The Second Intifada

Outbreak and Trigger Events

The Second Intifada, often called the Al Aqsa Intifada, began in late September 2000 and continued, in different forms, for several years. It did not start from a single cause, but from a build up of frustration and mistrust after the Oslo years. Many Palestinians felt that the political process had failed to end occupation or halt settlement expansion. Many Israelis felt that after making concessions, they faced continued attacks and incitement.

The immediate spark was the visit of Ariel Sharon, then leader of Israel’s opposition, to the Haram al Sharif / Temple Mount compound in Jerusalem on 28 September 2000, accompanied by a large security presence. Palestinians widely viewed the visit as a provocation and a signal that Israel intended to cement control over the holy site. Israeli officials argued it was a political statement asserting the right of Jews to visit the compound.

Clashes broke out between Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli police at the site and quickly spread to other parts of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza. Use of live fire, injuries, and deaths in the first days hardened attitudes on both sides. Within a short time, what began as demonstrations and clashes escalated into a broad uprising that was much more militarized than the First Intifada.

Early Phase and Rapid Militarization

In the first weeks, there were large demonstrations, stone throwing, and confrontations with Israeli security forces. The images of armed Israeli forces facing mainly unarmed demonstrators circulated widely. A particularly influential moment was the killing of Muhammad al Dura, a Palestinian boy filmed in Gaza as he and his father took cover during a firefight. The footage, broadcast across the Arab world, became a powerful symbol of Palestinian suffering, though many details of the incident were later disputed.

The uprising quickly involved different armed Palestinian groups. Unlike the largely grassroots and loosely organized First Intifada, the Second Intifada saw a prominent role for factions with military wings. These included Fatah linked groups such as the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Islamist movements such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and smaller organizations. Their tactics ranged from shooting attacks and roadside bombs to suicide bombings.

Israel responded with growing force. The army used live ammunition, curfews, targeted raids, and later heavy weaponry such as tanks and attack helicopters. The early phase set a pattern of attack, retaliation, and counter retaliation that created the sense of an ongoing war more than a short term uprising.

Methods of Violence and New Tactics

The Second Intifada became associated, on the Palestinian side, with frequent suicide bombings and, on the Israeli side, with extensive use of targeted killings, large scale incursions, and systematic restrictions on Palestinian movement.

Suicide bombings inside Israeli cities became a central tactic of several Palestinian groups. Militants targeted buses, cafes, markets, and other crowded public spaces. These attacks caused high civilian casualties and intense fear in daily Israeli life. They also had a profound political effect inside Israel, strengthening support for hard line security measures and weakening support for the peace process.

At the same time, Palestinian armed groups carried out shootings on roads, mortar and Qassam rocket fire from Gaza into nearby Israeli communities, and ambushes of soldiers and settlers in the West Bank and Gaza. The aim varied, from revenge and deterrence to attempts to force Israel to withdraw from occupied areas.

Israel’s response relied heavily on military superiority and intelligence. The Israel Defense Forces, together with the intelligence services, developed and expanded the practice of targeted killings, in which individuals identified as militants or leaders were killed by missiles from helicopters, drones, or special operations. Israel argued this was a form of preemptive self defense against planned attacks. Critics argued it involved extrajudicial executions, frequent civilian casualties, and a cycle of revenge.

The use of heavy weaponry inside dense Palestinian urban areas blurred the line between police style operations and open warfare. Tanks and armored vehicles entered cities and refugee camps, houses were demolished during operations, and curfews could last for days or weeks. The methods used by both sides deepened the sense that the conflict had crossed into a more brutal and less controllable phase.

Major Turning Points and Operations

As the violence intensified, several events marked turning points in the course of the Second Intifada.

One early moment was the lynching of two Israeli reservists in Ramallah in October 2000, after they had entered the city in error. The images of the attack, captured on video and broadcast in Israel, shocked the Israeli public and hardened views.

Over the following months and years, a series of high casualty suicide bombings, such as those at the Dolphinarium nightclub in Tel Aviv, the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem, and on multiple buses, pushed Israeli society toward more aggressive measures. Palestinian society, in turn, experienced rising casualties from Israeli operations, including deaths at demonstrations, in targeted killings, and in large raids, which fueled more anger and support for armed resistance among parts of the population.

A key turning point came with Operation Defensive Shield in the spring of 2002. After a particularly deadly suicide bombing in Netanya on the night of the Jewish Passover holiday, Israel launched a large scale military operation across West Bank cities. The army reentered areas that had been under Palestinian Authority control, besieged and fought inside cities like Nablus, Bethlehem, and Jenin, and destroyed much of the infrastructure of Palestinian security and political organizations.

The fighting in Jenin refugee camp became one of the most contested battles of the Intifada. Palestinians and some international observers described it as a massacre, pointing to large scale destruction and civilian deaths. Israel denied this characterization, stating that the heavy casualties were due to intense urban combat with armed militants. Competing reports and casualty figures became part of the larger struggle over narrative and responsibility.

