Civilian Casualties in the Second Intifada

The confrontation began at the end of September 2000, following Ariel Sharon’s September 28 visit to the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif compound in Jerusalem.[7] Seven Palestinians were killed and about 300 wounded in the riots the following day.[8] During five days of clashes, at least 50 people were killed and approximately 1,500 injured, most of them Palestinians.[7]

The first months consisted largely of mass disturbances and confrontations between Israeli security forces and Palestinians.[8] Attacks on Israeli vehicles, killings in Palestinian Authority areas, and ambushes of Israeli soldiers were common forms of violence, whereas attacks in public places were initially rare.[8] Early demonstrations included unarmed Palestinian protesters, while Israeli police used rubber-coated metal bullets and live ammunition.[9] By April 30, 2001, nearly 500 people had been killed and more than 10,000 injured, with Palestinians constituting the overwhelming majority in both categories.[9]

The October 2000 Arab–Jewish clashes also produced civilian deaths inside Israel: 12 Arab Israelis and one Palestinian were killed in clashes with police.[10] An Israeli Jew was killed when Arab rioters stoned his car.[10] These deaths formed a distinct component of the violence surrounding the uprising’s opening weeks, rather than a civilian toll confined to the principal fighting in the Palestinian territories.[2][10]

By the end of October 2000, Palestinian fatality estimates ranged from 129 to 141, while 11 Israelis, civilians and soldiers combined, had been killed.[8] For November–December, the corresponding Palestinian estimates were 170 and 186 deaths; the higher series also recorded approximately 540 wounded.[8] Israeli deaths during those two months totaled 31.[8] In the first three months of 2001, Palestinian estimates ranged from 67 to 82 killed, with approximately 700 wounded in the latter series, while 28 Israelis were killed.[8]

For September 28, 2000–April 30, 2001, the average monthly civilian share of Palestinian fatalities was 85.7%, ranging from 79.6% to 91.8%; Palestinian security-force personnel accounted for an average of 14.3%.[2] Among Israeli fatalities, civilians averaged 62.6% and military personnel 37.4%, with the monthly civilian share ranging from 33.3% to 100%.[2] These figures describe the opening seven months, not the civilian proportions throughout the entire uprising.[2]

During that period, 98.2% of Palestinian fatalities occurred in the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — and the Gaza Strip: 54.1% in the former and 44.1% in the latter.[2] Israeli military forces were involved in 97.9% of the Palestinian fatalities included in that analysis.[2] Its geographic accounting excluded the 13 people described there as Israeli Arabs killed at the beginning of the violence.[2]

A suicide bombing in Netanya on March 4, 2001, killed three people.[8] Escalation during March–December 2001 brought 185 Israeli deaths; 35 suicide bombings were carried out and another 16 were thwarted during that period.[8] Separate suicide bombings in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in June and August killed 36 civilians.[7] The June 1 Dolphinarium bombing killed 21 people and wounded 120.[11]

Hamas and Islamic Jihad began suicide-bombing campaigns directed mostly against civilians in Israel and the occupied territories after 144 Palestinians had been killed.[12] From January 2002, the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade also carried out suicide bombings directed mostly against Israeli civilians.[12] These campaigns increasingly brought lethal attacks into places used for ordinary urban life.[3][5]

During 2001, Israeli security forces killed at least 501 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, including at least 103 Palestinian Authority security-force members.[4] Most Palestinian deaths occurred during demonstrations, armed clashes, targeted killings, incursions, at checkpoints, or from fire directed toward Palestinian civilian areas.[4] Shelling of Palestinian Authority institutions and Palestinian civilian areas killed 93 Palestinians and injured 1,500.[4]

Five schoolboys in Gaza died after finding and apparently touching unexploded ordnance placed by the Israeli military to target Palestinian gunmen.[4] Senior officers reprimanded those responsible for laying the mine, saying they should have known that schoolchildren used the area.[4] Such incidents added deaths outside direct exchanges of fire to the civilian toll.[4]

