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** Israel & Palestine

Palestinians Demonstrate Their Anger At Israel In The Second Intifada

by Micah L Issitt

The Second Intifada, also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada, was a Palestinian citizens’ uprising against Israeli control of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with the goal of creating an independent Palestinian state. The uprising began in September of 2000 and never had a definitive termination, although historians and analysts commonly indicate that it ended at the Sharm al-Sheikh Summit of February 2005. During the five years of fighting, at least 2,800 Palestinians and 800 Israelis died as a result of the violence.

Also Known As: Al-Aqsa Intifada, Second Palestinian Uprising

Locale: West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Israel

Categories: Middle East conflicts; Revolutions and civil uprisings; Independence movements

Key Figures

Ariel Sharon (1928-2014), Israeli prime minister who held many offices, including prime minister, 2001-2006

Yasser Arafat (1929-2004), chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, 1969-2004; President of the Palestinian National Authority, 1994-2004

Ehud Barak (b. 1942), prime minister of Israel, 1999-2001

Bill Clinton (b. 1946), president of the United States, 1993-2001

George W. Bush (b. 1946), president of the United States, 2001-2009

Abu Ali Mustafa (1938-2001), secretary general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, 2000-2001; killed by rockets fired during the Second Intifada

Mahmoud Abbas (b. 1935), chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization since 2004; President of the State of Palestine and the Palestine Liberation Organization since 2005

Summary of Event

Following World War II, a massive number of European Jews streamed into Palestine—the land of their ancestors. In 1947, the United Nations crafted a proposal for the creation of a Jewish nation and a separate Palestinian country, both surrounding the city of Jerusalem, which is a sacred location for both Jews and Muslims. After Jewish leaders declared the creation of Israel as a sovereign state, they were invaded by a coalition of neighboring Arab-Muslim nations that objected to the existence of the new country. The result was the first Arab-Israeli War (1948-1949).

With military support from Europe and the United States, the fledgling Israeli military repelled the invasion and also aggressively expanded beyond the UN-approved borders. Israeli soldiers forcibly ejected thousands of Muslims from the territory that became Israel, creating an international refugee crisis with an estimated 700,000 Arab Muslims without homes.

A large percentage of displaced Arabs, usually called Palestinians, settled in two areas located next to present-day Israel: the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In 1964, opposition to Israeli control of joint Jewish/Muslim holy sites resulted in the formation of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which is considered a legitimate governmental organ by some and a terrorist organization by others. In the Six Day War of 1967, Israel annexed the West Bank and Gaza, and both regions have since been under Israeli military occupation. Since then, the residents of these Palestinian territories, have essentially existed in a middle ground between independence and internment. The Israeli government justified the continued occupation of Palestinian territories as a necessary measure to protect Israeli citizens from insurgent attacks by Palestinians.

During the First Intifada (1987-1993), an estimated 2,000 Palestinians were killed, while at least 160 Israelis were also killed. Nevertheless, the 1993 and 1995 Oslo Accords—brokered by the United Nations and the U.S. government—led to peace talks between PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Israel agreed to the phased withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza Strip and also accepted the creation of the Palestinian National Authority, which was given limited powers of self-governance in parts of the occupied territories. For its part, the PLO agreed to formally recognize the legitimate existence of Israel.

Both radical Palestinians and extreme Zionists despised the Oslo Accords. During the next five years, some 405 Palestinians and 256 Israelis were killed in sporadic conflicts between the two sides that saw a rise in Palestinian terrorist attacks in Israel. As a result, the peace process derailed. With violence growing and the peace process failing, U.S. President Bill Clinton hosted a Middle East Peace Summit at Camp David, which was attended by then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and head of the recently formed Palestinian Authority Yasser Arafat. Meanwhile, the fundamentalist organization Hamas, considered a terrorist organization by the Israelis, organized an increasing number of guerilla attacks against Israel, thereby weakening Israeli support the peace process.

