Second Intifada

Overview

The Second Intifada was an uprising and sustained campaign of violence against Israel that began on September 28, 2000, and subsided around 2005. It followed the First Intifada, whose measured period ran from December 1987 through September 1993, and broke out seven years after the signing of the Oslo Accords. What began with demonstrations and armed confrontations developed into attacks on Israeli cities, roads, homes, and military installations. More than 1,200 Israelis were killed, thousands were injured, and approximately 2,700 Arabs died during the uprising. Its violence halted progress toward a permanent settlement under Oslo and reshaped Israeli security policy.^[1][2]

Several organizations fought Israel during the uprising. Fatah militants, particularly its Tanzim network, participated alongside Hamas and the Islamic Jihad Movement, both terrorist organizations. Their methods included suicide bombings, drive-by shootings, ambushes, and rocket launches. Israeli civilians were frequent targets. Israel responded with arrests, intelligence operations, military raids, strikes against armed leaders, and construction of a security fence. The Israel Defense Forces also reentered cities designated Area A under the Oslo arrangements. By 2005, widespread suicide bombings had ebbed, although violence did not end on a single agreed date.^[1][2][8][9]

Background

The Oslo Accords established a framework for negotiations and transferred administrative responsibilities in parts of Gaza and Judea and Samaria to the PLO-led Arab authority. After Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995, Shimon Peres continued implementing the agreements. Benjamin Netanyahu also continued the process after his 1996 election; areas of Hebron were transferred to PLO administration in January 1997. The negotiations produced no permanent settlement. They unfolded amid attacks by armed groups and recurrent confrontations between Israeli forces and PLO security personnel.^[1][4][16]

A warning came during the Jerusalem tunnel riots of September 1996. Over three days, PLO security personnel used live fire against Israeli troops on a wide scale. Fourteen Israeli soldiers and 69 Arabs were killed. The episode showed that security forces established within the Oslo framework could themselves become parties to armed confrontation. By 2000, the question of whether negotiations could deliver security as well as an agreement remained central for Israelis. The later uprising, coming while final-status talks were under way, sharply eroded confidence in the process.^[4][1]

In July 2000, negotiations at Camp David between Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat failed to produce an agreement. Marwan Barghouti, who had previously supported the Oslo process, embraced armed struggle after the talks. Earlier that year he had lost a Tanzim leadership election to Hussein al-Sheikh but refused to relinquish leadership. PLO cabinet minister Imad Faluji subsequently said the uprising had been planned after the July negotiations failed. His account contradicts the explanation that violence arose spontaneously from a later visit to the Temple Mount.^[2][3][5]

On September 28, Ariel Sharon, then a Likud leader, visited the Temple Mount after receiving permission from Prime Minister Barak and the site’s waqf leadership. Arab leaders presented the visit as the cause of the uprising. It became a public pretext for violence already being prepared; a subsequent investigative report concluded that Sharon’s visit did not cause the uprising. The distinction matters to the sequence of events: negotiations had failed in July, preparations preceded the visit, and attacks on Israeli targets began amid organized calls to mobilize. The visit neither explains the planning nor absolves those who directed the ensuing violence.^[3][2]

Course of the war

Large demonstrations took place in some Arab cities during the uprising’s first weeks. Armed gunmen mingled with crowds and used them as cover while firing at Israeli installations. On September 30, 2000, France 2 broadcast footage filmed at Gaza’s Netzarim crossroads depicting Mohammed al-Dura beside his father. The images rapidly became an emblem of the uprising and fueled accusations that Israeli soldiers had killed the child. They also illustrated how televised scenes from chaotic confrontations could shape perceptions far beyond the place where they were filmed.^[2][13][14]

Violence soon moved beyond demonstrations. In Ramallah, a mob lynched two off-duty Israeli reservists inside a police station. One killer displayed bloodied hands from a window to the cheering crowd. As mass participation ebbed, attackers increasingly struck civilian centers, vehicles, individual civilians, and military facilities. Israelis faced shootings on roads and repeated bombings in cities. Parents feared for children after school drop-off, while travel, shopping, and public gatherings carried the threat of attack. The campaign reached people far from any battlefield and made the protection of ordinary civilian life a central Israeli concern.^[2][3][16]

