View source for First Intifada

{{Short description|1987–1993 Palestinian uprising against Israel}}
{{About|text=This article is about the 1987–1993 Palestinian uprising against Israel. For the 1999–2004 Sahrawi uprising against Morocco, see [[First Sahrawi Intifada]].}}
{{pp-extended|small=yes}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2021}}
{{EngvarB|date=January 2021}}
{{Infobox military conflict
| conflict          = First Intifada
| partof            = the [[Israeli–Palestinian conflict]]
| image             = [[File:Intifada in Gaza Strip, 1987 V Dan Hadani Archive.jpg|300px]][[File:Jabalya1988roadblock.jpg|300px]]
| caption           = '''Top, bottom:'''<br />{{hlist|Palestinian protestors confront Israeli troops in [[Gaza City]], 1987|Israeli military checkpoint near [[Jabalia]] in the [[Gaza Strip]], 1988}}
| date              = 9 December 1987 – 13 September 1993<br />({{Age in years, months, weeks and days|month1=12|day1=8|year1=1987|month2=9|day2=13|year2=1993}})
| place             = {{hlist|[[Israel]]|[[Palestinian territories|Occupied Palestinian Territory]]}}
| result            = Uprising suppressed<ref>Kober, Avi, ''Israel's Wars of Attrition: Attrition Challenges to Democratic States'', p. 165</ref>{{bulletedlist
| [[Madrid Conference of 1991|Madrid Conference]] (1991)
| [[Oslo I Accord]] (1993){{bulletedlist
| [[Israel–Palestine Liberation Organization letters of recognition|Israel–PLO Letters of Mutual Recognition]]<ref>{{Cite news|last=Murphy |first=Kim |date=10 September 1993 |title=Israel and PLO, in Historic Bid for Peace, Agree to Mutual Recognition |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-09-10-mn-33546-story.html |access-date=19 March 2014 |newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]] |archive-date=6 April 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190406122957/https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-09-10-mn-33546-story.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>|Establishment of the [[Palestinian National Authority]]}}}}
| combatant1        = {{flag|Israel}}
| combatant2        = {{tree list}}
* {{flagicon image|Flag of Palestine - short triangle.svg}} [[Unified National Leadership of the Uprising|Al-Qiyada al-Muwhhada]]
** {{flag|Fatah}}
** {{flag|Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine}}
** {{flag|Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine}}
** {{flagicon image|Socialist red flag.svg}} [[Palestinian People's Party|Palestinian Communist Party]]<hr>
* {{flag|Hamas}}
* {{flag|Palestinian Islamic Jihad}}
{{tree list/end}}
| commander1        = {{plainlist|
* {{flagicon|Israel}} [[Chaim Herzog]]
* {{flagicon|Israel}} [[Ezer Weizman]]
* {{flagicon|Israel}} [[Yitzhak Shamir]]
* {{flagicon|Israel}} [[Yitzhak Rabin]]
* {{flagicon|Israel}} [[Dan Shomron]]
}}
| commander2        = {{plainlist|
* {{flagicon|Palestine}} [[Marwan Barghouti]]<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-13628771 |title=Profile: Marwan Barghouti |publisher=[[BBC News]] |date=26 November 2009 |accessdate=9 August 2011}}</ref>
}}
| strength1         = 
| strength2         = 
| casualties1       = 179–200 killed by Palestinians<ref name="Nasrallah56">Nami Nasrallah, 'The First and Second Palestinian ''intifadas'',' in David Newman, Joel Peters (eds.) [https://books.google.com/books?id=kftqQdNNDWAC&pg=PA61 ''Routledge Handbook on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict''], Routledge, 2013, pp. 56–68, p. 56.</ref>
| casualties2       = 1,962 killed<ref name="Kober">{{cite journal |last=Kober |first=Avi |title=From Blitzkrieg To Attrition: Israel's Attrition Strategy and Staying Power |journal=Small Wars & Insurgencies |volume=16 |issue=2 |year=2005 |pages=216–240|doi=10.1080/09592310500080005 }}</ref>{{bulletedlist|1,603 killed by Israelis<ref name="Kober" />|359 killed by Palestinians<ref name="Kober" />}}
| territory         = Creation of the [[West Bank Areas in the Oslo II Accord|West Bank "Areas"]] by the [[Oslo II Accord]] in 1995
}}
{{First Intifada}}

The '''First Intifada''' ({{langx|ar|الانتفاضة الأولى|translit=al-Intifāḍa al-’Ūlā|lit=The First Uprising}}), also known as the '''First Palestinian Intifada''',<ref name="Nasrallah56" /><ref name="Alimi2006_1">{{cite book |author=Eitan Alimi |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FRSVtzxH_10C&pg=PA1 |title=Israeli Politics and the First Palestinian Intifada: Political Opportunities, Framing Processes and Contentious Politics |date=9 January 2007 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-0-203-96126-1 |page=1}}</ref> was a sustained uprising involving violent and [[Nonviolent resistance|non-violent protests]], acts of [[civil disobedience]], [[riot]]s, and [[Terrorism|terrorist attacks]] carried out by [[Palestinians|Palestinian]] civilians and [[Palestinian political violence|militants]] in the [[Israeli-occupied territories|Israeli-occupied]] [[Palestinian territories]] and [[Israel]].<ref name="King2">{{Cite book |last=King |first=Mary E. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/150378515 |title=A quiet revolution: the first Palestinian Intifada and nonviolent resistance |date=2007 |publisher=Nation Books |isbn=978-1-56025-802-5 |location=New York |oclc=150378515 |quote=The book's foreword, written by President Jimmy Carter: "The Palestinians' nonviolent resistance in the first intifada, documented here, contested military occupation from a store of classic methods used on every continent in today's world, as people fight for human rights and justice with concern for the connection between the ends and means. The joint grassroots Israeli-Palestinian committees were imagining a future that can yet be created. As Palestinian local leaders rebutted the empty premises of violent ideologies, strong efforts should have been made by the international community to fortify their resolve, which could have weakened the extremism that brought violence. How little encouragement was offered to those who were working for abandonment of the mythologies of violence!"}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Ron |first=Jonathan |title=The Two Intifadas an Analysis of the Strategies and Tactics of Palestinians and the Israelis |date=April 2006 |publisher=[[Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy|The Fletcher School]] |pages=22–26 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="Ruth Margolies Beitler p. 128">Ruth Margolies Beitler, ''The Path to Mass Rebellion: An Analysis of Two Intifadas'', p. 128.</ref> It was motivated by collective Palestinian frustration over Israel's military occupation of the [[West Bank]] and the [[Gaza Strip]] as it approached a twenty-year mark, having begun in the wake of the [[Six-Day War|1967 Arab–Israeli War]].<ref name="LockmanBeinin1989_5">[[#LockmanBeinin1989|Lockman; Beinin (1989)]], p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=KYPVNdzXUJkC&pg=PA5 5.]</ref><ref>{{cite web|title= The first Intifada against Israel|url= https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2023/12/8/history-illustrated-the-first-intifada-against-israel|website=Al Jazeera|access-date=8 December 2023}}</ref> The uprising lasted from December 1987 until the [[Madrid Conference of 1991]], though some date its conclusion to 1993, the year the [[Oslo Accords]] were signed.<ref name="Nasrallah56" />

