Palestinian political violence

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Arab military volunteers in 1947
Arab military volunteers in 1947
Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades
, on parade

Palestinian political violence refers to actions carried out by

Palestinian groups that have been involved in politically motivated violence include the

terrorist organizations by the governments of the United States,[15] Canada,[16] the United Kingdom,[17] Japan,[18] New Zealand[19] and the European Union.[20][21]

Palestinian political violence has targeted Israelis, Palestinians, Lebanese, Jordanians,

, and assassinations.

Israeli statistics state that 3,500 Israelis have been killed as a result of Palestinian political violence since the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.

Al Aqsa Intifada; though this percentage accounted for half of the Israelis killed in that period.[27] As of 2022, a majority of Palestinians, 59%, believe armed attacks against Israelis inside Israel are an effective measure to end the occupation, with 56% supporting them.[28]

History

Overview and context

A Jewish bus equipped with wire screens to protect against rock, glass, and grenade throwing, late 1930s
A demolished farmhouse in Tel Mond, Israel, after a fedayun attack

In protest against the

Operation Pillar of Defense in 2012. It is estimated that since 1920, when the first riots against Jews broke out, 90,785 Arabs including Palestinians have died, and some 67,602 been wounded in all wars and conflicts between Israel and its neighbors. On the other hand, 24,841 Jews and Israelis have died and 35,356 have been wounded during the same period.[34] Since 1967, some reports estimate that some 40% of the male population of the West Bank and Gaza Strip have been arrested or detained in Israeli prisons for political or military reasons.[35]

British-mandated Palestine (1917–1947)

Violence against the Jews in Palestine followed the Balfour Declaration in November 1917 which stimulated Jewish migrants to settle in Palestine. At this time the Arabs were both geographically and demographically dominant compared to the Jewish population, where the majority of Arabs were distributed throughout the highlands of Judea, Samaria and Galilee and the Jewish population was scattered in small towns and rural communities. The Arabs realized that the Jewish community, due to their lower numbers, was vulnerable to attrition and less able to take casualties. Therefore, they adopted a "war of attrition" tactic which was advantageous to the more numerous Arab community.[36]

Many of the deaths were inflicted during short time spans and in a few locations. For instance, in April 1920 about 216 Jews became casualties (killed or wounded) in a single day in Jerusalem. By May 1921, the casualty rate for Jews was approaching 40 per day and in August 1929 it had risen to 80 per day. During the 1929 riots, one percent of the Jewish population of Jerusalem became casualties, in Safed 2 percent and in Hebron 12 percent.[36] During the 1920–1929 attacks on Jews were organized by local groups and encouraged by local religious leaders. As the Jewish community did not count on the British authorities to protect them, they formed the Haganah which were predominantly defensive in the 1920s.[36] During the Arab Revolt in the 1936–1939 period, violence was coordinated and organized by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and was directed against both Jews and the British. Due to the rising level of Arab violence, the Haganah started to pursue an offensive strategy.[36]

UN Partition Plan to establishment of PLO (1947–1964)

Around 400 Palestinian "infiltrators" were killed by Israeli Security Forces each year in 1951, 1952 and 1953; a similar number and probably far more were killed in 1950. 1,000 or more were killed in 1949. At least 100 were killed during 1954–1956. In total upward of 2,700 and possibly as many as 5,000 'infiltrators' were killed by the IDF, police, and civilians along Israel's borders between 1949 and 1956. Most of the people in question were refugees attempting to return to their homes, take back possessions that had been left behind during the war and to gather crops from their former fields and orchards inside the new Israeli state.[37] Meron Benivasti states that the fact that the "infiltrators" were for the most part former inhabitants of the land returning for personal, economic and sentimental reasons was suppressed in Israel as it was feared that this may lead to an understanding of their motives and to the justification of their actions.[37]

Throughout the period 1949–56 the Egyptian government opposed the movement of refugees from the Gaza strip into Israel, but following the IDF's Gaza Raid on February 28, 1955, the Egyptian authorities facilitated militant infiltration but still continued to oppose civilian infiltration.[38] At first, Palestinians were trying to go back to their houses or to retrieve property [citation needed] but after 1950 these acts became much more violent and included killings of civilians in nearby cities.[citation needed]

After Israel's Operation Black Arrow in 1955 which came as a result of a series of massacres in the city of Rehovot, the Palestinian fedayeen were incorporated into an Egyptian unit.[39] John Bagot Glubb, a British general who commanded the Arab Legion, claimed in his 1957 autobiography A Soldier with the Arabs that he convinced the Legion to arm and train the fedayeen for free.[40] Between 1951 and 1956, 400 Israelis were killed and 900 wounded by fedayeen attacks.;[41][42] according to the Anti-Defamation League "[i]n 1955 alone, 260 Israeli citizens were killed or wounded by fedayeen".[43]

