2015–2016 Wave of Violence in the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict

The escalation followed rising tensions after peace negotiations ended in April 2014, within a broader cycle of protest and confrontation.[6] In the fall of 2015, events at the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif—known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif and to Jews as the Temple Mount—became a central point of dispute. The Congressional Research Service (CRS) linked the unrest to tensions over Jewish visits during the Jewish High Holidays, Palestinian barricading inside al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Israeli security response.[6] A State Department religious-freedom report also connected the escalation to clashes following visits by Jewish activists and confrontations between Israeli police and Muslim youths.[8]

The Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research describes Muslim youths barricading themselves inside al-Aqsa and stockpiling stones before Jewish holiday visits. It says that police entry into the compound and the circulation of footage of Minister Uri Ariel at the site were perceived by Muslims as provocations and breaches of assurances about visits by political figures. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, by contrast, said Israel maintained the status quo and characterized claims that Israel planned to change it as incitement.[9] The Institute presents the crisis as one in which the parties held sharply different accounts of the status quo and of what actions contributed to the unrest.[9]

The Temple Mount/al-Aqsa dispute was not the only context identified in the sources. An INSS analysis associated youth frustration with poor prospects, economic and social difficulties, lack of political dialogue, and a lack of faith in Palestinian leadership. It also discussed social-media messages, national and religious motives, and Islamic State-inspired Salafi jihadist ideals as influences, while presenting these as analytical explanations rather than an uncontested cause.[1] Israeli officials cited in a State Department report emphasized Palestinian fears of an Israeli change to the site’s status quo and incitement by senior Palestinian Authority figures; Palestinian Authority representatives instead emphasized occupation and the absence of a political horizon.[2]

There were confrontations around the compound during September. The State Department’s 2015 religious-freedom account reported that at least 44 Palestinians and 13 police officers were injured in clashes before violence spread across Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and Gaza from October 1 through December 31.[10] Contemporaneous reporting also recorded stone-throwing during Jerusalem clashes around the Jewish New Year period and attributed sharply different accounts of the events to Hamas and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.[11]

Accounts do not agree on a single starting date. The INSS survey describes Palestinian violence beginning in September 2015 and escalating during the Jewish holidays in Jerusalem.[1] ITIC dates the campaign to September 13, when stones thrown at a car in Jerusalem led to Alexander Levlowitz’s death the following day; it contrasts this with accounts that begin on October 1, when a shooting near Itamar killed the Henkin couple. ITIC argues that the October date leaves the preceding High Holiday violence outside the campaign chronology.[4] The U.S. State Department’s 2015 terrorism report dates the wave to October 1, while its 2016 human-rights account describes the uncoordinated attacks as beginning in September.[2][12]

The September episode included the death of Levlowitz after stones struck his car on the night of September 13; two passengers were lightly injured.[11] CRS describes the fall unrest as intensifying around Jerusalem and then spreading elsewhere in Israel and the West Bank.[6] In ITIC’s account, confrontations between Palestinian rioters and Israeli security forces at the Temple Mount spread into Jerusalem in the second half of September. Stabbing attacks began in Jerusalem’s Old City in early October and were subsequently reported in Petah Tikva, Qiryat Gat, Afula, and locations in Judea and Samaria.[4]

Several early attacks became prominent in accounts of the period. On October 1, a shooting near Itamar killed the Henkin couple; the State Department report identified the attack as carried out by a Hamas cell.[13] On October 3, Muhannad Shafiq Halabi carried out a stabbing and shooting attack in Jerusalem’s Old City that killed two Israelis.[7] An October bus attack later that month involved assailants stabbing and shooting passengers, killing two Israelis, mortally wounding an Israeli-American who died two weeks later, and injuring at least 15.[13] The Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA) describes Halabi’s October 3 attack near Lions’ Gate as a marker of a new phase and quotes a post he made the previous day about al-Aqsa and revenge, ending with the declaration, “The third intifada has begun.”[14]

During the most intense period, attacks took place at a pace of three to four per day across Israel, Jerusalem, and Judea and Samaria, according to the Middle East Quartet’s July 2016 report.[3] The methods included stabbings, shootings, vehicle attacks, and a bombing. U.S. reporting described the attacks as mostly stabbings of soldiers and civilians, alongside shootings and vehicle rammings, and said that many perpetrators had no clear organizational affiliation.[2] The attacks reached Jerusalem and other Israeli cities as well as Judea and Samaria; some reporting also placed incidents in settlements and at public transportation stops.[14]