The Intifada began on 9 December 1987<ref name="EdSaid">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KYPVNdzXUJkC&pg=PA5 |title=Intifada: The Palestinian Uprising Against Israeli Occupation |publisher=South End Press |author=Edward Said |year=1989 |pages=5–22|isbn=978-0-89608-363-9 }}</ref> in the [[Jabalia refugee camp]] after an Israeli truck driver collided with parked civilian vehicles, killing four Palestinian workers, three of whom were from the refugee camp.{{sfn|Berman|2011|p=41}}<ref name=accident>{{cite news |first=Michael |last=Omer-Man |newspaper=[[The Jerusalem Post]] |url=https://www.jpost.com/Features/In-Thespotlight/The-accident-that-sparked-an-Intifada |title=The accident that sparked an Intifada |date=4 December 2011|accessdate=3 September 2011}}</ref> Palestinians charged that the collision was a deliberate response for the killing of an [[Israelis|Israeli]] in Gaza days earlier.<ref>David McDowall,''Palestine and Israel: The Uprising and Beyond'', University of California Press, 1989 p. 1</ref> Israel denied that the crash, which came at time of heightened tensions, was intentional or coordinated.<ref name=accident/> The Palestinian response was characterized by protests, civil disobedience, and strikes, with excessive violence in response from Israeli security forces.<ref>Ruth Margolies Beitler, [https://books.google.com/books?id=FVd5dJGBYMsC&pg=PR11 ''The Path to Mass Rebellion: An Analysis of Two Intifadas''], Lexington Books, 2004 p.xi.</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Lustick|first=Ian S.|date=1993|editor-last=Brynen|editor-first=Rex|editor2-last=Hiltermann|editor2-first=Joost R.|editor3-last=Hudson|editor3-first=Michael C.|editor4-last=Hunter|editor4-first=F. Robert|editor5-last=Lockman|editor5-first=Zachary|editor6-last=Beinin|editor6-first=Joel|editor7-last=McDowall|editor7-first=David|editor8-last=Nassar|editor8-first=Jamal R.|editor9-last=Heacock|editor9-first=Roger|title=Writing the Intifada: Collective Action in the Occupied Territories|journal=World Politics|volume=45|issue=4|pages=560–594|doi=10.2307/2950709|jstor=2950709|s2cid=147140028 |issn=0043-8871}}</ref> There was [[graffiti]], [[barricade|barricading]],<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/middle_east/03/v3_ip_timeline/html/1987.stm |title=Palestinian intifada  |publisher=BBC NEWS |access-date=3 September 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Walid |last=Salem |chapter=Human Security from Below: Palestinian Citizens Protection Strategies, 1988–2005 |editor1-first=Monica |editor1-last=den Boer |editor2-first=Jaap |editor2-last=de Wilde |title=The Viability of Human Security |publisher=Amsterdam University Press |year=2008 |pages=179–201}}, on p. 190.</ref> and widespread [[Palestinian stone-throwing|throwing of stones]] and [[Molotov cocktail]]s at the Israeli army and its infrastructure within the West Bank and Gaza Strip. These contrasted with civil efforts including general strikes, [[Boycott|boycotts]] of [[Israeli Civil Administration]] institutions in the [[Gaza Strip]] and the [[West Bank]], an economic boycott consisting of refusal to work in [[Israeli settlement]]s on Israeli products, refusal to pay taxes, and refusal to drive Palestinian cars with Israeli licenses.

Israel deployed some 80,000 soldiers [[Israeli responses to the First Intifada|in response]]. Israeli countermeasures, which initially included the use of live rounds frequently in cases of riots, were criticized by [[Human Rights Watch]] as disproportionate, in addition to Israel's excessive use of lethal force.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.hrw.org/legacy/campaigns/israel/intifada-intro.htm |title=The Israeli Army and the Intifada – Policies that Contribute to the Killings |website=Human Rights Watch |access-date=15 February 2020}}</ref> In the first 13 months, 332 Palestinians and 12 Israelis were killed.<ref name="Cronin">Audrey Kurth Cronin 'Endless wars and no surrender,' in Holger Afflerbach, Hew Strachan (eds.) [https://books.google.com/books?id=gh6VIodYxNMC&pg=PA426 ''How Fighting Ends: A History of Surrender,''] Oxford University Press 2012 pp. 417–433 p. 426.</ref><ref name="pearlman">Wendy Pearlman, ''Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement,''Cambridge University Press 2011, [https://books.google.com/books?id=5Rn3CgDAymEC&pg=PG114 p. 114].</ref> Images of soldiers beating adolescents with clubs then led to the adoption of firing semi-lethal plastic bullets.<ref name="Cronin" /> During the whole six-year intifada, the Israeli army killed at least 1,087 Palestinians, of which 240 were children.<ref name="BTF"/>

Among Israelis, 100 civilians and 60 Israeli soldiers were killed,<ref name="btsestat">[http://www.btselem.org/english/statistics/first_Intifada_Tables.asp B'Tselem] Statistics; Fatalities in the first Intifada.</ref> often by militants outside the control of the Intifada's [[Unified National Leadership of the Uprising|UNLU]],<ref name=FaberKaldor>Mient Jan Faber, Mary Kaldor, 'The deterioration of human security in Palestine,' in Mary Martin, Mary Kaldor (eds.) [https://books.google.com/books?id=sHOMAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA101 ''The European Union and Human Security: External Interventions and Missions''], Routledge, 2009 pp. 95–111.</ref> and more than 1,400 Israeli civilians and 1,700 soldiers were injured.<ref>'Intifada,' in David Seddon, (ed.)''A Political and Economic Dictionary of the Middle East'', Taylor & Francis 2004, p. 284.</ref> Intra-Palestinian violence was also a prominent feature of the Intifada, with widespread executions of an estimated 822 Palestinians killed as alleged Israeli [[Collaborationism|collaborators]] (1988–April 1994).<ref>[[Human Rights Watch]], ''Israel, the Occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the Palestinian Authority Territories'', November, 2001. Vol. 13, No. 4(E), p. 49</ref> At the time Israel reportedly obtained information from some 18,000 Palestinians who had been compromised,<ref name="Pal">Amitabh Pal, [https://books.google.com/books?id=UF79Qxid7YkC&pg=PA191 ''"Islam" Means Peace: Understanding the Muslim Principle of Nonviolence Today''], ABC-CLIO, 2011 p. 191.</ref> although fewer than half had any proven contact with the Israeli authorities.<ref name="LockmanBeinin1989_38">[[First Intifada#LockmanBeinin1989|Lockman; Beinin (1989)]], p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=KYPVNdzXUJkC&pg=PA37-38.]</ref> Years later, the [[Second Intifada]] took place from September 2000 to 2005.

== Background ==
{{see also|Causes of the First Intifada}}

According to [[Mubarak Awad]], a Palestinian American clinical psychologist, the Intifada was a protest against Israeli repression including "beatings, shootings, killings, house demolitions, uprooting of trees, deportations, extended imprisonments, and detentions without trial".<ref name="AckermanDuVall2000">[[#AckermanDuVall2000|Ackerman; DuVall (2000)]], p&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=OVtKS9DCN0kC&pg=PA403 407.]</ref> In the years prior to the Intifada, Awad had been "among the keenest advocates for nonviolent struggle", founding the [[Palestinian Centre for the Study of Nonviolence|Palestinian Center for the Study of Nonviolence]].<ref name="King2"/> After Israel's capture of the [[West Bank]], [[Jerusalem]], [[Sinai Peninsula]], and [[Gaza Strip]] from [[Jordan]] and [[Egypt]] in the [[Six-Day War]] in 1967, frustration grew among Palestinians in the [[Israeli-occupied territories]]. Israel opened its labor market to Palestinians in the newly occupied territories, who were recruited mainly to do unskilled or semi-skilled labor jobs Israelis did not want. By the time of the Intifada, over 40 percent of the Palestinian workforce worked in Israel daily. Additionally, Israeli expropriation of Palestinian land, high birthrates in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the limited allocation of land for new building and agriculture created conditions marked by growing population density and rising unemployment, even for those with university degrees. At the time of the Intifada, only one in eight college-educated Palestinians could find degree-related work.<ref name="AckermanDuVall2000_401">[[#AckermanDuVall2000|Ackerman; DuVall (2000)]], p&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=OVtKS9DCN0kC&pg=PA401 401.]</ref> This was coupled with an expansion of a Palestinian university system catering to people from refugee camps, villages, and small towns, generating a new Palestinian [[elite]] from a lower social strata that was more activistic and confrontational with Israel.<ref>Robinson, Glenn E. "The Palestinians." ''The Contemporary Middle East'', Third Edition. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2013. 126–127.</ref> According to Israeli historian and diplomat [[Shlomo Ben-Ami]] in his book ''[[Scars of War, Wounds of Peace]]'', the Intifada was also a rebellion against the [[Palestine Liberation Organization]] (PLO). Ben-Ami describes the PLO as uncompromising and reliant on international terrorism, which he says exacerbated Palestinian grievances.{{sfn|Ben-Ami|2006|p=189}}