The

Palestinian Liberation Army (PLA) was established with the support of the Arab states.[44] Fatah, a Palestinian group founded in the late 1950s to organize the armed resistance against Israel, and headed by Yasser Arafat, soon rose to prominence within the PLO. The PLO charter called for "an end to the State of Israel, a return of Palestinians to their homeland, and the establishment of a single democratic state throughout Palestine".[45]

Six-Day War and aftermath

Our basic aim is to liberate the land from the Mediterranean Seas to the Jordan River. We are not concerned with what took place in June 1967 or in eliminating the consequences of the June War. The Palestinian revolution's basic concern is the uprooting of the Zionist entity from our land and liberating it.

Due to Israel's defeat of Arab armies in the Six-Day War, the Palestinian leadership came to the conclusion that the Arab world was unable to challenge Israel militarily in open warfare. Simultaneously, the Palestinians drew lessons from movements and uprisings in Latin America, North Africa and Southeast Asia which led them to move away from guerilla warfare in rural areas towards terrorist attacks in urban environments with an international reach. This led to a series of aircraft hijackings, bombings and kidnappings which culminated in the killings of Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympic Games. The military superiority of Israel led Palestinian fighters to employ guerrilla tactics from bases in Jordan and Lebanon.[45]

George Habash, founder of the PFLP, masterminded the hijackings of four Western airliners to Jordan, which led to the Black September conflict.[47]

In the wake of the Six-Day War, confrontations between Palestinian guerrillas in Jordan and government forces became a major problem within the kingdom. By early 1970, at least seven Palestinian guerrilla organizations were active in Jordan, one of the most important being the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) led by George Habash. Based in the Jordanian refugee camps, the fedayeen developed a virtual state within a state, receiving funds and arms from both the Arab states and Eastern Europe and openly flouting the law of the country. The guerrillas initially focused on attacking Israel, but by late 1968, the main fedayeen activities in Jordan appeared to shift to attempts to overthrow the Jordanian monarchy.[22]

Black September

Various clashes between the fedayeen and the army occurred between the years 1968–1970. The situation climaxed in September 1970, when several attempts to assassinate

BOAC flight from Bahrain was also hijacked to Zarqa
. The PFLP announced that the hijackings were intended "to pay special attention to the Palestinian problem". After all hostages were removed, the planes were dramatically blown up in front of TV cameras.

A bitterly fought 10-day civil war known as

Black September ensued, drawing involvement by Syria and Iraq, and sparking troop movements by Israel and the United States Navy. The number of people killed on all sides were estimated as high as 3,500,[22]
other sources claiming it to be as high as 20,000.

Battles between Palestinian guerrilla forces and the Jordanian army continued during the closing months of 1970 and the first six months of 1971. In November 1971, members of the Palestinian

Wasfi al-Tal in Cairo. In December the group made an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the Jordanian ambassador in Britain.[22]

Relocation to Lebanon and Lebanese Civil War

In the aftermath of Black September in Jordan, many Palestinians arrived in

Maronite militias, and the side seeking change, which included a variety of militias from leftist organizations and guerrillas from rejectionist Palestinian (nonmainstream PLO) organizations. The Lebanese civil war lasted until 1990 and resulted in an estimated 130,000 to 250,000 civilian fatalities and one million wounded.[citation needed
]

Charred remains of the bus hijacked and burnt by Palestinian militants in 1978 in the Coastal Road massacre

After Black September, the PLO and its offshoots waged an international campaign against Israelis. Notable events were the

Operation Peace for Galilee" by the IDF, and the exile of the PLO to Tunis, Israel had a relatively quiet decade.[citation needed
]

First Intifada (1987–1993)

Palestinians in Qalandiya throw rocks from behind an ambulance during a riot as part of the Nakba protests.

The

Israeli occupied Palestinian territories.[50] A total of 160 Israelis and 2,162 Palestinians were killed, including 1,000 Palestinians killed by other Palestinians under the accusation of being collaborators.[51] The Intifada lasted five years and ended with the signing of the Oslo Accords.[52] The strategy of non-violence, though widespread among Palestinians, was not always adhered to, and there were youth who threw molotov cocktails and stones, with such violence generally directed against Israeli soldiers and settlers.[53]

There were two attacks that represented new developments in terms of political violence inside Israel in this period. The first

suicide bombing as a tactic by Palestinian militants. On April 16, 1993, Hamas carried out the Mehola Junction bombing, in which operative Saher Tamam al-Nabulsi detonated his explosives-laden car between two buses. One person, a Palestinian, other than the attacker was killed, and 21 were wounded.[55]

During this period, the Abu Nidal Organization became subsumed by infighting and mass executed hundreds of its members and their families during 1987–1988. The number of executed is estimated at 600 people, mostly Palestinians, across several separate locations in Syria, Lebanon and Libya.[56]

Oslo Accords to Camp David Summit (1993–2000)

Bus after 1996 terror bombing in Jerusalem

The years between the intifadas were marked by intense diplomatic activity between Israel and Palestinians as well as the creation of the

Dizengoff Center massacre
, a suicide bombing outside a Tel Aviv shopping mall that killed 13 people.

