1987 in Israel

Israel entered 1987 under the fourth national-unity government, formed by the Labor Alignment and Likud after the inconclusive 1984 election. The coalition had 97 Knesset members and operated through a ten-member inner cabinet divided equally between the two major parties.[1] Under the rotation agreement, Shimon Peres served first as prime minister; Yitzhak Shamir replaced him in October 1986, while Peres became vice premier and foreign minister.[9]

Israel remained a parliamentary democracy with a 120-member unicameral Knesset elected through national proportional representation and no comprehensive written constitution.[10] The unity government was divided over U.S.-sponsored peace initiatives, territorial compromise, the future of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and possible negotiations involving the PLO.[10]

In August, the Public Council for a Constitution for Israel, led by Tel Aviv University law dean Uriel Reichman, began campaigning for a written constitution. It proposed direct election of the prime minister, enhanced protection for Basic Laws, a bill of rights, and a defined system of judicial review. Although the initiative had little prospect of immediate passage, it renewed debate over electoral and constitutional reform.[10]

Israel's population at the end of October was officially estimated at 4,389,600, including 3,601,200 Jews, or about 82 percent of the total. Nearly 90 percent of the population lived in urban localities, and almost two-thirds lived along the Mediterranean coast between Haifa and Ashdod.[10]

On April 7, Foreign Minister Peres and King Hussein secretly developed a framework for an international peace conference. The proposal called for the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and the parties to the Arab-Israeli conflict to convene on the basis of Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. Direct bilateral committees would address specific issues, while a joint Jordanian-Palestinian-Israeli delegation would discuss the Palestinian question.[2]

The document stated that the conference would not impose a settlement or veto agreements reached by the negotiating parties. Participation required acceptance of Resolutions 242 and 338 and renunciation of violence and terrorism. The understanding was provisional and required approval by the Israeli and Jordanian governments.[2]

Peres had not informed Shamir before reaching the understanding. When the proposal came before Israel's evenly divided inner cabinet in early May, the vote ended in a tie and the initiative was not approved.[11] Likud ministers opposed the plan, Peres did not force a confidence vote or resign, and the proposed conference never took place.[12]

Peres later portrayed the London Agreement as Israel's greatest missed diplomatic opportunity and blamed Shamir for its failure.[13] The related claim that its approval might have prevented the First Intifada remains a contested counterfactual rather than an established historical conclusion.[13]

Israel's real gross national product grew by 5.2 percent in 1987, following 3.3 percent growth in 1986. The improvement was attributed to the Economic Stabilization Program, including tax reductions, restraints on public-sector employment, and measures intended to stimulate investment.[10] Inflation fell from 185 percent in 1985 to 16.1 percent in 1987, following the national-unity government's price freeze and stabilization measures.[14][9]

Construction output increased by approximately 8 percent, returning to its 1984 level after several years of decline. Construction's share of the business sector nevertheless had fallen from 19 percent in 1972 to 9 percent in 1987. The December outbreak of the Intifada subsequently disrupted the favorable economic trend.[10]

The government also canceled the Lavi fighter-aircraft project after reassessing its cost against the option of purchasing American aircraft. The program had employed approximately 22,000 people at Israel Aerospace Industries at its peak and was intended to produce a central future platform for the Israeli Air Force. After cancellation, about 6,000 employees left, and the company entered a prolonged institutional crisis.[3]

On the night of May 18, six Palestinian security prisoners escaped from Gaza Prison, also known as Saraya. After months of preparation, they used saws smuggled into their cell inside loaves of bread to cut through the bars of a bathroom window. They timed their work during Ramadan and used amplified mosque prayers, prisoner shouting, darkness, and fog to conceal the operation.[4]

The escape exposed major security and management failures. Guards at the watchtower and entrance had fallen asleep, and the watchtower guard failed to submit required reports. The incident was disclosed publicly nine days later through a Knesset question submitted by Likud MK David Magen, after which Police Minister Haim Bar-Lev announced an investigative committee.[4] Gaza and Khan Yunis residents helped conceal the escapees; several were later killed by Israeli forces, while others were arrested or went into exile.[4]