The [[Israeli Labor Party]]'s [[Yitzhak Rabin]], then [[Ministry of Defense (Israel)|Defense Minister]], added deportations in August 1985 to Israel's [[Iron Fist policy|"Iron Fist" policy]] of cracking down on Palestinian nationalism.<ref>[[Helena Cobban]], 'The PLO and the Intifada', in Robert Owen Freedman, (ed.) ''The Intifada: Its Impact on Israel, the Arab World, and the Superpowers'', University Press of Florida, 1991 pp. 70–106, pp. 94–95.'must be considered as an essential part of the backdrop against which the intifada germinated'.(p. 95)</ref> This, which led to 50 deportations in the following four years,<ref>[[Helena Cobban]], 'The PLO and the Intifada', p. 94. In the immediate aftermath of the 6 Day War in 1967, some 15,000 Gazans had been deported to Egypt. A further 1,150 were deported between September 1967 and May 1978. This pattern was drastically curtailed by the [[Likud]] governments under [[Menachem Begin]] between 1978 and 1984.</ref> was accompanied by economic integration and increasing Israeli [[Israeli settler|settlements]], such that the Jewish settler population in the West Bank alone nearly doubled from 35,000 in 1984 to 64,000 in 1988, reaching 130,000 by the mid-nineties.<ref name=BM1>{{cite book|last=Morris|first=Benny|title=Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist–Arab Conflict, 1881–2001|year=2001|publisher=Vintage|isbn=978-0-679-74475-7|page=[https://archive.org/details/righteousvictims00morr_0/page/567 567]|url=https://archive.org/details/righteousvictims00morr_0/page/567}}</ref> Referring to the developments, Israeli minister of Economics and Finance, [[Gad Yaacobi|Gad Ya'acobi]], stated that "a creeping process of ''de facto'' annexation" contributed to a growing militancy in Palestinian society.<ref name="LockmanBeinin1989_32">[[#LockmanBeinin1989|Lockman; Beinin (1989)]], p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=KYPVNdzXUJkC&pg=PA32 32.]</ref>

During the 1980s a number of mainstream Israeli politicians referred to policies of transferring the Palestinian population out of the territories, leading to Palestinian fears that Israel planned to evict them. Public statements calling for transfer of the Palestinian population were made by Deputy Defense Minister [[Michael Dekel]], Cabinet Minister [[Mordechai Tzipori]] and government Minister [[Yosef Shapira]] among others.<ref name="BM1" /> Describing the causes of the Intifada, [[Benny Morris]] refers to the "all-pervading element of humiliation", caused by the protracted occupation which he says was "always a brutal and mortifying experience for the occupied" and was "founded on brute force, repression and fear, collaboration and treachery, beatings and torture chambers, and daily intimidation, humiliation, and manipulation."<ref name=BM2>{{cite book|last=Morris|first=Benny|title=Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–2001|year=2001|publisher=Vintage|isbn=978-0-679-74475-7|pages=[https://archive.org/details/righteousvictims00morr_0/page/341 341, 568]|url=https://archive.org/details/righteousvictims00morr_0/page/341}}</ref>

=== Trigger for the uprising ===
[[File:Intifada in Gaza Strip (FL45884553).jpg|thumb|Protests in the Gaza Strip at the onset of the First Intifada in 1987]]
While the catalyst for the First Intifada is generally dated to a truck incident involving several Palestinian fatalities at the Erez Crossing in December 1987,<ref name="neff">{{Cite journal| volume=1997|pages=81–83|last=Neff|first=Donald|title=The Intifada Erupts, Forcing Israel to Recognize Palestinians|journal =Washington Report on Middle East Affairs|series=December|access-date=13 May 2008|url=http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/1297/9712081.html}}</ref> [[Mazin Qumsiyeh]] argues, against [[Donald Neff]], that it began with multiple youth demonstrations earlier in the preceding month.<ref>M. B. Qumsiyeh  ''Popular Resistance in Palestine; A History of Hope and Empowerment'', Pluto Press; New York 2011.pp. 135</ref> Some sources consider that the perceived IDF failure in late November 1987 to stop a Palestinian guerrilla operation, the [[Night of the Gliders]], in which six Israeli soldiers were killed, helped catalyze local Palestinians to rebel.<ref name="neff" /><ref name="Shai2005_74">[[#Shay2005|Shay (2005)]], p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=4kGIpMI5HC0C&pg=PA74 74.]</ref><ref name="oren">{{Cite news|last=Oren|first=Amir|title=Secrets of the Ya-Ya brotherhood|work=Haaretz|access-date=13 May 2008|date=18 October 2006|url=https://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/775582.html|archive-date=15 June 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080615040905/http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/775582.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Mass demonstrations had [[December 1986 Birzeit University protests|occurred a year earlier]] when, after two Gaza students at [[Birzeit University]] had been shot by Israeli soldiers on campus on 4 December 1986, the Israelis responded with harsh punitive measures, involving summary arrest, detention, and systematic beatings of handcuffed Palestinian youths, ex-prisoners and activists, some 250 of whom were detained in four cells inside a converted army camp, known popularly as [[Ansar, Lebanon|Ansar 11]], outside Gaza City.<ref>Anita Vitullo, 'Uprising in Gaza,' in Lockman and Beinin 1989 pp. 43–55 pp. 43–44.</ref> A policy of deportation was introduced to intimidate activists in January 1987. Violence simmered as a schoolboy from [[Khan Yunis]] was shot dead by Israeli soldiers pursuing him in a Jeep. Over the summer the IDF's Lieutenant Ron Tal, who was responsible for guarding detainees at Ansar 11, was shot dead at point-blank range while stuck in a Gaza traffic jam. A curfew forbidding Gaza residents from leaving their homes was imposed for three days, during the Islamic holiday of [[Eid al-Adha]]. In two incidents on 1 and 6 October 1987, the [[Israel Defense Forces|IDF]] ambushed and killed seven Gaza men, reportedly affiliated with [[Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine|Islamic Jihad]], who had escaped from prison in May.<ref>Vitullo, p. 44 The first incident involved two unarmed men, one a well-known Gaza businessman, at a roadblock. The second occurred in a residential raid, where subsequently a small cache of weapons were found in the cars of four men. The army them bulldozed their homes. A general strike took place, and in response Israel arrested and ordered the deportation of Shaykh 'Abd al-'Aziz Awad, who was held responsible for the growth of popular support for Islamic Jihad, on 15 November.</ref> Some days later, a 17-year-old schoolgirl, Intisar al-'Attar, was shot in the back while in her schoolyard in [[Deir al-Balah]] by a settler in the Gaza Strip, who claimed the girl had been throwing stones.<ref>Vitullo, pp45-6. The settlers did not report the killing. An Israeli schoolteacher was arrested for the incident after a ballistics test was undertaken, but an Israel judge released him after a week, in the wake of Israeli settler protests. Settlers said she had been throwing stones.</ref> The Arab summit in [[Amman]] in November 1987 focused on the [[Iran–Iraq War]], and the Palestinian issue was shunted to the sidelines for the first time in years.<ref name="Shalev1991_33">[[#Shalev1991|Shalev (1991)]], p.&nbsp;33.</ref><ref name="NassarHeacock1990_31">[[#NassarHeacock1990|Nassar; Heacock (1990)]], p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=_P5W5ErBQRYC&pg=PA31 31.]</ref>

== Timeline of the Intifada ==
{{main| Israeli responses to the First Intifada| Outbreak of the First Intifada}}
[[File:Intifada erase slogan.jpg|thumb|An IDF soldier requesting a resident of Jabalia to erase a slogan on a wall during the First Intifada.]]