Second Intifada (2000–2005)

Bus after 2003 terror bombing in Haifa

According to

suicide bombings. Targets of attacks included buses, Israeli checkpoint, restaurants, discothèques, shopping malls, a university, and civilian homes.[25][57][58]

In October 2000 a

Palestinian Authority-controlled city of Ramallah in the West Bank. The brutality of the event, captured in a photo of a Palestinian rioter proudly waving his blood-stained hands to the crowd below, sparked international outrage and further intensified the ongoing conflict between Israeli and Palestinian forces.[60][61][62]

Suicide bombings and attacks on civilians

A spate of suicide bombings and attacks, aimed mostly at civilians (such as the

Passover Massacre (30 Israeli civilians were killed at Park hotel, Netanya) climaxed a bloody month of March 2002, in which more than 130 Israelis, mostly civilians, were killed in attacks. Israel launched Operation Defensive Shield. The operation led to the apprehension of many members of militant groups, as well as their weaponry and equipment. 497 Palestinians and 30 Israelis were killed during Operation Defensive Shield.[63]

In 2004, 31 people were killed and 159 others were wounded in a simultaneous attack against multiple tourist destinations in Egypt.[64] Of the dead, 15 were Egyptians, 12 were from Israel, two from Italy, one from Russia, and one was an Israeli-American. According to the Egyptian government, the bombers were Palestinians led by Iyad Saleh, who had tried to enter Israel to carry out attacks there but were unsuccessful.[65]

2005–2013

Beer Sheva after being hit by a Grad rocket fired from the Gaza Strip

In the mid-2000s Hamas started putting greater emphasis on its political characteristics and strengthened its popularity amongst Palestinians. In 2006 Palestinian legislative elections Hamas won a majority in the Palestinian Legislative Council, prompting the United States and many European countries to cut off all funds to Hamas and the Palestinian Authority,[66] insisting that Hamas must recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept previous peace pacts.[67]

After the

Israel's unilateral disengagement plan in 2005 and the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections Hamas took control over all the Gaza Strip in June 2007 in a bloody coup. Palestinian militant groups in the Gaza strip increased the firing of Qassam rockets, mortars and Grad missiles on southern Israel. Attacks continued outside the Gaza Strip perimeter, including the attack that resulted in the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit
being captured and held in the Gaza Strip for over five years.

Hamas has made use of guerrilla tactics in the Gaza Strip and to a lesser degree the West Bank.[68] Hamas has adapted these techniques over the years since its inception. According to a 2006 report by rival Fatah party, Hamas had smuggled "between several hundred and 1,300 tons" of advanced rockets, along with other weaponry, into Gaza. Some Israelis and some Gazans both noted similarities in Hamas's military buildup to that of Hezbollah in the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.[68]

Hamas has used

anti-tank rockets against the IDF in Gaza. The latter include standard RPG-7 warheads and home-made rockets such as the Al-Bana, Al-Batar and Al-Yasin. The IDF has a difficult, if not impossible time trying to find hidden weapons caches in Palestinian areas – this is due to the high local support base Hamas enjoys.[69]

During the

Gaza War (2008–09), Palestinian militant groups fired rockets aimed at civilian targets which struck the cities of Ashdod, Beersheba and Gedera. The military wing of Hamas said that after a week from the start, it had managed to fire 302 rockets, at an average of 44 rockets daily. 102 rockets and 35 mortars were fired by Fatah at Israel. Over 750 rockets and mortars were fired from Gaza into Israel during the conflict wounded 182 civilians, killing 3 people, and causing minor suffering to another 584 people suffering from shock and anxiety. Several rockets landed in schools and one fell close to a kindergarten, all located in residential areas. The UN fact finding mission stated that this constituted a deliberate attack against the civilian population and was unjustifiable in international law.[70][71][72]

In 2012, terror attacks against Israelis in the West Bank increased compared to 2011. The number of terror attacks in the West Bank increased from 320 in 2011 to 578 in 2012.

Molotov cocktails, firearms and explosives.[73]

In 2013, Hamas stated that the "kidnapping of IDF soldiers to trade for Palestinian prisoners is at the heart of Palestinian culture".[74]

Israel-Hamas war