A number of significant attacks occurred during 2016 even as the overall rate declined. The State Department’s 2016 terrorism report cites a January shooting in Tel Aviv that killed two people and wounded seven, followed by the assailant’s killing of a taxi driver while fleeing. In March, a stabbing in Jaffa killed a U.S. citizen and wounded ten others. In June, a shooting at a Tel Aviv market killed four people and wounded seven; investigators found that ISIS online propaganda had inspired the June attackers and that friends helped them prepare, distinguishing this incident from the broader pattern of mostly unaffiliated attackers.[5] A bomb on a Jerusalem bus on April 18 injured 21 people, and the June Sarona market attack demonstrated that a fall in frequency did not mean attacks had ended.[15]

The pattern included both serious attacks and a larger volume of lower-level incidents. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy counted 4,656 incidents of stone-throwing, Molotov-cocktail attacks, and related violent demonstrations from approximately September 2015 to August 2016, separately from its count of serious attacks.[16] The Israeli Security Agency (ISA, or Shin Bet) recorded 620 attacks in October 2015, compared with 223 in September. Of the October total, 482 incidents in Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem involved firebombs; the agency separately listed 36 stabbings, 23 small-arms shootings, and three vehicle attacks in those areas. It reported 11 people killed and 80 injured in attacks that month, while warning through its categories that the total included incidents not necessarily involving casualties.[17]

The ISA’s annual figures similarly distinguish the overall volume of incidents from the narrower category of serious attacks. It counted 1,719 attacks in Judea and Samaria in 2015, slightly fewer than the 1,793 recorded in 2014, even as reported stabbing attacks rose from three to 38 and vehicle-ramming attacks from three to 18. In Jerusalem it counted 635 attacks, compared with 346 in 2014; more than 92 percent of the 2015 incidents were firebombs.[18] These agency counts use defined incident categories and should not be equated with counts limited to attacks causing deaths or injuries.[18]

In October 2015, Israeli security officials restricted entry to Jerusalem’s Old City for non-resident Palestinians and to the al-Aqsa compound for Muslims under 50, according to a Jewish Virtual Library chronology; it says the restrictions were lifted two days later. The same account reports that seven Israelis were killed and 20 injured in the following week, mostly in stabbings, and that reserve troops were deployed in Jerusalem, including six companies on October 13.[19] The Jerusalem Institute reports that, following U.S.-mediated discussions in October, Netanyahu publicly affirmed that Muslims could pray at the Temple Mount and non-Muslims could visit but not pray there. On October 30, Israel removed age restrictions on Muslim entry to al-Haram al-Sharif; the Institute describes these steps as efforts to calm the crisis, while noting that the parties disputed what the status quo meant.[9]

Many attacks were carried out by individuals rather than through a publicly evident chain of organizational command. The State Department described the wave as involving Palestinians with no clear organizational affiliation, and CRS noted the prominence of individual attackers, often teenagers.[2][6] The Quartet likewise characterized most attackers as young and unaffiliated.[3] In an INSS article published around the six-month point, Alon Ben David reported that more than 250 attacks had occurred since October 2015 and that over 90 percent had been carried out by people acting alone. He also reported that decisions were often made shortly before an attack and that the attacks were not directed by an organization.[20]

The available demographic profiles refer to particular datasets and periods, not every perpetrator. Ben David reported that 71 percent of attackers were 15–25 years old, with most unmarried and unemployed. He said approximately 90 surviving attackers were interrogated; in his account, media portrayals of perceived injustice had influenced them, and many had experienced personal hardship or disappointment.[20] Shin Bet figures for October 1, 2015, to February 10, 2016, counted 228 significant attacks and attempted attacks. Of 219 attackers for whom age and gender were reported, 155 were aged 16–25, 22 were younger than 16, and 24 were female; nearly two-thirds of the attacks occurred in Judea and Samaria, and 69 of the 174 West Bank attackers in the agency’s figures came from the Hebron and Yattir region.[21]

The JCFA reported that, among perpetrators in a separate Israel Security Agency dataset, 80 percent came from the West Bank, about half of them from the Hebron area, and most of the remainder from East Jerusalem; it said only a handful were Israeli Arabs. In that account, 37 percent were aged 16–20 and another 10 percent were minors.[22] A different JCFA tally for September 15, 2015, to January 18, 2016, listed 181 attackers: 59 percent were aged 15–23, with an average age of 22. It gave the Hebron governorate as the origin of 57 and the greater Jerusalem area as the origin of 45.[23] These tallies have different dates and categories and are not interchangeable.