=== Israel's occupation and Palestinian unrest ===
Israel's drive into the occupied territories had occasioned spontaneous acts of resistance, but the administration, pursuing an "iron fist" policy of collective punishment including deportations, [[House demolition in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict|demolition of homes]], curfews, [[collective punishment]], and the suppression of political and educational institutions, was confident that Palestinian resistance was exhausted. The assessment that the unrest would collapse proved to be mistaken.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-02-02 |title=Israel: Collective Punishment against Palestinians {{!}} Human Rights Watch |url=https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/02/02/israel-collective-punishment-against-palestinians |access-date=2024-12-29 |language=en}}</ref><ref>Mark Tessler, ''A History of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,''Indiana University Press, 1994 p. 677.</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Dacey |first1=Raymond |title=Risk Attitude, Punishment, and the Intifada |journal=Conflict Management and Peace Science |date=1998 |volume=16 |issue=1 |pages=85 |doi=10.1177/073889429801600104 |jstor=26273649 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26273649 |issn=0738-8942|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Abu-Amr |first1=Ziad |title=The Palestinian Uprising in the West Bank and Gaza Strip |journal=Arab Studies Quarterly |date=1988 |volume=10 |issue=4 |pages=386 |jstor=41857979 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41857979 |issn=0271-3519}}</ref>
[[File:TireNail1-2.jpg|thumb|An improvised [[tire]]-puncturing device (slang term 'Ninja') comprising an iron nail inserted into a rubber disc (from used tire). Many of these makeshift weapons were scattered by Palestinians on main roads in the occupied territories of the [[West Bank]] during the First Intifada.]]
On 8 December 1987, an Israeli truck crashed into a row of cars containing Palestinians returning from working in Israel, at the [[Erez Crossing|Erez checkpoint]]. Four Palestinians, three of them residents of the [[Jabaliya Camp|Jabalya]] refugee camp, the largest of the eight refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, were killed and seven others seriously injured. The traffic incident was witnessed by hundreds of Palestinian labourers returning home from work.<ref>Vitullo p. 46.</ref> The funerals, attended by 10,000 people from the camp that evening, quickly led to a large demonstration. Rumours swept the camp that the incident was an act of intentional retaliation for the stabbing to death of an Israeli businessman, killed while shopping in Gaza two days earlier.<ref>Ruth Margolies Beitler, ''The Path to Mass Rebellion: An Analysis of Two Intifadas'', Lexington Books, 2004 p.xiii.</ref><ref>Vitullo, p. 46:'Although Palestinians rushed to aid the man, no one cooperated with military interrogators, who arrested scores of people and clamped a curfew on the area.'</ref> The next day, December 9, Palestinian teenagers threw stones and, according to the IDF, also gasoline bombs,<ref group=note>The Israeli military said at least two gasoline bombs landed on the army patrol vehicle but they did not explode</ref> at military vehicles. The soldiers started shooting in response, killing 17 year-old Hatem Al-Sesi and wounding 16 others.<ref>''Israeli Troops Kill Arab in Gaza''. The New York Times, 10 December 1987. ''The shootings today took place about 9 A.M., when teen-agers at the Jabalya refugee district surrounded an army patrol car and showered it with rocks and gasoline bombs. At least two of the firebombs landed on the car but did not explode, the army said. The officer in charge of the patrol opened fire, the army said. "As a result, a 17-year-old resident was killed," the army spokesman said. "One must presume he was among those who were throwing the Molotov cocktails."''</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://remix.aljazeera.com/aje/PalestineRemix/mobile/remix/create/#!/23 | title=Al Jazeera - Palestine Remix }}</ref><ref>Ruth Margolies Beitler,''The Path to Mass Rebellion: An Analysis of Two Intifadas'', p. 116 n.75.</ref><ref>Tessler, ''A History of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict'', pp. 677-8.</ref>

On 9 December, several popular and professional Palestinian leaders held a press conference in West Jerusalem with the [[Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights]] in response to the deterioration of the situation. While they convened, reports came in that demonstrations at the Jabalya camp were underway and that a 17-year-old Palestinian had been shot to death by Israeli soldiers (after, as the IDF claimed, a group of Palestinians threw gasoline bombs at an IDF vehicle). He would later become known as the first [[shahid|martyr]] of the Intifada.<ref>Vitullo, p. 46. writes 20-year-old man. The Israeli military and other sources say he was 17 years old.</ref><ref name="Intifada, p284">'Intifada,' in David Seddon,(ed.) ''A Political and Economic Dictionary of the Middle East'', p. 284.</ref> Protests rapidly spread into the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Youths took control of neighbourhoods, closed off camps with barricades of garbage, stone and [[burning tires]], meeting soldiers who endeavoured to break through with petrol bombs. Palestinian shopkeepers closed their businesses, and labourers refused to turn up to their work in Israel. Israel defined these activities as 'riots', and justified the repression as necessary to restore 'law and order'.<ref>Vitullo p. 47 challenges this:'To the contrary, the protests showed restraint and rationality. . .Demonstrations were not "peaceful" but neither did they turn Palestinians into mindless mobs. Youths stripped one Israeli down to his underwear in front of Shifa hospital, but then let him run back to his fellow soldiers. A young Palestinian took another soldier's rifle away from him, broke it in two, then handed it back'.</ref> Within days the occupied territories were engulfed in a wave of demonstrations and commercial strikes on an unprecedented scale. Specific elements of the occupation were targeted for attack: military vehicles, Israeli buses and Israeli banks. None of the dozen Israeli settlements were attacked and there were no Israeli fatalities from stone-throwing at cars at this early period of the outbreak.<ref>Vitullo, p. 47</ref> Equally unprecedented was the extent of mass participation in these disturbances: tens of thousands of civilians, including [[Women in the First Intifada|women]] and children. The Israeli security forces used the full panoply of crowd control measures to try and quell the disturbances: cudgels, nightsticks, [[tear gas]], water cannons, rubber bullets, and live ammunition. But the disturbances only gathered momentum.<ref name="Shlaim2000_450-451">[[#Shlaim2000|Shlaim (2000)]], pp.&nbsp;450–1.</ref>

Soon there was widespread [[Palestinian stone-throwing|rock-throwing]], road-blocking and tire burning throughout the territories. By 12 December, six Palestinians had died and 30 had been injured in the violence. The next day, rioters threw a gasoline bomb at the U.S. consulate in [[East Jerusalem]], though no one was hurt.<ref name="Intifada, p284" /> The [[Israeli responses to the First Intifada|Israeli police and military response]] also led to a number of injuries and deaths. The IDF killed many Palestinians at the beginning of the Intifada, the majority killed during demonstrations and riots. Since initially a high proportion of those killed were civilians and youths, Yitzhak Rabin adopted a fallback policy of 'might, power and beatings'.<ref>Audrey Kurth Cronin, 'How fighting ends: asymmetric wars, terrorism and suicide bombing,' inHolger Afflerbach, [[Hew Strachan]] (eds.) ''How Fighting Ends: A History of Surrender'', Oxford University Press, 2012 pp. 417-433, p. 426</ref> Israel used [[mass arrest]]s of Palestinians, engaged in collective punishments like [[Education during the First Intifada|closing down]] West Bank universities for most years of the Intifada, and West Bank schools for a total of 12 months. [[Hebron University]] was closed by the army from January 1988 to June 1991.<ref>[[Middle East International]] No 400, 17 May 1991, Publishers [[Christopher Mayhew|Lord Mayhew]], [[Dennis Walters]] MP; p. 15 ‘fourteen days in brief’</ref> Round-the-clock curfews were imposed over 1600 times in just the first year. Communities were cut off from supplies of water, electricity and fuel. At any one time, 25,000 Palestinians would be confined to their homes. Trees were uprooted on Palestinians farms, and agricultural produce blocked from being sold. In the first year over 1,000 Palestinians had their homes either demolished or blocked up. Settlers also engaged in private attacks on Palestinians. Palestinian refusals to pay taxes were met with confiscations of property and licenses, new car taxes, and heavy fines for any family whose members had been identified as stone-throwers.<ref>Pearlman, p. 115.</ref>