In Bethlehem, the standoff at the Church of the Nativity, where Palestinian gunmen and civilians took refuge and were besieged by Israeli forces, highlighted how the conflict was entangled with religious and symbolic sites.

Operation Defensive Shield marked a shift, after which the Israeli army re established a continuous physical presence in most West Bank areas and severely weakened the Palestinian Authority’s armed capabilities.

The Role of the Palestinian Authority and Leadership Crisis

The Second Intifada unfolded in a political landscape shaped by the Palestinian Authority and its leader, Yasser Arafat. The PA had been created during the Oslo process as a limited self governing body, with security forces and administrative responsibilities over parts of the West Bank and Gaza.

During the uprising, the relationship between the PA and the armed groups was complex and often contradictory. Some PA security personnel or Fatah affiliated fighters participated in attacks. At other times, the PA tried to restrain violence or coordinate security with Israel under international pressure. Israel and the United States increasingly accused Arafat of encouraging or at least tolerating violence while publicly calling for a ceasefire.

Israel imposed tight restrictions on Arafat’s movement and later confined him to his compound in Ramallah. The compound itself became a symbol, as it was periodically besieged and partly destroyed. Arafat’s confinement weakened his ability to govern, but also strengthened his image among many Palestinians as a leader under siege.

Internally, the uprising exposed tensions within Palestinian politics, between those who favored armed struggle and those who argued it was disastrous, and between established leadership groups and younger militants on the ground. It also created space for Islamist movements that were outside the PA’s formal structure to increase their influence. These internal dynamics during the Second Intifada helped set the stage for later political splits.

Israeli Politics, Security Policy, and the Separation Barrier

In Israel, the Second Intifada led to significant political shifts. Many Israelis who had supported the Oslo process and the idea of territorial compromise lost faith in the possibility of a reliable peace partner. The wave of attacks undermined those who argued that negotiations alone would bring security.

This context helped bring Ariel Sharon to power as prime minister in 2001. Sharon’s government emphasized strong military responses and unilateral security measures, rather than relying on negotiations. One of the most consequential projects was the construction of a large barrier in and around the West Bank.

The barrier, which Israel described as a security fence, combined fences, walls, patrol roads, and electronic monitoring systems. Its stated purpose was to prevent attackers from entering Israel and its immediate surroundings. The route of the barrier did not always follow the 1949 armistice line. Instead, in several areas it extended into the West Bank, surrounding settlements and incorporating land on the Israeli side of the barrier.

For many Israelis, the barrier, along with intelligence and military operations, is credited with a sharp reduction in suicide bombings and other attacks inside Israel. For many Palestinians, it is experienced as a physical and symbolic deepening of occupation, separating communities from their land, jobs, and services, and prefiguring the unilateral drawing of borders.

The Second Intifada also led Israel to refine its doctrine of targeted killings, expand its use of drones and surveillance, and develop methods of controlling movement through checkpoints, closures, and permit systems. These security practices, many of which intensified at this time, continue to shape daily relations between Israelis and Palestinians.

Effects on Daily Life and Society

The Second Intifada transformed everyday life for both Palestinians and Israelis. For Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, frequent curfews, roadblocks, and closures disrupted work, schooling, medical care, and family life. Cities and refugee camps suffered infrastructure damage from repeated incursions. The local economy, dependent on movement of people and goods, contracted sharply, pushing many deeper into poverty.

Night raids, house searches, arrests, and the sound of gunfire or explosions became part of the lived reality of many Palestinian communities. Children and young people came of age in an environment of militarized streets and high levels of trauma. Access to farmland or jobs inside Israel or in other parts of the West Bank was often cut off by checkpoints and the construction of the barrier.

For Israelis, the most vivid feature of this period was the fear of sudden attacks in public spaces. Buses, restaurants, university cafeterias, and markets were all targeted. Routine activities, such as commuting to work or going out in the evening, were accompanied by concern about potential bombings. The presence of guards at the entrances to many public places and the practice of security checks became normal.

The sense of vulnerability and anger in Israeli society strengthened support for harsh security measures and reduced willingness to take the risks that compromise might require. Public discourse increasingly used terms of war, and the idea of coexistence appeared less realistic to many.

Both societies experienced high levels of loss and grief. The repeated cycles of funerals and memorials created social bonds around shared trauma, but they also fostered narratives that emphasized victimhood and justified further confrontation. Each side highlighted its own suffering and often saw the other’s pain as less legitimate, suspected, or self inflicted.

Diplomatic Efforts During the Uprising

While violence dominated the headlines, there were repeated, though often short lived, attempts to halt it. International actors, especially the United States and European states, tried to broker ceasefires and return the parties to negotiations.