On November 25, two Palestinian terrorists entered Israel from Lebanon on hang gliders near Kiryat Shemona. They killed six Israeli soldiers and wounded eight others.[5]

On December 6, an Israeli was stabbed to death while shopping in Gaza. The killing became part of the context in which rumors about the fatal traffic collision two days later circulated through Jabalya.[15]

The First Intifada emerged over December 8–9 in the Gaza Strip and spread rapidly into Judea and Samaria. Israeli official sources identify December 9, the day of the Jabalya demonstrations, as the outbreak date, while another Israeli account dates the uprising from the traffic collision on December 8.[8][16]

Its roots extended beyond the immediate incident. Contributing conditions included the consequences of the 1967 Six-Day War, continued Israeli administration, settlement activity, economic pressures, tense Israeli-Palestinian relations, and frustration with the PLO leadership outside the territories.[6]

On December 8, an Israeli-driven truck struck vehicles carrying Palestinian workers near the Erez industrial zone, killing four workers and injuring seven. Rumors soon spread that the collision had been deliberate revenge for the Israeli killed in Gaza. The driver, Hertzel Bukobza, was acquitted of negligent homicide in 1992.[16][7]

On December 9, thousands of Jabalya residents demonstrated. Two young men were killed and 16 people were wounded by Israeli military fire as demonstrators attacked soldiers with stones and firebombs.[7] The unrest spread across Gaza and then into the West Bank and Jerusalem. By December 12, six Palestinians had died and 30 had been injured; the next day, rioters threw a gasoline bomb at the U.S. consulate in East Jerusalem without causing injuries.[15]

In Nablus, a Palestinian was killed during a violent disturbance, and soldiers used rubber bullets and tear gas after attempts to restore order failed. Unrest also reached the Qalandia refugee camp near Jerusalem, where demonstrators threw stones and bottles and raised PLO flags.[7]

Five days after the disturbances began, Israeli military and security officials still assessed that the events were not a civilian rebellion and showed no sign of centralized direction. Shamir said that most residents wanted order and that the army remained in control. These assessments quickly proved incorrect.[7]

The uprising appeared spontaneous at its outset but rapidly developed local organizational structures. Members of Fatah, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Palestinian Communist Party, and an Islamic Holy War faction cooperated through popular committees.[10]

The Unified National Leadership of the Uprising emerged from a local initiative involving Fatah and left-wing activists and West Bank intellectuals. Through printed leaflets, it directed strikes, demonstrations, tax refusal, boycotts, assistance to affected communities, and efforts to create alternatives to Israeli goods.[6] Its organizers also had to manage their relationship with the PLO leadership in Tunis, which sought to establish authority over an uprising it had not initiated.[6]

Hamas was organized during the uprising's first days under Sheikh Ahmed Yassin from Islamic associations in Gaza. It rejected political compromise with Israel, advocated an Islamic Palestinian state, refused to join the Unified National Leadership, and issued its first independent leaflet in December 1987.[6]

The uprising combined civil disobedience with widespread violence. Its methods included demonstrations, stone throwing, Molotov-cocktail attacks, roadblocks, burning tires, strikes, tax refusal, boycotts of Israeli products, attempts to create local economic alternatives, and refusal to cooperate with Israeli administrative institutions.[6]

During its first four years, the IDF recorded more than 3,600 Molotov-cocktail attacks, 100 hand-grenade attacks, and 600 assaults involving firearms or explosives.[15] Images of children and teenagers throwing stones at armed Israeli soldiers became a prominent international symbol of the uprising and imposed political costs on Israel in addition to the direct human costs of the violence.[6] As the uprising continued, organized gunfire and firebomb attacks assumed a greater role.[17]

