The First Intifada
A popular uprising of stones, strikes and boycotts erupts across the West Bank and Gaza, putting the occupation on the world's screens and pushing both sides towards negotiation.
- Intifada — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Fatalities statistics, 1987 to the present — B'Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, B'Tselem
- The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood — Rashid Khalidi, Beacon Press (2006)
- The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World — Avi Shlaim, W. W. Norton (2014)
On 9 December 1987 an Israeli truck collided with cars carrying Palestinian workers in Gaza, killing four. Protests in the Jabalia refugee camp spread within days across Gaza and the West Bank. The intifada, “shaking off”, was led on the ground by a clandestine Unified National Leadership linked to the PLO, which issued numbered leaflets calling for strikes, boycotts of Israeli goods, tax refusal and the resignation of Palestinians working for the military administration. Its emblem was the stone-throwing youth facing a soldier.
- Intifada — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood — Rashid Khalidi, Beacon Press (2006)
Israel responded with mass arrests, curfews, school closures, deportations and house demolitions. B’Tselem counted more than 1,000 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces between December 1987 and the Oslo Accords in 1993, and about 160 Israelis killed by Palestinians. Hundreds more Palestinians were killed by other Palestinians as suspected collaborators.
- Fatalities statistics, 1987 to the present — B'Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, B'Tselem
The uprising brought the Islamist movement Hamas into being in December 1987, led Jordan to give up its claim to the West Bank in 1988, and helped push the PLO to accept a two-state framework. It paved the way to the Madrid conference of 1991 and the Oslo Accords.
- Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949–1993 — Yezid Sayigh, Oxford University Press (1997)
- The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World — Avi Shlaim, W. W. Norton (2014)
A largely unarmed popular uprising against twenty years of occupation, met with live fire, beatings, curfews, deportations and mass arrests.
- The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood — Rashid Khalidi, Beacon Press (2006)
- Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949–1993 — Yezid Sayigh, Oxford University Press (1997)
Violent riots that included firebombs and lethal attacks, which soldiers had to contain. Defence Minister Rabin's policy of "force, might and beatings" became notorious, and the uprising persuaded many Israelis that a political solution was needed.
- Israel: A History — Anita Shapira, Brandeis University Press (2012)
- The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World — Avi Shlaim, W. W. Norton (2014)
Why it matters today
The intifada showed Israelis that the occupation was not cost-free and could not be managed forever; many soldiers found policing crowds of teenagers corrosive. It helped convince Yitzhak Rabin to try the Oslo path.
For Palestinians it is a proud memory of mass civil resistance led from inside the territories, by young people, women and local committees. It also gave birth to Hamas.