The question of whether the attacks were wholly spontaneous or shaped by organizations remained debated. CRS contrasted the period with the first and second intifadas, which it said generally involved greater organizational guidance and coordination; it noted that social media and individual initiative appeared to contribute to spontaneous demonstrations and attacks.[6] A March 2016 Ynet report relaying Shin Bet figures said 70 percent of the 2015 attacks were classified as “lone” and that 142 of approximately 170 perpetrators had no organizational affiliation. The same report presented researcher Shaul Bartal’s argument that Hamas and other organizations had a role in directing or shaping attacks, alongside security officials’ disagreement that perpetrators were being sent by Hamas.[24]

The broader public participation in demonstrations was limited relative to earlier intifadas in the Washington Institute’s account: demonstrations usually involved several dozen teenagers and at most a few hundred people.[16] The State Department’s 2016 report said that a majority of perpetrators had no known organizational affiliation, while listing as continuing drivers of violence lack of hope for Palestinian statehood, settlement construction, settler violence, perceptions of a change to the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif status quo, and Israeli military tactics that Palestinians considered overly aggressive.[5] These are the report’s identified factors, not a single agreed explanation for individual attacks.

Published totals differ because sources cover different dates, locations, and categories—such as completed attacks, attempted attacks, serious incidents, demonstrations, and deaths during security operations. ITIC’s interim count through April 13, 2016, recorded 204 significant attacks carried out and 44 prevented. Of the 204 completed attacks, it classified 144 as stabbings, 28 as vehicle attacks, and 19 as shootings; the remainder fell into other categories. Its total excluded the hundreds of monthly stone-throwing and Molotov-cocktail incidents. ITIC said roughly one-third of the 204 attacks occurred in greater Jerusalem and other Israeli towns, and about two-thirds in Judea and Samaria, particularly the Hebron area.[4]

For the same April 2016 reporting point, ITIC counted 35 people killed: 29 civilians and six members of Israeli security forces. Its breakdown attributed 16 deaths to shootings, 12 to stabbings, two to vehicle attacks, and one to stoning; it said four people were mistakenly killed after being suspected of being attackers or by Israeli security-force fire. The people killed in its tally included 31 Israelis, two Americans, one Ethiopian, and one Palestinian bystander.[4] A separate Washington Institute account of the first year gave 40 Israelis killed and 498 injured, and 247 Palestinians killed, including 150 assailants.[16]

For 2016, ITIC counted 142 significant attacks, compared with 171 in 2015, and said 135 of the 2015 attacks occurred in October–December. Its monthly series showed a peak of about 45 significant attacks per month in October–December 2015, a decline to five in April 2016, and a range of five to twelve per month from May through December.[25] The report’s extracted passage does not define “significant attacks,” so the series should be understood as that source’s category rather than as a count of every incident.[25] ITIC said stabbings constituted 61 percent of significant attacks in 2016, vehicle attacks about 8 percent, and shootings 23 percent. It counted 17 Israelis killed in attacks in 2016—10 in shootings and seven in stabbings—and 47 Israeli deaths from the beginning of the wave in October 2015 through the end of 2016, including 30 in October–December 2015.[25]

Other sources described the decline using different measures. The Washington Institute counted at least 60 serious attacks in October 2015 and four or five per month by spring 2016.[16] The Quartet reported more than 250 Palestinian attacks and attempted attacks against Israelis in the period covered by its July 2016 report, with at least 30 Israelis killed. It separately counted at least 140 Palestinians killed while carrying out or reportedly carrying out attacks and at least 60 more killed by Israeli security forces during demonstrations, clashes, or military operations.[3] A later CRS report said that by September 2016 more than 30 Israelis and 200 Palestinians had been killed.[26]

Counts for 2015 also vary. The Shin Bet’s annual summary reported 28 deaths in terrorist attacks originating in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, compared with 20 in 2014; 25 of the 2015 fatalities were civilians—22 Israelis, two foreign nationals, and one Palestinian—and three were security personnel. Twenty-four deaths occurred in October–December, compared with four in the first nine months. The agency reported 239 people injured in attacks in 2015, compared with 63 in 2014, excluding injuries in riots or combat incidents from its nonfatal-casualty figure.[18] The State Department’s terrorism report said 16 Israelis were killed in attacks in Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem during October–December 2015, including two dual U.S.–Israeli citizens and one U.S. citizen.[13]

The State Department’s human-rights report said Israeli forces killed 149 Palestinians in Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem during 2015, attributing 127 deaths to the October 1–year-end wave and saying 77 of those 127 were reportedly carrying out or attempting attacks. It also documented allegations by human-rights organizations of unlawful or excessive lethal force in some cases, alongside official claims that some of those killed were attacking or attempting to attack.[7] The State Department’s religious-freedom reports give differing geographic frames for October–December: one reports 127 Palestinians and 16 Israelis killed in the affected territories, while another gives 127 Palestinians and 22 Israelis on both sides of the Green Line, plus 20 additional Palestinian fatalities in Gaza.[10][27] Those figures describe different scopes and should not be merged.