Israeli forces responded with live fire, tear gas, beatings, arrests, expulsions, administrative detention, curfews, educational closures, and the deployment of large police and military forces.[6] The IDF initially lacked specialized units, suitable equipment, and training for a mass civilian uprising, while being required to perform both policing duties in the territories and conventional border-defense functions.[16]

The forceful response was widely assessed as contributing to the spread of the early unrest and imposed human, economic, political, and moral costs on Israel.[6] The uprising ended approximately twenty years of relative quiet and made Palestinian residents of the territories an active political factor in the Israeli-Arab conflict.[16]

The disruption also transformed labor patterns. Before the uprising, approximately 120,000 Gazans traveled daily to work in Israel. Curfews, lockdowns, strikes, and a less permeable border ended much of this movement, and foreign workers from Thailand, Slovakia, and other countries increasingly replaced Gazan laborers.[18]

In February, the United States granted Israel major non-NATO ally status alongside Egypt, Japan, South Korea, and Australia. The designation made Israel eligible for Excess Defense Articles and could provide access to U.S. funding for cooperative defense research, development, and production.[19]

The two countries also concluded a reciprocal defense-procurement memorandum that enabled Israeli and American contractors to compete for government contracts in both countries on an equal basis.[19] These arrangements deepened the institutional and commercial defense relationship as Israel canceled the Lavi and adjusted its defense-industrial strategy.

The First Intifada continued for nearly six years and ended with the Israel-PLO Mutual Recognition Memorandum of September 13, 1993, which formed part of the Oslo framework.[8] A Congressional Research Service account reports that more than 1,100 Palestinians and 160 Israelis were killed during the uprising.[20] Other sources provide different totals, including 154 Israelis and approximately 1,500 Palestinians, or separate figures of 66 Israeli soldiers and 157 Israeli civilians.[7]

The uprising returned the Palestinian question to the international agenda and demonstrated to many Israelis that administration of the West Bank and Gaza could not continue indefinitely on the same terms.[20] Many Israelis were outraged by Palestinian violence and concerned about the dangers faced by soldiers, while the prolonged conflict also intensified public desire for normalcy and contributed to support for negotiations in the 1990s.[21]

The uprising encouraged Palestinian institutional and political consolidation, particularly in East Jerusalem. Reconciliation committees operated under Palestinian organizational auspices, and institutions adapted to Israeli closure orders by relocating or restructuring their activities. Israeli civil-society organizations including HaMoked and B'Tselem were also founded during its early years.[22]

The economic disruptions undermined the favorable trends recorded in 1987, affecting commerce, labor movement, and investment.[10] The uprising began to decline in 1991 amid Israeli security operations, economic damage, arrests, closures, and declining Palestinian living standards before the Oslo process brought it to an end.[7]

Approved sources differ over the precise starting date of the First Intifada. The Israeli Defense Ministry archive dates the outbreak to December 9, when the mass demonstrations began in Gaza, while a mako account officially dates it from the December 8 traffic collision.[8][16] The Jewish Virtual Library places the collision on December 7 and the Jabalya rioting on December 9.[15] These differences reflect the difficulty of assigning a single beginning to several days of escalating incidents.

The uprising's initial organization is also interpreted differently. The Library of Congress describes it as apparently spontaneous, while the INSS account emphasizes how quickly local activists created coordinating institutions and how the PLO later attempted to consolidate its leadership.[10][6] The available evidence supports a distinction between the uprising's locally driven outbreak and the later participation or direction of established political organizations.

The London Agreement remains a subject of political dispute. Peres portrayed it as a genuine path to peace and blamed Shamir for its failure; opponents maintained that the proposal was inadequate and that the cabinet acted within its authority by withholding approval.[2][13] Claims that approval would have prevented the Intifada remain counterfactual.

Casualty totals also vary because sources apply different periods and classifications. The Congressional Research Service reports more than 1,100 Palestinian and 160 Israeli deaths, while Ynet and mako provide different Israeli and Palestinian totals.[20][7] The Jewish Virtual Library separately records casualties and attacks during the uprising's first four years rather than its entire duration.[15]