== Casualties ==
[[File:Arton8011.jpg|thumb|Barricades during the Intifada]]
In the first year in the Gaza Strip alone, 142 Palestinians were killed, while no Israelis died. 77 were shot dead, and 37 died from tear-gas inhalation. 17 died from beatings at the hand of Israeli police or soldiers.<ref name="Filiu2">[[Jean-Pierre Filiu]], [https://books.google.com/books?id=4fhzBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA207 ''Gaza: A History''], Oxford University Press p. 206.</ref> During the whole six-year intifada, the Israeli army killed from 1,087 to 1,204 (or 1,284)<ref name="BTF">{{cite web|url=https://www.btselem.org/statistics/first_intifada_tables|work=B'tselem|accessdate=8 December 2023|title=Fatalities in the first Intifada}}</ref><ref name="Nasrallah61">Rami Nasrallah, 'The First and Second Palestinian Intifadas,' in Joel Peters, David Newman (eds.) [https://books.google.com/books?id=kftqQdNNDWAC&pg=PA61 ''The Routledge Handbook on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict''], Routledge 2013 pp. 56–68 p. 61</ref><ref name="DAMH">Juan José López-Ibor, Jr., George Christodoulou, Mario Maj, Norman Sartorius, Ahmed Okasha (eds.),[https://books.google.com/books?id=1aUq67aKpeAC&pg=PA231 ''Disasters and Mental Health.''] John Wiley & Sons, 2005 p. 231.</ref> Palestinians, 241/332<ref name="DAMH" /> being children. Tens of thousands were arrested (some sources said 57,000;<ref name="Cronin" /><ref name="DAMH" /> others said 120,000),<ref>[http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/1297/9712081.html WRMEA] Donald Neff ''The Intifada Erupts, Forcing Israel to Recognize Palestinians''</ref> 481 were deported while 2,532 had their houses razed to the ground.<ref name="DAMH" /> Between December 1987 and June 1991, 120,000 were injured, 15,000 arrested and 1,882 homes demolished.<ref>Sumantra Bose, [https://books.google.com/books?id=lFVVyJr_xbwC&pg=PA243 ''Contested Lands: Israel-Palestine, Kashmir, Bosnia, Cyprus, and Sri Lanka,''] [[Harvard University Press]], 2007 p. 243</ref> One journalistic calculation reports that in the Gaza Strip alone from 1988 to 1993, some 60,706 Palestinians suffered injuries from shootings, beatings or tear gas.<ref name="Nasrallah">Nami Nasrallah, 'The First and Second Palestinian ''intifadas'',' in David Newman, Joel Peters (eds.) [https://books.google.com/books?id=kftqQdNNDWAC&pg=PA61 ''Routledge Handbook on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,''] Routledge, 2013, pp. 56–67, p. 56.</ref> In the first five weeks alone, 35 Palestinians were killed and some 1,200 wounded. Some regarded the Israeli response as encouraging more Palestinians into participating.<ref>Ruth Margolies Beitler, ''The Path to Mass Rebellion: An Analysis of Two Intifadas'', p. 120</ref> [[B'Tselem]] calculated 179 Israelis killed, while official Israeli statistics place the total at 200 over the same period. 3,100 Israelis, 1,700 of them soldiers, and 1,400 civilians suffered injuries.<ref name="Nasrallah" /> By 1990 [[Ktzi'ot Prison]] in the [[Negev]] held approximately one out of every 50 West Bank and Gazan males older than 16 years.<ref>Human Rights Watch (HRW) (1991) ''Prison Conditions in Israel and the Occupied Territories. A Middle East Watch Report.'' Human Rights Watch. {{ISBN|978-1-56432-011-7}}. Pages 18, 64.</ref> [[Gerald Kaufman]] remarked: "[F]riends of Israel as well as foes have been shocked and saddened by that country's response to the disturbances."<ref name="McDowall1989_2b">[[#McDowall1989|McDowall (1989)]], p.&nbsp;[https://archive.org/details/palestineisraelu00mcdo/page/2 <!-- quote="friends of Israel as well as foes have been shocked and saddened by that country's response to the disturbances". --> 2.]</ref> In an article in the London Review of Books, [[John Mearsheimer]] and [[Stephen Walt]] asserted that IDF soldiers were given [[Baton (law enforcement)|truncheons]] and encouraged to break the bones of Palestinian protesters. The [[Sweden|Swedish]] branch of [[Save the Children]] estimated that "23,600 to 29,900 children required medical treatment for their beating injuries in the first two years of the Intifada", one third of whom were children under the age of ten years.<ref>{{Cite journal|title=The Israel Lobby|journal=[[London Review of Books]]|last1=Mearsheimer|author1-link=John Mearsheimer|first1=John|last2=Walt|first2=Stephen|author2-link=Stephen Walt|volume=28|issue=6|year=2006|url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/john-mearsheimer/the-israel-lobby|pages=3–12}}</ref>

Israel adopted a policy of arresting key representatives of Palestinian institutions. After lawyers in Gaza went on strike to protest their inability to visit their detained clients, Israel detained the deputy head of its association without trial for six months. Dr. Zakariya al-Agha, the head of the Gaza Medical Association, was likewise arrested and held for a similar period of detention, as were several women active in Women's Work Committees. During Ramadan, many camps in Gaza were placed under curfew for weeks, impeding residents from buying food, and [[Al-Shati (camp)|Al-Shati]], Jabalya and [[Bureij|Burayj]] were subjected to saturation bombing by tear gas. During the first year of the Intifada, the total number of casualties in the camps from such bombing totalled 16.<ref>Vitullo pp. 51-2,</ref>

Between 1988 and 1992, intra-Palestinian violence claimed the lives of nearly 1,000.<ref name=phrmg_collaborators>{{cite web|url=http://www.phrmg.org/monitor2001/oct2001-collaborators.htm|title=Collaborators, One Year Al-Aqsa Intifada Fact Sheets And Figures|website=One Year Al-Aqsa Intifada Fact Sheets And Figures|publisher=The [[Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group]]|access-date=15 May 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070606212710/http://www.phrmg.org/monitor2001/oct2001-collaborators.htm|archive-date=6 June 2007}}</ref> By June 1990, according to [[Benny Morris]], "[T]he Intifada seemed to have lost direction. A symptom of the PLO's frustration was the great increase in the killing of suspected collaborators."<ref name="Morris1999_612">[[#Morris1999|Morris (1999)]], p.&nbsp;612.</ref> Roughly 18,000 Palestinians, compromised by Israeli intelligence, are said to have given information to the other side.<ref name="Pal" /> Collaborators were threatened with death or ostracism unless they desisted, and if their collaboration with the Occupying Power continued, were executed by special troops such as the "Black Panthers" and "Red Eagles". An estimated 771 (according to [[Associated Press]]) to 942 (according to the IDF) Palestinians were executed on suspicion of collaboration during the span of the Intifada.<ref>Sergio Catignani, [https://books.google.com/books?id=mfNBodDl0hgC&pg=PA81  ''Israeli Counter-Insurgency and the Intifadas: Dilemmas of a Conventional Army,'']  Routledge, 2008 pp. 81-84.</ref>

== Palestinian leadership ==
{{See also|Hamas in the First Intifada|Women in the First Intifada}}

The Intifada was not initiated by any single individual or organization. Local leadership came from groups and organizations affiliated with the PLO that operated within the Occupied Territories; [[Fatah]], the [[Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine|Popular Front]], the [[Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine|Democratic Front]] and the [[Palestine Communist Party]].<ref name="LockmanBeinin1989_392">[[First Intifada#LockmanBeinin1989|Lockman; Beinin (1989)]], p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=KYPVNdzXUJkC&pg=PA39 39.]</ref> The PLO's rivals in this activity were the Islamic organizations, [[Hamas]] and [[Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine|Islamic Jihad]] as well as local leadership in cities such as [[Beit Sahour]] and [[Bethlehem]]. However, the Intifada was predominantly led by community councils led by [[Hanan Ashrawi]], [[Faisal Husseini]] and [[Haidar Abdel-Shafi]], that promoted independent networks for education (underground schools as the regular schools were closed by the military in reprisal), medical care, and food aid.<ref>[http://www.merip.org/palestine-israel_primer/intifada-87-pal-isr-primer.html MERIP] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131104080059/http://www.merip.org/palestine-israel_primer/intifada-87-pal-isr-primer.html|date=4 November 2013}} Palestine, Israel and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, A Primer</ref> The [[Unified National Leadership of the Uprising]] (UNLU) gained credibility where the Palestinian society complied with the issued communiques.<ref name="LockmanBeinin1989_392" /> There was a collective commitment to abstain from lethal violence, a notable departure from past practice,<ref>"What amazed this writer . .was the interesting departure from the norms of the past. Palestinians in the Occupied Territories were continuously insisting that they would not resort to arms. Any escalation in the use of violence on their part would be as a last resort, for defensive purposes only", Souad Dajani, cited Pearlman, ''Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement'', p. 106</ref> which, according to Shalev arose from a calculation that recourse to arms would lead to an Israeli bloodbath and undermine the support they had in Israeli liberal quarters. The PLO and its chairman Yassir Arafat had also decided on an unarmed strategy, in the expectation that negotiations at that time would lead to an agreement with Israel.<ref name="Filiu2"/> The First Intifada was mostly peaceful and non-violent, and it has been described as a "quiet revolution" by [[Mary King (political scientist)|Mary King]].<ref name="King2"/> Pearlman attributes the non-violent character of the uprising to the movement's internal organization and its capillary outreach to neighborhood committees that ensured that lethal revenge would not be the response even in the face of Israeli state repression.<ref>éPearlman, ibid. p. 107.</ref> Hamas and Islamic Jihad cooperated with the leadership at the outset, and throughout the first year of the uprising conducted no armed attacks, except for stabbing of a soldier in October 1988 and the detonation of two roadside bombs, which had no impact.<ref>Pearlman, p. 112.</ref>