Casualty totals therefore cannot be treated as a single settled statistic without specifying the source, period, geography, and victim category. A March 2016 CRS report gave at least 28 Israelis and 176 Palestinians killed, while the July 2016 Quartet report used its separate categories for Palestinians killed during attacks and those killed during demonstrations, clashes, or military operations.[3][26] In October 2016, a Times of Israel report attributed to Hamas a count of 249 Palestinians killed by Israel since the wave began, including 160 during attacks or attempted attacks and 89 during demonstrations; the same article reported 35 Israelis and four foreign nationals killed by Palestinian assailants. A later account covering a longer period gave different figures, including 40 Israelis, two Americans, a Palestinian, and an Eritrean killed in attacks, while citing AFP figures of about 250 Palestinians, a Jordanian, and a Sudanese migrant killed in varied circumstances.[28] The figures reflect distinct reporting dates and definitions, rather than totals that can be reconciled from the available information.

Israeli and Palestinian security services continued coordinating during the period, according to the State Department’s 2015 terrorism report.[2] The Quartet later credited a substantial part of the decline in attacks and clashes to Palestinian Authority security forces thwarting attacks, seizing weapons, and arresting suspected extremists, as well as to continued Israeli–Palestinian security coordination.[3] Its report also noted that attacks in April and June demonstrated that the underlying causes of recurring violence remained.[3]

Israeli responses included security measures at sensitive sites, deployments, and measures directed at suspected attackers. The Quartet reported expanded use of administrative detention, renewed punitive house demolitions, and closures of entire districts, while warning that these measures could further exacerbate tensions. It also recorded concerns by some senior Israeli security officials about cases in which excessive force appeared to have been used when there was no immediate threat.[3] Reports on particular incidents and wider casualty figures likewise include both security-force claims that people killed were attacking or attempting attacks and allegations of unlawful or excessive force.[7]

The ISA reported 16 attacks by Jewish attackers in 2015, the same number as in 2014, while saying the severity and resulting casualties increased. It identified the July arson attack on the Dawabsheh family home in Duma as the most prominent example; the attack killed three members of the family.[18] The State Department’s 2015 terrorism report also recorded violence by Jewish extremists and settlers, including the July arson attack on a home in Douma that killed two adults and an infant and critically injured a five-year-old. It said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported 224 attacks by violent extremist Israeli settlers in 2015 that caused Palestinian injuries or property damage, compared with 324 in 2014.[13] These attacks formed part of the wider context of violence but were distinct from the wave of Palestinian attacks discussed in the main chronology.

Israeli authorities also reported prevention and enforcement measures. In July 2016, Shin Bet chief Nadav Argaman said that since October 2015 there had been more than 300 attacks, excluding Molotov-cocktail attacks, including 180 stabbings, more than 90 shootings, and about 30 car-ramming attacks; he attributed the majority to lone attackers. He also said security services had prevented 240 major attacks between January and May 2016, including 11 suicide-bombing attempts and 10 kidnapping attempts, and attributed a recent decline partly to prevention efforts and increased deterrence.[29]

A November 2016 account based on a police and Public Security Ministry assessment reported 2,844 stone-throwing incidents in Jerusalem from January through October, compared with 4,647 in the same period of 2015. It counted 432 Molotov-cocktail incidents in January–October 2016, down from 741 in the corresponding period, and 23 stone-throwing incidents targeting the light rail in June–October, compared with 57. It also reported that deaths in Jerusalem attacks fell from eight in 2015 to three in 2016 and injuries from 84 to 37. Police and the ministry attributed the reductions to enforcement, increased police presence, and other measures, including action around the Temple Mount and social-media monitoring.[30]

The decline was gradual, not an end to violence. The State Department’s 2016 terrorism report says the heightened period that began in October 2015 abated significantly in April 2016, but sporadic stabbing, shooting, and vehicle attacks continued.[5] ITIC’s monthly count similarly recorded five significant attacks in April, followed by five to twelve per month through December.[25] In a separate assessment, the Quartet said the slowdown was significant but warned that attacks in April and June showed recurring causes persisted.[3]

