December 9, 1987 – Start of the First Intifada in the Gaza Strip and West Bank
On December 6, 1987, an Israeli citizen was murdered in Gaza. Two days later, four Palestinian residents ofthe Jabaliya refugee camp in Gazawere killed in a road accident by a truck belonging to the Israeli Army. Many residents of the Jabaliya camp took tothe streets in protest, believing that the four Palestinians were killeddeliberately in reprisal for the Gazamurder. Israeli security forces moved into disperse the crowd, but in the process, opened fire and killed aprotester. Demonstrations then broke outin other refugee camps in Gaza and the West Bank, triggering a full-blown uprising.
Map showing location of Gaza and West Bank.The 1987 Palestinian uprising is more commonly known as theFirst Intifada, where the word “intifada” is Arabic that means “to shake off”,and has come to denote an uprising or rebellion. The 1987 Intifada initially took the form ofspontaneous, disorganized street rallies and demonstrations consisting of tensof thousands of Palestinians who incited anarchy and clashed with Israelisecurity forces. Youths and minors oftenformed the front lines, leading Israeli authorities to accuse the Palestiniansof using the children as “human shields”. The protesters lobbied stones and Molotov cocktails (home-madeincendiary bombs) at the police, burned tires, and set up road blocks andbarricades. Militancy increased when theprotesters began using firearms and grenades as weapons. Other Palestinians supported the intifadathrough non-violent means, such as not paying taxes, boycotting Israeliproducts, and undertaking other forms of civil disobedience.
The depth and speed of the intifada surprised Israeliauthorities, who believed that the actions were being planned and carried outby the PLO. In fact, each local protestaction was organized by community leaders in response to and in support ofother uprisings that were already taking place, creating a snowballeffect. Eventually, however, theintifada came under the centralized command of the Unified National Leadershipof the Uprising (UNLU), an alliance of PLO factions in the occupiedterritories, which began to carry out more organized militant actions. Two other Palestinian armed groups, Hamas andIslamic Jihad, also rose to prominence during the intifada and emerged as thepolitical and military rivals to the PLO.
(Taken from Palestinian Uprising of 1987 – 1993 – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 2)
Background As aconsequence of the 1947-48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine and the 1948Arab-Israeli War, some 700,000 Palestinian Arabs lost their homes and becamerefugees. Most of them eventuallysettled in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. The Palestinian Jews emerged victorious, inthe process establishing the state of Israel. Then with the Israeli Army’s victory in theSix-Day War in 1967 (separate article), the Israelis gained control of Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. Israel imposed militarized authority over the“occupied territories” (as the Gaza Strip, West Bank, and East Jerusalem were called collectively) as a means to deteropposition. Check points and road blockswere raised, searches and arrests conducted, and civilian movement curtailedand monitored. Perceived enemies wereeliminated, imprisoned, or deported. Furthermore, the Israeli government encouraged its citizens to migrateto the occupied territories, where Israeli housing settlements soon began toemerge.
The Palestinians greatly resented the presence of theIsraelis, whom they regarded as a foreign force occupying Palestinianland. Furthermore, as the Israeliauthority became established and greater numbers of Israeli settlements werebeing built, the Palestinians believed that their lands eventually would beintegrated into Israel. The Israeli occupation was also perceived asa serious blow to the Palestinian people’s aspirations for establishing aPalestinian state.
The Palestinian Liberation Organization, or PLO, a politicaland armed movement, was formed in 1964 and was headed by Chairman Yasser Arafatto lead the Palestinians’ struggle for independence. However, the PLO experienced many setbacks,not only in the hands of Israelbut also by the Arab countries to which the Palestinians had turned forsupport. In 1970, the PLO was expelledfrom Jordan and thereaftermoved to Lebanonwhere, in 1982, it also was forced to leave. Subsequently, the PLO moved its headquarters to Tunisia, whose distant locationprevented the Palestinian leadership from exercising direct control andinfluence over the affairs of Palestinians in the occupied territories. The PLO itself was wracked by internaldissent among some factions that opposed Arafat, who had cast aside hishard-line stance against Israeland adopted a more conciliatory approach.
Furthermore, later developments in the Middle East boded ill for the Palestinians. Egypt,the militarily strongest Arab country and a main supporter of the PLO, hadsigned a peace treaty with Israelin 1979 and ceased its claim to the Gaza Strip. Jordan had not onlyexpelled the PLO but had relinquished its claim to the West Bank and consequently stripped the Palestinian residents there ofJordanian citizenship. Syria, another major backer of the PLO, had afalling out with Arafat during the 1982 Lebanon War and began to support arival PLO faction that ultimately forced Arafat and his Fatah faction to leave Lebanona second time. For so long, the Arabcountries’ regional security concerns centered on the Palestinians’ strugglefor statehood. In the 1980s, however,much of the concentration was on the Iran-Iraq War, relegating the Palestinianissue to a lesser focus. Palestiniansbelieved that many Arab countries, because of the Arab military defeats to theIsraelis, generally had abandoned active support for the Palestinians’ nationalistaspirations.
The Palestinians’ frustrations were compounded by direeconomic circumstances in the West Bank and Gaza. Nearly half of all Palestinians were poor and lived in refugee camps incramped, squalid, and poorly serviced conditions. Unemployment was high and so was thePalestinians’ birth rate, leading to more people competing for limitedopportunities and resources.
Ever since the Israelis took over the occupied territories,tensions between Israelis and Palestinians persisted, which often erupted inviolence. Then during the second half of1987, these tensions rose dramatically, ultimately leading to a majorPalestinian uprising that was triggered by the following events.