Early on, the Mitchell Report and later the Tenet Plan suggested steps such as freezing settlement activity, stopping attacks, and rebuilding security cooperation. These proposals, however, were difficult to implement on the ground. Mutual mistrust was deep, and both sides doubted the other’s commitment.

One notable diplomatic moment was the Arab Peace Initiative, adopted by the Arab League in 2002. It proposed normalization of relations between Arab states and Israel in exchange for Israeli withdrawal from territories occupied in 1967 and a just solution to the Palestinian refugee issue. Although this initiative did not end the Second Intifada, it signaled a regional willingness, at least on paper, to frame the conflict within a broader peace package.

Efforts at ceasefires were often undermined by events. A bombing, an assassination, or a raid would trigger a new round of retaliation. Each side argued it was responding to the other, and even when relative lulls occurred, they were fragile and temporary.

The Second Intifada also influenced the broader peace framework. The failure of the Camp David summit in 2000 and the outbreak of violence led many international observers to question earlier assumptions about how close the sides had been to agreement. Later diplomatic initiatives would have to grapple with the hardened attitudes created by these years.

Decline of the Intifada and Shifts in Strategy

By the mid 2000s, the intensity of the Second Intifada had decreased, even though incidents of violence continued. Several factors contributed to this decline.

On the Israeli side, the combination of the barrier, targeted killings, arrests of militants, and intelligence operations significantly reduced the capacity of armed groups to carry out attacks, especially suicide bombings inside Israel. The cost of organizing such operations rose, and many of their planners and operatives were killed or captured.

On the Palestinian side, exhaustion, economic hardship, and internal political struggles reduced public enthusiasm for sustained confrontation. Many Palestinians questioned whether the uprising had achieved its aims. The destruction of infrastructure, fragmentation of territories, and weakening of the Palestinian Authority were seen by some as strategic losses. Others argued that armed resistance had at least demonstrated that the status quo was unacceptable and forced Israel to take unilateral steps.

One of the most significant unilateral steps was Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005, often called the Gaza disengagement. Though the withdrawal had its own logic and aims, and is addressed in other parts of the course, it was part of the larger response to the Second Intifada and signaled a shift toward managing the conflict through unilateral moves rather than negotiated agreements.

Security coordination between Israel and Palestinian Authority forces in the West Bank, which had broken down early in the Intifada, was gradually re established under heavy international pressure, especially from the United States. This cooperation, combined with internal Palestinian reforms and power struggles, helped bring a degree of order in some West Bank areas, even as deep underlying conflicts remained unresolved.

Human and Political Legacy

The Second Intifada left a heavy human toll, with thousands of Palestinians and Israelis killed and many more injured. The scale of loss, and the way it was experienced, reshaped political cultures on both sides.

In Israeli public debate, the uprising became a central reference point for arguments that even generous peace offers would be met with violence, and that territorial concessions might bring rockets or terror rather than peace. Many politicians and commentators pointed to the sequence from the failure of negotiations to the outbreak of the Second Intifada as proof of this view. Security first became a dominant principle in policy and public opinion.

In Palestinian society, the Intifada deepened disillusionment with the Oslo framework and with the Palestinian Authority’s strategy. The sense that negotiations had not delivered freedom or an end to occupation, combined with the experience of massive military force and tightened control, contributed to the rise of political alternatives that rejected the existing approach. The later electoral success of Hamas and the political split between Gaza and the West Bank cannot be understood without the backdrop of these years.

The period also widened the psychological and physical distance between the two societies. Shared spaces of interaction, such as workplaces inside Israel where many Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza had worked before, became more restricted. Encounters were more often mediated by checkpoints, walls, and uniforms. This reduced the everyday familiarity that can sometimes soften stereotypes.

Narratives about the Second Intifada continue to differ sharply. Many Israelis emphasize suicide bombings and frame the uprising as a campaign of terror. Many Palestinians emphasize military occupation, targeted killings, and collective punishments, and describe it as a legitimate uprising against oppression. International observers and scholars often debate the causes, proportionality of responses, and missed opportunities for de escalation.

These contested memories make the Second Intifada not only a historical episode but also a living reference in current arguments about trust, security, and the chances of future agreements.

The Second Intifada in the Larger Pattern of Cycles of Violence

Within the broader pattern of intifadas and cycles of violence, the Second Intifada stands out as a period when both the level of militarization and the depth of mutual mistrust increased significantly. It built on unresolved issues from previous decades and generated conditions and attitudes that shaped later developments.

The uprising did not resolve the core disputes over land, refugees, security, and mutual recognition. Instead, it left behind new facts on the ground, such as the separation barrier and the destruction or reconfiguration of Palestinian governance structures, along with new political actors and strategies.

Understanding the Second Intifada is therefore important not only for its own events, but also for how it influenced subsequent chapters of the conflict, including the political split between Palestinian factions, changes in Israeli strategy toward unilateral measures, and the enduring sense on both sides that the other is not a trustworthy partner.