Approximately 208 Israelis died in suicide bombings, shootings, and other attacks in Israel and the occupied territories during 2001.[4] A geographically narrower estimate recorded 87 Israeli deaths in the occupied territories; neither figure was a civilian-only total.[4] By April 2002, a separate count covering terror attacks since October 2000 recorded 319 civilians killed and 3,313 injured, including 104 killed and 833 injured since the beginning of March.[13]

The first three months of 2002 brought 173 Israeli deaths in terrorist attacks and 372 Palestinian deaths.[8] The March 27 Passover bombing at the Park Hotel in Netanya killed 29 people and injured 140 in one contemporary accounting; a later retrospective recorded 30 killed and 140 wounded.[6][11] For April–June 2002, period totals recorded 130 Israelis killed, including soldiers killed during the military operation, and 371 Palestinians killed.[8]

Operation Defensive Shield involved fighting in Palestinian-controlled cities including Qalqilya, Tulkarem, Bethlehem, Jenin, and Nablus.[14] Palestinian civilians were killed alongside combatants during fighting in these densely populated cities.[14] In the Jenin refugee camp operation, one contemporary accounting recorded 52 Palestinian deaths, including 22 unarmed civilians, and 14 Israeli soldiers killed.[6] The operation was described by the Israeli government as targeting armed men responsible for attacks that had killed more than 70 Israelis since March.[6] About 140 homes were destroyed and approximately 4,000 camp residents were left homeless.[6]

For 2002 as a whole, Israeli security forces killed at least 990 Palestinians and two foreign nationals; 132 of the Palestinian dead were Palestinian Authority security-force members.[6] Targeted-killing operations killed at least 25 bystanders, including 13 children.[6] In the occupied territories, Palestinians killed 74 Israeli civilians, 82 Israeli security personnel, and three foreign nationals.[6] Cumulative figures recorded in the 2002 reporting were 1,782 Palestinians, 649 Israelis, and 41 foreign nationals killed since the uprising began.[6]

A March 5, 2003 bus bombing in Haifa killed 15 Israeli civilians and wounded 30.[15] Another account of that period described more than 20 Palestinian civilians killed following Israeli operations in Gaza, including a pregnant woman approximately 10 days from her due date.[15] For 2003, annual reporting recorded at least 573 Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces and 47 bystanders killed in targeted killings, including children.[16] It also recorded Palestinians killing 25 Israeli civilians and 39 Israeli security personnel during the year.[16]

Five targeted killings in Gaza City within 48 hours beginning June 11 killed 23 Palestinians, including 18 bystanders.[16] In one June 12 strike, the intended target and six bystanders died, among them an 18-month-old child and a pregnant woman.[16] A May 1 incursion into Gaza City killed five Palestinian bystanders, including a one-year-old child inside his home.[16] Cumulative figures in the 2003 reporting reached 2,369 Palestinians, 856 Israelis, and 48 foreign nationals killed; 41 of those foreign nationals were identified as U.S. citizens.[16]

By early 2004, one broad estimate placed Palestinian deaths at about 3,000, most of them civilians and including approximately 500 children, and Israeli deaths at about 900, also mostly civilians.[12] A separate accounting for the first 36 months recorded 889 Israeli deaths: 628 civilians and 261 security-force members.[17] Through April 2004, another series estimated 2,720 Palestinians killed and more than 25,000 wounded over the first 42 months.[8] That series did not provide an overall Palestinian civilian breakdown.[8]

During a March 7, 2004 incursion into two northern Gaza refugee camps, Israeli forces killed 10 Palestinian armed men and four civilians, including three children.[18] Operation Rainbow in Rafah, which began May 17, killed more than 40 Palestinians, including civilians.[18] On May 19, at least 10 Palestinians were killed and more than 50 wounded when tank shells exploded near demonstrators in Rafah.[18]