On September 28, 2000, Ariel Sharon, together with a delegation of the right-wing Likud Party, decided to make a controversial visit to the Temple Mount, a highly revered holy site for both Jews and Muslims. The Palestinian Authority had given permission for Sharon’s visit, and he did not actually go into the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Nevertheless, his presence so angered Palestinians that angry demonstrations soon turned into riots. Israeli police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets, threw rocks and other objects. These confrontations marked the beginning of the Second Intifada. By the end of the next day, 7 Palestinians had been killed and 300 had been wounded.

On September 30, a 2-year-old Palestinian boy, Muhammad al-Durrah, was accidentally shot by Israeli soldiers, and this further further intensified the rage of Palestinians. The violence continued to increase during the “October 2000 events.” Two Israeli reservists were killed by a Palestinian mob after accidentally crossing into the Palestinian territory of Ramallah. When the two soldiers were beaten and disemboweled, the incident was caught on camera and distributed to the international press. On October 8, thousands of Israeli citizens in Tel Aviv participated in angry protests, hurling stones at Arabs and destroying Arab property. By the end of the month, 141 Palestinians and 12 Israelis had been killed.

Ariel Sharon was elected Prime Minister of Israel in February 6, 2001, and he began an aggressive military campaign that included the first Israeli use of F-16 fighter jets against Palestinian targets in Gaza. That same year, moreover, several high profile suicide attacks by Palestinians solidified public support for further military action. While Palestinian suicide missions continued, including a December 2001 attack that killed 15 in Haifa, Israel persisted to launch missile strikes against targets in Gaza. Palestinians and Human Rights workers charged that Israel’s military policies were causing numerous civilian deaths. In March 2002, Sharon ordered a massive military strike against the West Bank. In June of that year, Israel began construction on a massive 440-mile security wall separating the West Bank from Israel. Violence escalated during most of 2003; Palestinian suicide bombings were answered by Israeli air strikes in Gaza and the West Bank.

There were, nevertheless, a number of developments signaling the possibility that the violence of the Intifada might be moderated. In March 2003, the Palestinian Authority elected its first Prime Minister, Mahmoud Abbas, At the same time, the aging Arafat, who had become ill, gradually withdrew from the Palestinian leadership. Israelis were delighted to see this change in leadership: Abbas spoke in a much more conciliataory rhetoric than had Arafat, and he had already demonstrated his willingness to compromise and to seek a peace settlement.

On June 4, 2003, Abbas and Sharon met with President George W. Bush at the Red Sea Summit in Jordan. Both leaders pledged to participate in an ambitious “Road Map for Peace.” On February 2, 2004, Prime Minister Sharon unexpectedly announced plans for an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza strip (although it was a year later before the Israeli legislature would approve the proposal). In November 2004, Arafat died. New elections were held in the West Bank, and on January 15, 2005, Abbas become the president of the Palestinian National Authority. The new president began his term of office by calling upon Palestinians to put an end to their violence. More importantly, he ordered the Palestinian police in the northern part of Gaza to prevent the shelling of rockets and mortar into Israeli settlements.

Mahmour Abbas, George W. Bush, and Ariel Sharon at the Red Sea Summit in Aqaba, Jordan, June 4, 2003 (Wikimedia Commons)

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On February 8, 2005, Abbas and Sharon joined two other Middle Eastern leaders at the Sharm El Sheikh Summit. After shaking hands warmly, Abbas and Sharon reaffirmed their commitment to the Roadmap to Peace, and they agreed on a mutual truce between Israel and the Palestinian National Authority. In theory, this marked the end of the Second Intifada. The riots and fighting, however, did not come to an end. Hamas and the Islamic Jihad rejected the truce and declared that it was not binding on their members. Extremists in Gaza refused to stop launching rockets into Israel, and Israel continued to respond with airstrikes. The people on both sides of the divide remained bitter and suspicious of each other.