Fatah’s Tanzim operatives spearheaded attacks in 2000. Arafat backed them after the uprising began, and Barghouti became a key organizer and director of violence until Israel detained him. He was later convicted of the premeditated murder of five people and of directing the uprising. Hamas and the Islamic Jihad Movement carried out repeated attacks as well. Armed factions competed for influence even as they attacked Israel, complicating the PLO administration’s ability to maintain a monopoly on force in Gaza and Judea and Samaria.^[2][5][7]

Suicide bombings became the campaign’s most destructive tactic. The March 27, 2002, Passover bombing at a Netanya hotel killed 29 people and injured about 140; 27 of those killed were civilians, and 19 were over 70. The oldest victim, Chanah Rogan, was 90. Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades claimed responsibility. The attack struck people gathered for a holiday meal and preceded Israel’s largest operation of the uprising. A month later, Al-Qassam Brigades claimed an attack on Adora in Judea and Samaria in which gunmen killed five-year-old Danielle Shefi and three adults and wounded her mother and two young brothers.^[6][7][11]

Israeli intelligence also uncovered a plan to smuggle weapons to Gaza aboard the Karine A. In January 2002, Shayetet 13 seized the ship in the Red Sea and captured its cargo. The interception exposed an effort to expand armed groups’ access to rockets, mortars, and other weapons while negotiations and international initiatives to calm the uprising were being discussed. On land, the Israel Defense Forces operated in the Philadelphi Corridor to dismantle terrorist infrastructure and disrupt weapons movement into Gaza.^[2][15]

Israel’s conduct and the protection of civilians

After becoming prime minister, Sharon directed a broad Israeli counteroffensive. Its aims included preventing attacks, dismantling armed networks, and reaching organizers who operated from areas transferred to the PLO administration. Israeli forces reentered Area A cities to reduce attacks, reversing withdrawals begun under Oslo. Operations included arrests, searches, intelligence collection, and strikes against armed leaders. Sharon’s government also isolated Arafat in his Ramallah compound, restricting his ability to direct activity while armed factions continued their campaign.^[1][7][16]

The turning point was Operation Defensive Shield, launched at the end of March 2002 after the Netanya Passover bombing. Israeli forces entered major cities in Judea and Samaria and targeted the organizational and logistical infrastructure used for attacks. The operation brought sustained Israeli military activity back into places where PLO security services had held formal responsibility. It also marked a shift from limited raids toward a large, coordinated effort to stop bombers before they reached Israeli civilian centers. Subsequent preventive operations continued against cells, weapons stores, and commanders.^[6][7][16]

Israel’s protective measures extended beyond military raids. Intelligence work and arrests sought to interrupt attacks during planning. Military defenses guarded communities and travel routes, while the security fence blocked many attempted crossings toward Israeli cities. The fence’s construction became a major part of Israel’s response because attackers had repeatedly moved from Judea and Samaria to civilian targets inside Israel. These measures did not prevent every attack, but they helped drive down suicide bombings. Israeli security measures operated alongside changing conditions within Arab communities; together, these factors reduced the campaign’s capacity to inflict mass casualties by 2005.^[8][9][10]

The fighting also placed civilians in danger in Gaza and Judea and Samaria. Gunmen firing from within demonstration crowds made encounters harder to separate from civilian gatherings, while Israeli operations in populated areas carried risks for residents. The toll among Arabs was substantial, at approximately 2,700 dead. Protection of civilians remained a practical and legal concern during military operations, even as Israeli forces confronted organizations that deliberately attacked civilians. The conflict’s human costs therefore extended across Israeli cities, Arab towns, roads, homes, and commercial districts.^[2][3][7]

Terrorist tactics and propaganda

Hamas, the Islamic Jihad Movement, and other armed factions treated suicide bombings as a means of reaching crowded Israeli locations. Buses, restaurants, streets, and holiday gatherings offered attackers opportunities to kill people who had no role in combat. Several dozen suicide bombings were carried out in Israeli cities, amid hundreds of attacks and attempted attacks of other kinds. In a 2002 survey of lethal attacks on civilians, Al-Qassam Brigades claimed 23 attacks. The Netanya bombing showed both the lethality of the tactic and its deliberate concentration on civilians.^[1][7][9]