=== Pivot to the two-state solution ===
Leaflets publicizing the Intifada's aims demanded the complete withdrawal of Israel from the territories it had occupied in 1967: the lifting of curfews and checkpoints; it appealed to Palestinians to join in civic resistance, while asking them not to employ arms, since military resistance would only invite devastating retaliation from Israel; it also called for the establishment of the Palestinian state on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, abandoning the standard rhetorical calls, still current at the time, for the "liberation" of all of Palestine.<ref>Walid Salem p. 189</ref>

=== Hamas ===
{{See also|History of Hamas}}During the First Intifada the goal of Hamas was to destroy Israel and replace it with an [[Islamism|Islamist]] Palestinian state, the group had very poor relations with the PLO and UNLU due to the PLO recognition of Israel, and was their main competitor for power.<ref name=":0" />

Hamas both participated in protests organized by the UNLU and organized its own protests, mainly organizing around mosques while jockeying for influence with the PLO and UNLU. They also engaged in armed combat operations targeting Israeli soldiers and civilians. During the 1st year of the Intifada there were only 10 attacks which were limited to detonating explosives and shooting at patrols, but over time these attacks increased in frequency with the 2nd year seeing 32 attacks including the [[Killing of Avi Sasportas and Ilan Saadon|kidnapping of 2 Israeli soldiers]] within the [[Green Line (Israel)|Green Line]]. In response to this Israeli began to arrest and kill many Hamas leaders including [[Ahmed Yassin|Ahmad Yassin]], but by this point Hamas was too big for Israeli to destroy easily so the group survived these counterattacks. By the end of the Intifada the groups had emerged as the biggest winner with them gaining significant political and military power both within Palestine and abroad.<ref name=":0" />

=== Palestinian Islamic Jihad ===
Throughout the First Intifada the goal of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) was the establishment of an Islamist Palestinian state spanning the whole of former [[Mandatory Palestine]] and the destruction of Israel. In this and other aspects the groups ideology similar to [[Khomeinism]]. During the Intifada the PIJ would use both terrorism and civil resistance throughout the Intifada. During the early stages of the Intifada it seemed likely that the group would merge with the PLO largely due to their mutual disapproval of violence at the time. But this never happened because the UNLU disliked the PIJ and prevented the merger, though the groups still cooperated periodically.<ref name=":0" />

At the beginning of the Intifada the PIJ had only 300 members but they have far more ideological supporters which gave them outsized influence for their size. In the first month of the Intifada it was very active in organizing and calling for protests but after the start of 1988 the groups decreased in activity and was crippled in March 1988 when the IDF arrested many of the leaders and members. It took the group until [[Autumn|Fall]] of 1988 to regroup and after it did it took on a more militant approach and ended its relationship with the PLO.<ref name=":0" />

== Other notable events ==

=== Assassination of Abu Jihad ===
On 16 April 1988, a leader of the PLO, [[Abu Jihad|Khalil al-Wazir, ''nom de guerre'' Abu Jihad or 'Father of the Struggle']], was assassinated in [[Tunis]] by an Israeli commando squad. Israel claimed he was the 'remote-control "main organizer" of the revolt', and perhaps believed that his death would break the back of the Intifada. During the mass demonstrations and mourning in Gaza that followed, two of the main mosques of Gaza were raided by the IDF and worshippers were beaten and tear-gassed.<ref>Anita Vitullo, pp. 50-1</ref> In total between 11 and 15 Palestinians were killed during the demonstrations and riots in Gaza and West Bank that followed al-Wazir's death.<ref name="UNISPAL">{{cite web | url=http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/50670C9C0FF4C6308025645F005EAAA4 | title=THE QUESTION OF PALESTINE 1979–1990 | publisher=United Nations | date=31 July 1991 | access-date=14 April 2015 | author=UN | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131104215919/http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/50670C9C0FF4C6308025645F005EAAA4 | archive-date=4 November 2013}}</ref> In June of that year, the [[Arab League]] agreed to support the Intifada financially at the [[1988 Arab League summit]]. The Arab League reaffirmed its financial support in the 1989 summit.<ref>[[Avraham Sela|Sela, Avraham]].  "Arab Summit Conferences." ''The Continuum Political Encyclopedia of the Middle East''.  Ed. Sela.  New York: Continuum, 2002. pp. 158-160</ref>

Israeli defense minister [[Yitzhak Rabin]]'s response was: "We will teach them there is a price for refusing the laws of Israel."<ref>Sosebee, Stephen J. "The Passing of Yitzhak Rabin, Whose 'Iron Fist' Fueled the Intifada" ''The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.'' 31 October 1990. Vol. IX #5, pg. 9</ref> When time in prison did not stop the activists, Israel crushed the boycott by imposing heavy fines and seizing and disposing of equipment, furnishings, and goods from local stores, factories and homes.<ref name="Aburish">[[Said K. Aburish|Aburish, Said K.]] (1998). ''Arafat: From Defender to Dictator''. New York: [[Bloomsbury Publishing]] pp. 201-228 {{ISBN|978-1-58234-049-4}}</ref>

=== 1990 Temple Mount killings ===
On 8 October 1990, 22 Palestinians were killed by Israeli police during the [[1990 Temple Mount killings]] at [[Al-Aqsa]]. This led the Palestinians to adopt more lethal tactics, with three Israeli civilians and one IDF soldier stabbed in Jerusalem and Gaza two weeks later. Incidents of stabbing persisted.<ref name="Ruth Margolies Beitler p. 128"/> The Israeli state apparatus carried out contradictory and conflicting policies that were seen to have injured Israel's own interests, such as the closing of educational establishments (putting more youths onto the streets) and issuing the [[Shin Bet]] list of collaborators.<ref name="NassarHeacock1990_115">[[#NassarHeacock1990|Nassar; Heacock (1990)]], p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=_P5W5ErBQRYC&pg=PA115 115.]</ref> [[Suicide bombing]]s by Palestinian militants started on 16 April 1993 with the [[Mehola Junction bombing]], carried at the end of the Intifada.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Tangled Roots: Social and Psychological Factors in the Genesis of Terrorism|author=Jeffrey Ivan Victoroff|year=2006|page=204|publisher=IOS Press|isbn=978-1-58603-670-6|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=olWnkxm4SPoC&q=%22suicide+bombing%22+first+palestinian+1993&pg=PA204}}</ref>

== Response by the United Nations ==
The large number of Palestinian casualties provoked international condemnation. In subsequent resolutions, including [[United Nations Security Council Resolution 607|607]] and [[United Nations Security Council Resolution 608|608]], the Security Council demanded Israel cease deportations of Palestinians. In November 1988, Israel was condemned by a large majority of the [[UN General Assembly]] for its actions against the Intifada. The resolution was repeated in the following years.<ref>Resolution 44/2 of 06.10.89; Resolution 45/69 of 06.12.90; Resolution 46/76 of 11.12.91</ref>

=== Security Council ===
On 17 February 1989, the [[UN Security Council]] drafted a resolution condemning Israel for disregarding Security Council resolutions, as well as for not complying with the [[fourth Geneva Convention]]. The United States, put a veto on a draft resolution which would have strongly deplored it. On 9 June, the US again put a veto on a resolution. On 7 November, the US vetoed a third draft resolution, condemning alleged Israeli violations of human rights<ref>[http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/DF0BB291D1E55CF4052565B80063E183 ''Yearbook of the United Nations 1989''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131104215924/http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/DF0BB291D1E55CF4052565B80063E183 |date=4 November 2013 }}, Chapter IV, Middle East. 31 December 1989.</ref>

