First Intifada 1987–1993: The Palestinian Uprising Explained

The First Intifada was a mass uprising by Palestinians in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem against Israeli military occupation, which began in December 1987 and lasted until the Oslo Accords of 1993. “Intifada” is an Arabic word meaning a shaking off, and the uprising was marked by general strikes, boycotts and street protests in which young people threw stones at Israeli soldiers.

The intifada changed the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. It brought Palestinians in the occupied territories to the centre of their national movement, pushed the PLO to accept a two-state framework and contributed to the first direct agreement between Israel and the PLO.

Background

Israel had occupied the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem since the Six-Day War of 1967. By 1987 about 1.7 million Palestinians lived under military rule there, many of them refugees or descendants of refugees from the 1948 war. Tens of thousands worked as day labourers in Israel, but they had no citizenship and no vote, and land and water were increasingly taken for Israeli settlements.

A new generation had grown up knowing only occupation. Universities in the territories, opened in the 1970s, produced educated young people with few jobs. Meanwhile the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), expelled from Lebanon in 1982, was based far away in Tunis. In November 1987 an Arab League summit in Amman gave more attention to the Iran–Iraq War than to the Palestinian issue, a sign to many Palestinians that they could not rely on others.

How it began

On 8 December 1987, an Israeli army truck collided with vehicles carrying Palestinian workers near the Erez checkpoint in the northern Gaza Strip, killing four men from the Jabalia refugee camp. Rumours spread that the crash had been deliberate revenge for the stabbing of an Israeli in Gaza days earlier. On 9 December protests broke out in Jabalia, and a teenager was shot dead by soldiers. Within days the unrest had spread across Gaza and the West Bank.

Neither Israel nor the PLO had expected an uprising on this scale. It began from below, among young people in camps, villages and towns, rather than on orders from the PLO leadership abroad.

Methods of the uprising

Within weeks local activists from the main PLO factions formed the Unified National Leadership of the Uprising (UNLU). It issued numbered leaflets, distributed by hand and broadcast on radio, setting strike days and other actions. Shops opened only for limited hours, many Palestinians stopped working in Israel or boycotted Israeli goods, and some local officials resigned. The Christian town of Beit Sahour became known for refusing to pay taxes in 1989.

Popular committees organised education, food supplies and medical care when schools were closed or curfews imposed. The most famous images, however, were of young people throwing stones at soldiers, raising banned Palestinian flags and building barricades of burning tyres. Molotov cocktails were also used, and over time attacks with knives and firearms increased.

In December 1987 the Islamist movement Hamas was founded in Gaza, under Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, as an outgrowth of the Muslim Brotherhood. It rejected recognition of Israel and competed with the PLO for leadership.

Israel’s response

The Israeli army, trained for war against regular armies, was unprepared for mass civil unrest. Defence Minister Yitzhak Rabin announced a policy of “force, might and beatings” in January 1988, aimed at reducing the use of live fire, but beatings of detainees caused international criticism. Israel also used rubber and plastic bullets, tear gas, curfews, school and university closures, house demolitions, deportations of activists and large-scale administrative detention without trial. Tens of thousands of Palestinians were imprisoned during the uprising.

On 16 April 1988 an Israeli commando team killed Khalil al-Wazir (Abu Jihad), a senior PLO commander linked to the uprising, at his home in Tunis.

Key people

• Yasser Arafat (1929–2004): chairman of the PLO, who directed support for the uprising from Tunis and used it to press for international recognition.
• Yitzhak Rabin (1922–1995): Israeli defence minister during the uprising and, as prime minister from 1992, the Israeli leader who signed the Oslo Accords.
• Khalil al-Wazir (Abu Jihad) (1935–1988): co-founder of Fatah and PLO military chief, regarded by Israel as a key organiser of support for the uprising.
• Sheikh Ahmed Yassin (1937–2004): Gaza cleric and founder of Hamas.
• Faisal Husseini (1940–2001): a leading Palestinian figure in East Jerusalem, often arrested during the uprising, who later took part in the Madrid talks.

Life under the uprising

For ordinary Palestinians the intifada meant years of disruption. Long curfews confined whole towns and camps to their homes, sometimes for weeks. West Bank universities were closed for long periods and schools for months at a time, so that many children received much of their education in secret classes organised by teachers and committees. Strike days and reduced opening hours cut incomes, while families lost breadwinners to prison, injury or death. For Israelis, the uprising brought repeated reserve duty in the territories and a fierce public debate about the army’s role and the future of the occupation.

Political consequences

The intifada shifted the politics of the region. On 31 July 1988 King Hussein announced that Jordan was cutting its legal and administrative ties with the West Bank. On 15 November 1988 the Palestine National Council, meeting in Algiers, proclaimed a State of Palestine and implicitly accepted UN resolutions that recognised Israel. In December 1988 Yasser Arafat renounced terrorism and accepted Israel’s right to exist, and the United States opened a dialogue with the PLO.

Inside Israel, the uprising convinced many that the occupation could not continue at no cost. By 1990 the intifada was losing momentum. Economic hardship, internal killings of suspected collaborators and the PLO’s support for Iraq in the Gulf War weakened the movement. The Madrid Conference of October 1991 brought Israeli and Palestinian representatives to the same table, and secret talks in Norway led to the Oslo Accords, signed in Washington on 13 September 1993.

By the numbers

Figures are mainly those of the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem; other sources give slightly different totals.

Myths and facts

Rabin is often quoted as having ordered soldiers to “break their bones”. The phrase was widely reported at the time and became a symbol of the beatings policy, but whether he used those exact words is disputed; his documented public statements referred to force and beatings. It is also sometimes assumed that the PLO planned the uprising. In fact it began spontaneously and the PLO in Tunis moved quickly to support and guide it.

Timeline

• 1987, 8 December: Collision at the Erez checkpoint kills four Palestinians.
• 1987, 9 December: Protests in Jabalia mark the start of the uprising.
• 1987, December: Hamas is founded in Gaza.
• 1988, January: Rabin announces the policy of “force, might and beatings”.
• 1988, 16 April: Abu Jihad is killed in Tunis.
• 1988, 31 July: Jordan disengages from the West Bank.
• 1988, 15 November: The PNC declares a Palestinian state in Algiers.
• 1991, 30 October: The Madrid peace conference opens.
• 1993, 13 September: The Oslo Declaration of Principles is signed.

Why it matters

The First Intifada was the moment when Palestinians under occupation took the initiative in their own struggle. It made the occupation a central issue in Israeli and international politics and led directly to the peace process of the 1990s. Its legacy also includes the rise of Hamas, which would play a major role in the Second Intifada and after.