For 2004, more than 800 Palestinians were killed during Israeli military operations.[19] Palestinian attacks killed 76 Israeli civilians and four foreign nationals in Israel and the occupied territories, while 41 Israeli security-force members were killed in clashes.[19] During the September–October operation in northern Gaza, estimates of Palestinian fatalities ranged from 107 to as many as 130.[19] The cumulative figures recorded for the uprising in the 2004 reporting were 3,517 Palestinians, 1,051 Israelis, and 52 foreign nationals killed.[19]

Buses, hotels, nightclubs, and restaurants were targets of Palestinian terrorist suicide bombings during the uprising.[3] Attacks generally occurred in urban centers and caused large numbers of civilian deaths and injuries.[20] Other lethal attacks included shootings, ambushes, stabbings, stonings, lynchings, bombings, and rockets; approximately 275 attacks resulted in at least one death in one retrospective accounting.[11]

One count of suicide-bombing fatalities during the Second Intifada recorded 525 people killed, comprising 513 civilians and 12 Israeli security-force members.[21] A separate government classification also used a total of 525 but divided the victims into 425 Israeli civilians, 27 foreign citizens, and 73 security-force members.[22] Of those 73 security personnel, 61 were killed at locations classified as clearly civilian, rather than in attacks deliberately aimed at military or security sites.[22]

Another accounting placed suicide-bombing deaths at 525 out of 1,085 Israelis killed by Palestinian terrorists during 2000–2005, describing the vast majority of those killed overall as civilians.[3] A broader study of the decade beginning in September 2000 recorded 516 suicide-attack deaths out of 1,178 deaths, or 43.8%.[5] The latter denominator extends beyond the approximately five-year uprising and does not separate civilians from security personnel.[5]

Suicide bombings peaked between 2001 and 2003.[23] A longer-period estimate, extending from the Oslo years through the end of the Second Intifada, placed their toll at approximately 700 Israeli lives, mostly civilians within Israel proper.[23] By the end of September 2004, Palestinians had carried out 138 suicide bombings in another retrospective count.[24] Across the Second Intifada, one separate estimate recorded 743 civilian deaths in terror attacks of all kinds.[25]

At the February 8, 2005 Sharm el-Sheikh summit, the leaders declared the Second Intifada over, although sporadic violence continued.[26] A rounded estimate associated with that endpoint placed the toll at more than 1,000 Israelis and around 4,000 Palestinians killed, without a civilian-only breakdown.[26] A September 2005 accounting recorded 1,064 Israeli deaths over five years: 745 civilians and 319 security-force members.[1] It also recorded 7,462 Israelis injured, including 5,212 civilians, and more than 4,000 Palestinians killed.[1]

For September 2000–December 2005, a government review recorded 1,084 Israelis killed and 7,454 injured.[27] The peak year for Israeli fatalities was 2002, with 453 killed and approximately 2,350 injured.[27] In 2005, terrorist activity killed 54 Israelis—44 civilians and 10 security-force members—and injured 484.[27] Seven suicide bombings that year killed 23 people, mostly civilians, and injured approximately 160.[27]

The same review distinguished Palestinian deaths during Israeli counter-activities from deaths caused by other attacks, recording 72 armed Palestinians, 25 civilians, and one Palestinian police officer killed during those counter-activities in 2005.[27] It separately recorded four Shfar’am residents killed on August 4 by an absent-without-leave Israeli soldier, and four Palestinian workers killed on August 17 by a resident of Shilo.[27]

Deaths were accompanied by a much larger burden of injury.[8][1] A later retrospective recorded approximately 30,000 Palestinians injured during the period and 3,315 Palestinians killed by Israeli security-force fire by September 27, 2005.[24] Another reference table estimated 8,000 Israeli and 8,611 Palestinian injuries for 2000–2005.[28] Suicide attacks also caused thousands of physical and emotional casualties and fostered a sense of danger in streets, public transportation, and entertainment venues.[5]