On 14 October 1990, Israel openly declared that it would not abide [[Security Council Resolution 672]] because it did not pay attention to attacks on Jewish worshippers at the [[Western Wall]].<ref>{{cite book|title=Pilgrimage for peace: a Secretary-General's memoir|last=Cuéllar, Javier Pérez de|author-link=Javier Pérez de Cuéllar|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|year=1997|isbn=978-0-312-16486-7|page=[https://archive.org/details/pilgrimageforpea00pere/page/96 96]|url=https://archive.org/details/pilgrimageforpea00pere/page/96}}</ref> Israel refused to receive a delegation of the Secretary-General, which would investigate Israeli violence. The following [[United Nations Security Council Resolution 673|Resolution 673]] made little impression and Israel kept on obstructing UN investigations.<ref>Division for Palestinian Rights (DPR), [http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/50670C9C0FF4C6308025645F005EAAA4 The question of Palestine 1979–1990] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131104215919/http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/50670C9C0FF4C6308025645F005EAAA4 |date=4 November 2013 }}, Chapter II, section E. ''The intifadah and the need to ensure the protection of the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation''. 31 July 1991.</ref>

== Reactions and outcome ==

=== Impact on Israeli-Palestinian conflict ===
The Intifada was recognized as an occasion where the Palestinians acted cohesively and independently of their leadership or assistance of neighboring Arab states.<ref name="McDowall1989_3">[[First Intifada#McDowall1989|McDowall (1989)]], p.&nbsp;[https://archive.org/details/palestineisraelu00mcdo/page/3]</ref><ref name="NassarHeacock1990_1">[[First Intifada#NassarHeacock1990|Nassar; Heacock (1990)]], p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=_P5W5ErBQRYC&pg=PA1 1.]</ref><ref name="Alimi2006_1" /> It transformed the conflict, helping bring about the [[Madrid Conference of 1991]] and the signing of the [[Oslo Accords]] in 1993.<ref name="King2"/><ref>{{Cite book |last=Khalidi |first=Rashid |title=The hundred years' war on Palestine: a history of settler colonialism and resistance, 1917-2017 |date=2022 |publisher=Henry Hold and Company |isbn=978-1-250-78765-1 |edition= |series=A Metropolitan paperback |location=New York}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Cleveland |first1=William L. |title=A history of the modern Middle East |last2=Bunton |first2=Martin |date=2025 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-367-51646-8 |edition= |location=New York London}}</ref>

The success of the Intifada gave [[Yasser Arafat|Arafat]] and his followers the confidence they needed to moderate their political program. At the meeting of the [[Palestinian Declaration of Independence|Palestine National Council in Algiers]] in mid-November 1988, Arafat won a majority for the historic decision to recognize Israel's legitimacy, accept all the relevant UN resolutions going back to 29 November 1947, and adopt the principle of a [[two-state solution]] based on 1967 borders.<ref name="Shlaim2000_466">[[#Shlaim2000|Shlaim (2000)]], p.&nbsp;466.</ref>

Reflecting on the impact of the Intifada, former United States [[Jimmy Carter|President Jimmy Carter]] wrote that, "The Palestinians' nonviolent resistance in the First Intifada ... contested military occupation from a store of classic methods used on every continent in today's world, as people fight for human rights and justice with concern for the connection between the ends and means."<ref name="King2"/> He added that, "the use of concerted nonviolent action offers a basis for transformation of conflict to peace building."<ref name="King2"/>

The founder of the [[Palestinian Centre for the Study of Nonviolence|Palestinian Center for the Study of Nonviolence]], Jerusalem-born Mubarak Awad, played a major role in advocating for and organizing civil disobedience campaigns against the Israel's occupation in the years prior to the First Intifada.<ref name="King2"/> Following the outbreak of the Intifada, Israel arrested and deported Awad in 1988, despite opposition from the [[Presidency of Ronald Reagan|Reagan administration]].<ref name="TIME">{{Cite magazine |last=TIME |date=1988-06-27 |title=Israel Forced Exile |url=https://time.com/archive/6712604/israel-forced-exile/ |access-date=2024-12-29 |magazine=TIME |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Haokets |date=2014-12-19 |title=The Palestinian who won't give up on the power of nonviolence |url=https://www.972mag.com/is-nonviolence-on-the-rise-in-palestine-an-interview-with-dr-mubarak-awad/ |access-date=2024-12-29 |website=+972 Magazine |language=en-US}}</ref> Prime Minister [[Yitzhak Shamir]] ordered Awad's expulsion on grounds of inciting a "civil uprising" and distributing leaflets that advocated for non-violent resistance and civil disobedience.<ref name="TIME" />

Palestinian politician and leader of the [[Palestinian National Initiative]] party, [[Mustafa Barghouti|Dr. Mustafa Barghouti]], attributed the foundations of the First Intifada to the rise of grassroots, local committees across the occupied Palestinian territories in the 1970s. He argued that, "Hamas became radicalized by the brutality of the Occupation, by the violence used to repress the first Intifada."<ref name="Barghouti">{{Cite journal |last=Barghouti |first=Mustafa |date=2005-04-01 |title=Palestinian Defiance |url=https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii32/articles/mustafa-barghouti-palestinian-defiance |journal=New Left Review |issue=32 |pages=117–131 |article-number=2555 |doi=10.64590/hrs |url-access=subscription }}</ref> Barghouti has contended the "militarization" of the Second Intifada, which began in 2000, was a mistake, and he criticized Fatah for failing to condemn suicide bombings at the time.<ref name="Barghouti" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Krause |first=Peter |date=March 2012 |title=Many Roads to Palestine? The Potential and Peril of Multiple Strategies Within a Divided Palestinian National Movement |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280016486 |journal=Crown Center for Middle East Studies |issue=60}}</ref>

[[Mary King (political scientist)|Mary Elizabeth King]] (2009) wrote that the nonviolence of the First Intifada "neither lifted the military occupation nor stopped the implanting of [[Israeli settlement]]s in lands set aside for the Palestinians by the United Nations. Nevertheless, the uprising's nonviolent sanctions achieved more than had decades of armed attacks on largely civilian targets. ... Israeli agents provocateurs in Arab disguise ... joined demonstrations and sought to incite demonstrators to use violence. The local committee [organizing the nonviolent demonstrations] prevented such provocations from instigating lethal escalations." The First Intifada disintegrated "into violence after Israel's incarceration, deportation, or discrediting of the very activist intellectuals who had sustained the uprising's nonviolent character".{{sfn|King|2009|pp=146, 150 and 131}}

=== Impact on Israel's reputation ===
The Intifada broke the image of Jerusalem as a united Israeli city. There was unprecedented international coverage, and the Israeli response was criticized in media outlets and international fora.<ref name="McDowall1989_3" /><ref name="res_43/21">UNGA, [http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/3BD6ABF508EFE04E852560D30070EC3B ''Resolution "43/21. The uprising (intifadah) of the Palestinian people"''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130114152859/http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/3BD6ABF508EFE04E852560D30070EC3B|date=14 January 2013}}.  3 November 1988 (doc.nr. A/RES/43/21).</ref><ref name="Shlaim2000_455">[[First Intifada#Shlaim2000|Shlaim (2000)]], p.&nbsp;455.</ref> The impact on the Israeli services sector, including the important Israeli tourist industry, was notably negative.<ref>Noga Collins-kreiner, Nurit Kliot, Yoel Mansfeld, Keren Sagi (2006) ''Christian Tourism to the Holy Land: Pilgrimage During Security Crisis'' Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., {{ISBN|978-0-7546-4703-4}} and {{ISBN|978-0-7546-4703-4}}</ref>

=== Jordan severs ties with the West Bank ===
Jordan severed its residual administrative and financial ties to the West Bank in the face of sweeping popular support for the [[PLO]].<ref>Pearlman, p. 113</ref> The failure of the "Iron Fist" policy, Israel's deteriorating international image, Jordan cutting legal and administrative ties to the West Bank, and the U.S.'s recognition of the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people forced Rabin to seek an end to the violence though negotiation and dialogue with the PLO.<ref name="Shlaim2000_455-457">[[#Shlaim2000|Shlaim (2000)]], pp.&nbsp;455–7.</ref><ref>[http://www.fpri.org/peacefacts/023.199511.sicherman.rabinappreciation.html Foreign Policy Research Institute] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080909204606/http://www.fpri.org/peacefacts/023.199511.sicherman.rabinappreciation.html |date=9 September 2008 }} Yitzhak Rabin: An Appreciation By Harvey Sicherman</ref>

== Timeline of the Palestinian uprisings ==
{{center|{{Timeline of Palestinian Intifadas}}}}