Armed groups used other methods as well. Drive-by shootings and ambushes endangered drivers and passengers; rockets and mortars threatened communities and military positions. The movement of weapons by sea and through Gaza’s border area showed how the campaign depended on supply networks as well as individual attackers. Armed factional gunmen later operated protection rackets in places where PLO security forces had collapsed. Violence thus damaged local order while sustaining attacks against Israel.^[2][7][15]

The uprising also became a contest over images and public explanation. France 2’s brief al-Dura report circulated widely as an emblem of the conflict. Its presentation fueled accusations against Israeli soldiers, while the footage and claims about what it proved became the subject of prolonged scrutiny. Separately, the account that Sharon’s Temple Mount visit spontaneously caused the uprising obscured the planning described by Faluji and the violence that preceded and followed the visit. Precise chronology remains essential to understanding how political messages accompanied the armed campaign.^[3][13][14]

Foreign activists entered prominent confrontations during Israel’s response. In spring 2002, International Solidarity Movement volunteers bypassed the Israeli military siege of Arafat’s Ramallah compound during Operation Defensive Shield. Other members entered Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity during a standoff between Israeli forces and armed Arab attackers. These actions drew international attention to individual sites while the wider campaign of attacks, Israeli counteroperations, and civilian casualties continued.^[12]

Outcome

The Second Intifada petered out rather than ending through one decisive battle. By 2005, widespread suicide bombings had ebbed. Israeli preventive measures, sustained military operations, and the security fence helped contain the bombing campaign and block many attempted attacks. Other forms of violence continued, and armed organizations retained the capacity to adapt their methods. Israel’s success in sharply reducing suicide bombings therefore did not amount to a permanent settlement of the conflict.^[8][9][10]

The uprising devastated the Oslo peace process. Reentry into Area A reversed an important part of the earlier withdrawals, and attacks on civilians eroded Israeli trust that territorial concessions would bring security. Diplomatic efforts during the fighting did not produce the permanent agreement the accords had envisaged. The Israeli diplomatic mission in Muscat closed in 2000 amid the wider regional effects of the violence. By the time the uprising subsided, negotiations, security arrangements, and public expectations had all been changed by five years of attacks and counteroperations.^[1][2][16]

The economic damage in Arab communities under PLO administration was severe. World Bank figures placed physical damage at $305 million by the end of 2001 and $728 million by August 2002. Between June 2000 and June 2002, exports fell 45% in value and imports declined by one-third. Economic losses reached $5.4 billion after 27 months of the uprising. These figures capture damage to buildings, trade, incomes, and ordinary commerce alongside the deaths and injuries. Disrupted travel and tourism compounded the losses for households and businesses in Gaza and Judea and Samaria.^[3]

Aftermath and legacy

The uprising damaged and disarmed much of the PLO administration’s security apparatus, leaving its infrastructure weakened. In Gaza, Hamas established a parallel authority before Israel’s 2005 withdrawal. Polling before that withdrawal found greater Arab public trust in the armed wings of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad Movement than in PLO security services. The weakening of those institutions and the rising influence of armed factions changed the balance of power within Gaza. In 2007, Hamas violently seized power there.^[7][16]

For Israel, the lasting lesson centered on the vulnerability of civilians and the limits of agreements that failed to prevent attacks. The campaign left more than 1,200 Israelis dead and thousands injured, while its economic and human toll among Arabs in Gaza and Judea and Samaria remained profound. It also shaped later debates over barriers, intelligence operations, military access to Area A, and the conditions needed for renewed negotiations. Leaders of armed groups continued to invoke the uprising as a model: Islamic Jihad leader Ziyad al-Nakhalah later held it up when calling for renewed attacks against Israel. Its legacy is therefore both a record of the 2000–2005 conflict and a continuing reference point in arguments over security, political authority, and peace.^[1][8][11]