collided with a civilian car in the Jabalia refugee camp, killing four Palestinians. The word in the mosques and on the Palestinian street was that this was a deliberate act by Israel to avenge the murder of an Israeli in Gaza by a Palestinian terrorist a few days earlier. Mass, violent rioting broke out and when a 17-year-old Palestinian was killed after throwing a Molotov cocktail at IDF soldiers, a massive wave of unrest spread throughout the West Bank, Gaza, and eastern Jerusalem.
To give a sense for how the Palestinians spun these stories to rile up the street, read how the Hamas supporting “Middle East Monitor” recorded the above events in an article in 2017, 30 years later:
After hundreds of Palestinians witnessed the killing of four men when they were run down by an Israeli jeep outside Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza on 8 December, the indignation felt at their situation was immense. The funerals of those killed were attended by some 10,000 people, but they were forced to mourn once again the following day, when Israeli troops fired aimlessly into a crowd, killing 17-year-old Hatem Abu Sisi and wounding 16 others.
As the IDF tried to protect itself and Israelis from the rock throwing and other violence, six Palestinians were killed and 30 injured in just the first week. False rumors spread throughout Gaza that Israel was executing Palestinian youths who were injured during the riots. Rumors were also circulated that Israel was poisoning the Palestinian water. All this further inflamed the riots which were already violent and out of control.
Four years of violent demonstrations began – with Palestinians attacking the IDF or Israeli civilians with over 3,600 Molotov cocktails, 100 hand grenades, 600 shootings, and tens of thousands of rock throwing attacks. 16 Israeli civilians and 11 IDF soldiers were killed, with 1,400 Israeli civilians, and 1,700 IDF soldiers injured. Approximately 1,100 Palestinians were killed in violent riots against IDF soldiers.
The Palestine Liberation Organization, which was then headquartered in Tunis, was caught by surprise by the outbreak of the First Intifada but then took on heavy involvement in the Unified Leadership of the Intifada (UNLI), which sent out leaflets to the Palestinian youth instructing them regarding what days they should riot and where. The uprising also included a civil disobedience angle, which included general strikes, and refusal to pay taxes.
Related reading: The Palestine Liberation Organization: What is the PLO?
A few notable moments during the intifada:
- On April 16, 1988, an Israeli commando squad assassinated Khalil al-Wazir, one of the PLO’s leaders in Tunis. Israelis saw him as the leader of the uprising. Instead of squelching the “intifada,” the assassination led to an increase in violent demonstrations and increased bloodshed and injuries on both sides.
- In June 1988, the Arab League decided to support the intifada financially.
- Palestinians violently rioted on the Temple Mount on October 22, 1990, throwing rocks down on Jews praying at the Western Wall, which was filled because it was a Jewish holiday. The Israeli policemen who were present and saw the lives of the innocent worshipers at risk, had no choice but to shoot live fire to protect them. 22 Palestinian rioters were killed. This led to increased lethal Palestinian terror attacks including stabbings of IDF soldiers and Israeli civilians.
The Palestinians demanded a complete withdrawal from the “occupied territories” along with the removal of all checkpoints and curfews. Israel could not give in to these demands because they would compromise its security and leave its citizens open to attacks from Palestinian terrorists. Throughout the First Intifada, the UN Security Council tried to pass resolutions against Israel, but the US vetoed every one of them.
As the uprising began to quiet down in early 1991, most of the deaths on the Palestinian side came from the Palestinian leadership executing anyone suspected of collaborating with the Israelis. These “collaborators” were found hacked to death with axes, clubbed, burned with acid, stabbed, and shot. From 1989-1992, 1,000 Palestinians were killed under this pretext.
Aside from the higher casualty rate on the Palestinian side, which led to anti-Israel sentiment, the international community saw Palestinian youths throwing rocks and other projectiles at IDF soldiers armed with tanks and guns. This portrayed the righteous David fighting the evil Goliath which did terrible damage for Israel’s image around the world. The Palestinian leadership saw the loss of life on its side and, early on in the uprising, the Palestinian National Council, located in Tunisia, accepted the principle of the two-state solution dictated by the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan.
The Palestinian casualties, and the uprising’s failure to force Israel to give into their demands, alongside Israel’s struggles, primarily with regards to its image in the international arena, led to the first formal talks between Israel and the PLO at the Madrid Conference in 1991, paving the way towards the Oslo Accords a few years later.
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