== See also ==
{{div col|colwidth=25em}}
* [[1990 Temple Mount riots]]
* [[Second Intifada]] (2000–2005)
* [[2014 Jerusalem unrest]] (2014)
* [[Israeli–Palestinian conflict (2015)]]
* [[Sumud]] (steadfastness)
* [[Palestinian nationalism]]
* [[Palestinian political violence]]
* [[List of modern conflicts in the Middle East]]
* ''[[Days of Rage: The Young Palestinians]]'' (1989)
*[[Cooperatives in the First Intifada]]
* [[Education during the First Intifada]]
* [[1991–1992 Ramallah curfew]]
{{div col end}}

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note}}

== References ==
{{reflist}}

== Bibliography ==
* {{Cite book |last1=Ackerman |first1=Peter |last2=DuVall |first2=Jack |year=2000 |title=A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict |location=New York |publisher=Palgrave |isbn=978-0-312-24050-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OVtKS9DCN0kC |ref=AckermanDuVall2000}}
* {{Cite book |last=Alimi |first=Eitan Y. |title=Israeli Politics and the First Palestinian Intifada |publisher=Routledge |location=Abingdon |year=2006 |edition=2007 hardback |isbn=978-0-415-38560-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FRSVtzxH_10C |ref=Alimi2006}}
* {{Cite book |last=Aronson |first=Geoffrey |title=Israel, Palestinians, and the Intifada: Creating Facts on the West Bank |publisher=Kegan Paul International |location=London |year=1990 |isbn=978-0-7103-0336-3 |url=https://archive.org/details/israelpalestinia00aron }}
* {{Cite book |last=Ben-Ami |first=Shlomo |authorlink=Shlomo Ben-Ami |title=[[Scars of War, Wounds of Peace]] |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-19-518158-6 |url= }}
* {{cite book|last=Berman|first=Eli|author-link=Eli Berman|title=Radical, Religious, and Violent: The New Economics of Terrorism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=R7jvDS3OiAUC|year=2011|publisher=MIT Press|isbn=978-0-262-25800-5|page=314}}
* {{Cite book |last=Finkelstein |first=Norman |year=1996 |title=The Rise and Fall of Palestine: A Personal Account of the Intifada Years |location=Minnesota |publisher=University Press |isbn=978-0-8166-2858-2 |ref=Finkelstein1996}}
* {{Cite book |last=Hiltermann |first=Joost R. |year=1991 |title=Behind the Intifada: Labor and Women's Movements in the Occupied Territories |edition=1993 reprint |location=Princeton, N.J |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-07869-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m2fdWT3CuyQC |ref=Hiltermann1991}}
* {{Cite book |last=King |first=Mary Elizabeth |title=A Quiet Revolution: The First Palestinian Intifada and Nonviolent Resistance |publisher=Nation Books |location=New York |year=2007 |isbn=978-1-56025-802-5 |url=https://archive.org/details/quietrevolutionf0000king }}
* {{Cite book |editor1-last=Lockman |editor1-first=Zachary |editor2-last=Beinin |editor2-first=Joel |editor2-link=Joel Beinin |title=Intifada: The Palestinian Uprising Against Israeli Occupation |publisher=South End Press |location=Cambridge, MA |year=1989 |isbn=978-0-89608-363-9 |url=https://archive.org/details/intifadapalestin00lock |url-access=registration |ref=LockmanBeinin1989}}
* {{Cite book |last=McDowall |first=David |title=Palestine and Israel: The Uprising and Beyond |publisher=University Press |location=California |year=1989 |isbn=978-0-520-06902-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YWorYnKGZ5YC |ref=McDowall1989}}
* {{Cite book |last=Morris |first=Benny |author-link=Benny Morris |title=Righteous Victims: a History of the Zionist-Arab conflict, 1881–1999 |publisher=Knopf |location=New York |year=1999 |isbn=978-0-679-74475-7 |ref=Morris1999 |url=https://archive.org/details/righteousvictims00morr_0 }}
* {{Cite book |editor1-last=Nassar |editor1-first=Jamal Raji |editor2-last=Heacock |editor2-first=Roger |year=1990 |title=Intifada: Palestine at the Crossroads |location=New York |publisher=Praeger Publishers |isbn=978-0-275-93411-8 |url=https://archive.org/details/intifadapalestin00nass |url-access=registration |ref=NassarHeacock1990}}
* {{Cite book |last=Peretz |first=Don |title=Intifada: The Palestinian Uprising |publisher=Westview Press |location=Boulder, Colorado |year=1990 |isbn=978-0-8133-0860-9 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/intifadapalestin00pere }}
* {{Cite book |last=Rigby |first=Andrew |title=Living the Intifada |publisher=Zed Books |location=London |year=1991 |isbn=978-1-85649-040-5 }}, out-of-print, now downloadable at [http://civilresistance.info/rigby1991 civilresistance.info]
* {{Cite book |editor1-last=Roberts |editor1-first=Adam |editor1-link=Adam Roberts (scholar) |editor2-last=Garton Ash |editor2-first=Timothy |editor2-link=Timothy Garton Ash |year=2009 |title=Civil Resistance and Power Politics: The Experience of Non-violent Action from Gandhi to the Present |location=Oxford |publisher=University Press |isbn=978-0-19-955201-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BxOQKrCe7UUC |ref=RobertsGartonAsh2009}}
* {{Cite book| publisher = Transaction Publishers | isbn = 978-0-7658-0255-2 | last = Shay | first = Shaul | title = The Axis of Evil: Iran, Hizballah, and the Palestinian Terror | year = 2005 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4kGIpMI5HC0C |ref=Shay2005}}
* {{Cite book |last1=Schiff |first1=Ze'ev |author1-link=Ze'ev Schiff |last2=Ya'ari |first2=Ehud |author2-link=Ehud Ya'ari |title=Intifada: The Palestinian Uprising: Israel's Third Front |publisher=Simon & Schuster |location=New York |year=1989 |isbn=978-0-671-67530-1 |url=https://archive.org/details/intifadapalestin00schi_0 }}
* {{Cite book |last=Shalev |first=Aryeh |title=The Intifada: Causes and Effects |publisher=Jerusalem Post & Westview Press |location=Jerusalem |year=1991 |isbn=978-0-8133-8303-3 |ref=Shalev1991}}
* {{Cite book |last=Shlaim |first=Avi |author-link=Avi Shlaim |year=2000 |title=The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World |location=London |publisher=Penguin |isbn=978-0-14-028870-4 |ref=Shlaim2000}}

== External links ==
{{Commons category}}
* [https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/intifada.html Jewish Virtual Library]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070119154126/http://www.intifada.com/palestine.html The Intifada in Palestine:Introduction] (www.intifada.com)
* [http://www.un.org/Docs/scres/1987/scres87.htm United Nations Security Council Resolution 605]
* [https://www.theguardian.com/israel/Story/0,2763,1275360,00.html Palestinian Arab "collaborators"] (Guardian, UK)
* [http://libcom.org/library/rebellion-palestine-le-brise-glace The Future of a Rebellion – Palestine] An analysis of the 1980s intifada revolt of Palestinian youth. on libcom.org
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20121125032137/http://repository.library.georgetown.edu/handle/10822/552681 U.S. Involvement with Palestine's Rebellions] from the [https://web.archive.org/web/20120312181034/http://repository.library.georgetown.edu/handle/10822/552494/browse?type=title Dean Peter Krogh Foreign Affairs Digital Archives]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20130114153002/http://repository.library.georgetown.edu/handle/10822/552641 Israel's Post-Soviet Expansion] from the [https://web.archive.org/web/20120312181034/http://repository.library.georgetown.edu/handle/10822/552494/browse?type=title Dean Peter Krogh Foreign Affairs Digital Archives]

{{Israeli–Palestinian conflict |Timeline}}
{{Arab–Israeli conflict}}
{{Israeli wars}}
{{Fatah}}
{{Hamas}}
{{Palestinian Islamic Jihad}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:First Intifada| ]]
[[Category:1987 in the Israeli Civil Administration area]]
[[Category:20th-century conflicts]]
[[Category:Arab nationalist rebellions]]
[[Category:Civil disobedience]]
[[Category:Ethnic riots]]
[[Category:Intifadas]]
[[Category:Israeli–Palestinian conflict]]
[[Category:Rebellions in Asia]]
[[Category:Riots and civil disorder in Israel]]
[[Category:Riots and civil disorder in Palestine]]
[[Category:Stone-throwing in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict]]
[[Category:1987 in Palestine]]
[[Category:Protests in Palestine]]