Significance

At least 3-4,000 died in the second Intifada, with Palestinians suffering three times as many casualties as Israel due to Israel’s superior weaponry, including the capability to use airstrikes. Most of those killed in the conflict, on both sides, were civilians. The 2005 ceasefire was short lived, and in 2006 Palestinian elections resulted in the ascendency of Hamas, a fundamentalist Muslim organization that the Israelis classified as a terrorist organization. The fighting between Israelis and Palestinians intensified in 2008, culminating in the Gaza War, which lasted for three weeks—from December 27, 2008 to January 18, 2009. This short but ferocious war resulted in so much animosity that the Roadmap to Peace simply collapsed.

Since then, Israel has placed strict restrictions on the movement of Palestinian citizens and has stifled trade in the region, leading to skyrocketing unemployment and poverty in Palestinian territories. Worldwide opinions of the Israel-Palestine conflict have also been shaped by the rise of international radical, nationalist, populist, and conservative movements. Opinions on the nature of the conflict are sharply divided between Israelis and Palestinians, with a tendency, on both sides, to blame members of the opposing side for derailing attempts to create lasting peace agreements.

Further Reading

1 

Pearlman, Wendy. Occupied Voices: Stories of Everyday Life from the Second Intifada. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2003. Written in the midst of the second intifada, Pearlman’s book tells stories from citizens on both sides of the conflict on living through the violence.

2 

Dor, Daniel. Intifada Hits the Headlines: How the Israeli Press Misreported the Outbreak of the Second Palestinian Uprising. Bloomington, Indian: Indiana University Press, 2004. Critical look at Israel’s press coverage of the second intifada and makes the accusation that Israeli press coverage supported the escalation of the conflict.

3 

Ochs, Juliana. Security and Suspicion: An Ethnography of Everyday Life in Israel. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011. Examination of security forces in Israel and the effect of heightened security on the psychology of the Israeli population and on the Palestinians.

4 

Gelvin, James L. The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Detailed examination of the Israel-Palestine conflict from the formation of British Palestine to the 21st century. Covers both the first and second intifada and the aftermath of both conflicts.

5 

Tessler, Mark. A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994. Political history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the ancient history of the Hebrews and Arabs to the first intifada.

6 

Salinas, Moises F. and Hazza Abu Rabi, eds. Resolving the Israel-Palestinian Conflict: Perspectives on the Peace Process. Amherst: Cambria Press. Editors Moises Salinas and Hazza Abu Rabi present a series of speeches, presentations, and articles delivered or written about the 2008 “Pathways to Peace” conference on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

7 

Salinas, Moises F. Planting Hatred, Sowing Pain: The Psychology of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Westport: Praeger Publishers, 2007. Psychological examination of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict featuring interviews and discussions with both Palestinians and Israelis.

8 

Junka-Aikio, Laura. Late Modern Palestine: The Subject and Representation of the Second Intifada. New York: Routledge, 2016. Scholarly examination of the Palestinian people as the product of colonial actions on the part of both the British empire and later the Israeli state.

See Also:

July 11-24, 2000: Second Camp David Summit Ends Without Any Agreements; April 30, 2003-December 27, 2008: Roadmap for Peace Initially Inspired Hope but Is Terminated by the Gaza War; August-September 2005: Israel Unilaterally Withdraws From The Gaza Strip And Parts Of The West Bank; December 27, 2008-January 18, 2009: The Gaza War Collapses the Roadmap to Peace.

Citation Types

MLA 9th
Issitt, Micah L. "Palestinians Demonstrate Their Anger At Israel In The Second Intifada." ** Israel & Palestine, edited by Editors of Salem Press, Salem Press, 2023. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=GHCT1023_0012.
APA 7th
Issitt, M. L. (2023). Palestinians Demonstrate Their Anger At Israel In The Second Intifada. In E. o. Salem Press (Ed.), ** Israel & Palestine. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Issitt, Micah L. "Palestinians Demonstrate Their Anger At Israel In The Second Intifada." Edited by Editors of Salem Press. ** Israel & Palestine. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2023. Accessed June 15, 2026. online.salempress.com.