The episode has no single universally used name. ITIC reported that Hamas and other organizations called it the “al-Quds intifada,” the Palestinian Authority used “popular awakening” (al-habba al-shaabiya), and Israeli media sometimes used “lone wolf intifada.”[4] INSS author Alon Ben David noted terms such as “intifada of lone individuals” and “intifada of knives,” while arguing that “intifada” fit poorly because most Palestinian society was not joining the attacks.[20] The State Department’s 2016 terrorism report used “knife intifada,” while CRS described debate about whether the unrest amounted to another intifada.[5][6]

The disagreement over terminology reflects differing assessments of the events’ scale, organization, and social participation. CRS contrasted the period with earlier intifadas, which generally had more organizational guidance and coordination, and noted that many attacks were carried out by individuals, often teenagers.[6] The Washington Institute reported limited public participation in demonstrations, usually involving dozens of teenagers and at most a few hundred people.[16] The Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs uses labels including “Third Intifada” and “Lone Wolf Intifada,” but these are source-specific names rather than an uncontested designation.[22]

Causal interpretations also differ. INSS described interacting social, national, and religious motives, along with social-media messaging, youth frustration, political alienation, and concern about the Temple Mount/al-Aqsa status quo. It cautioned against treating the escalation as a straightforward shift from a national conflict to a religious one: al-Aqsa could serve as a religiously charged symbol for motives that were also national and generational.[1] Other reports record Israeli officials’ emphasis on perceived threats to the status quo and incitement, while Palestinian Authority representatives emphasized occupation and the lack of a political horizon.[2] The State Department’s 2016 report added settlement construction, settler violence, lack of hope for statehood, and Israeli military tactics as factors Palestinians cited or perceived as drivers.[5]

The sources also differ over individual motivations and the extent of organizational influence. INSS reported that interrogated surviving attackers had been influenced by media portrayals of perceived injustice and that many had personal histories of hardship or disappointment.[20] The Shin Bet, as reported in the press, cited national discrimination, economic and personal difficulties, psychological problems, social-media influence, rumors about threats to al-Aqsa, and copycat effects as possible influences, while describing the attacks as lacking an organized political framework.[31] Other accounts discuss revenge, imitation of earlier attackers, and personal crises; these remain reported explanations, not a single established cause for the wave.[22]

The available record preserves a variety of casualty counts, from interim tallies to later cumulative figures, and distinguishes deaths during attacks from those during demonstrations, clashes, or military operations. The dates used to define the wave also vary, including September 13, October 1, and the early-October attacks; some accounts describe it as lasting into October 2016, while others track attacks through the end of that year.[4][5][26] These differences are essential to interpreting the statistics and the historical label, rather than minor discrepancies that can be resolved by combining totals.

The episode remains significant in the sources as a period in which frequent attacks by individuals, often using knives or vehicles, placed pressure on Israeli security and public life while intensifying disputes over Jerusalem’s holy sites and the political conditions of the conflict.[1][16][6] Its waning during 2016 did not eliminate sporadic attacks or the underlying disputes identified in the reports.[3][5]

The principal disputes concern the episode’s beginning, its classification, its causes, and the interpretation of casualty totals. Sources date the start variously to September 13, October 1, or the early-October attacks; the State Department’s accounts also differ in whether they date the wave to September or October.[4][2][12] Labels such as “wave of violence,” “knife intifada,” “lone wolf intifada,” and “popular awakening” carry different implications, and analysts disagree over whether the relatively limited demonstrations and frequent unaffiliated attacks justify the term “intifada.”[4][20][5][6]

Explanations for the outbreak remain contested. Israeli officials cited in U.S. reporting emphasized fears about a possible change to the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif status quo and incitement; Palestinian Authority representatives emphasized occupation and the lack of a political horizon. Israeli statements denied plans to change the status quo, while the Jerusalem Institute documents conflicting perceptions of specific visits, police actions, assurances, and responsibility for the crisis.[2][9] The sources also differ on the weight of personal grievances, social media, religious and national motives, imitation, and factional influence.[1][31][24]

Fatality and attack totals should be read with their dates and definitions. Reports use different geographic boundaries and distinguish serious completed attacks, attempts, stone-throwing, demonstrations, and deaths during clashes or security operations. For example, State Department religious-freedom reports give different Israeli death totals for overlapping periods, while the Quartet separately counts Palestinians killed while attacking and those killed in demonstrations, clashes, or military operations.[3][8] These figures are not directly interchangeable and are retained here as separately reported counts.