The Intifada
On 6 December 1987, an Israeli businessman was stabbed to death while shopping in Gaza. Two days later, four residents of the Jabalya refugee camp—the largest of the eight refugee camps in the Gaza Strip—were killed in a traffic accident involving an Israeli trucker. Rumors circulated that the accident was, in fact, a deliberate act of revenge for the stabbing of the businessman. Mass rioting broke out on 9 December after a Palestinian teen was shot dead by an Israeli soldier after having thrown a Molotov cocktail at an army patrol.
Hours later, rioting spread into the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Within days the occupied territories were engulfed in a wave of demonstrations and commercial strikes on an unprecedented scale. Equally unprecedented was the extent of mass participation in these disturbances: tens of thousands of ordinary civilians, including women and children. The Israeli security forces used the full panoply of crowd control measures to try and quell the disturbances: cudgels, nightsticks, tear gas, water cannons, rubber bullets, and live ammunition. But the disturbances only gathered momentum.
Soon there was widespread rock-throwing, road-blocking and tire burnings throughout the territories. By 12 December, six Palestinians had died and 30 had been injured in the violence. The next day, rioters threw a gasoline bomb at the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem though no one was hurt.
Other rumors circulated that Palestinian youths wounded by Israeli soldiers were being taken to an army hospital near Tel Aviv and "finished off." Another rumor, claimed Israeli troops poisoned a water reservoir in Khan Yunis. A UN official said these stories were untrue. Only the most seriously injured Palestinians were taken out of the Gaza Strip for treatment, and, in some cases, this probably saved their lives. The water was also tested and found to be uncontaminated.
The Israel Defense Forces reported more than 3,600 Molotov cocktail attacks, 100 hand grenade attacks and 600 assaults with guns or explosives. The attacks were directed at both soldiers and Israeli civilians.
Demonstrations evolved from random disturbances to more organized attacks instigated by the Palestinian leadership. By 1988, the Islamist Palestinian movements, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, emerged. The organizations were responsible for hundreds of violent acts, including kidnapping soldiers and killing Israeli civilians.
The Israeli response to the Palestinian uprising was also deadly. The IDF killed many Palestinians at the beginning of the Intifida, the majority killed during demonstrations and riots. Palestinian protests were unpredictable and often violent and IDF troops were untrained in controlling them. This led to many Palestinian deaths. Israel used mass arrests of Palestinians while Palestinian leaders closed down elementary schools and women and children confronted Israeli soldiers on the border.
Read more about this topic: First Intifada