By September 19, 2004, one Israeli military data series recorded 989 Israeli deaths—694 civilians and 295 security-force members—and 6,709 wounded, including 4,711 civilians and 1,998 security personnel.[8] A separate security-service estimate placed Israeli losses at 1,017 killed and 5,598 wounded.[8] These cumulative accounts preserve the substantial civilian component of Israeli losses while also recording deaths and injuries among security personnel.[8]

A mid-September 2004 accounting recorded approximately 640 Israeli civilian deaths and approximately 2,860 Palestinian deaths.[29] Nearly 1,550 of the Palestinians were classified as not having participated in fighting, including about 500 children and teenagers.[29] During the preceding year, 490 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli security-force fire, at least 309 of whom had not participated in fighting.[29] That accounting also recorded 32 Palestinians killed by Israeli civilians and 40 foreign nationals killed in Palestinian attacks.[29]

A 2006 report recorded 3,302 Palestinians killed in the West Bank and Gaza since the uprising began.[30] Of these, 1,793 were classified as not participating in combat when killed, although they might have been combatants at another time; participation at the time of death remained uncertain in 559 additional cases.[30] The distinction concerned conduct when killed rather than necessarily establishing a person’s status throughout the conflict.[30]

One 2000–2005 table lists 1,100 Israeli and 4,907 Palestinian deaths and explicitly combines civilians with military personnel.[28] Other accounts give nearly 3,500 Palestinian and 1,061 Israeli deaths by September 2005, or 3,000 Palestinians and more than 900 Israelis killed between September 2000 and a 2005 ceasefire.[31][32] A retrospective gives 1,053 Israeli fatalities, approximately 70% civilian, while another estimates roughly 1,100 killed and more than 8,300 wounded.[33][11] Figures extending through the end of 2006 reach 4,046 Palestinians and 1,019 Israelis killed.[34]

Civilian protection became an important Israeli concern shaped by the conflict.[25] The repeated bombing of everyday public spaces broadened civilian exposure well beyond soldiers and residents of the territories.[5] Palestinian civilian deaths during targeted killings also provoked public criticism within Israel and international condemnation.[20]

Accountability formed another part of the aftermath: by mid-September 2004, 88 military investigations had been opened following Palestinian deaths or injuries from soldiers’ fire, leading to 22 indictments and one manslaughter conviction.[29] The Or Commission’s examination of the October 2000 clashes found that police had used excessive force and that senior officials, including Prime Minister Ehud Barak, had failed to prepare adequately.[10]

Civilian classification is a central limitation of the casualty record: the opening seven-month percentage analysis did not explain its civilian-classification rules, while its lethal-incident count excluded violence causing injuries but no deaths.[2] For Palestinian deaths in 2004, estimates included approximately half classified as noncombatants, a count of 452 described as “innocent,” and an assessment that most were armed fighters or involved in planning or carrying out violence.[19] For the northern Gaza operation, civilian estimates ranged from 19 to about 50, the latter including at least 26 minors.[19]

Jenin became a prominent dispute: claims of up to 500 civilian deaths contrasted with accounts placing Palestinian deaths at approximately 50–56, mostly armed combatants, and Israeli deaths at 23.[15] The lower Palestinian total was subsequently supported by international researchers.[15] At Rafah on May 19, 2004, Israeli officials described tank fire as warning shots and claimed gunmen were present; Palestinians disputed that claim, the contemporary account found no substantiating evidence, and the military expressed regret over civilian deaths.[18]

Differences in cutoff dates and updates also prevent simple reconciliation.[31][33] A table extending through November 2006 listed 787 Israeli civilians and 331 security personnel killed, but retained an older attack-category breakdown totaling fewer deaths.[35] One government suicide-bombing document alternated between 525 and 527 deaths and between 147 and 146 attacks.[22] A 2013 retrospective incorrectly labeled all 1,064 Israeli fatalities as civilians while also including 319 security personnel, unlike the earlier breakdown of 745 civilians and 319 security personnel.[24][1] These figures cannot be treated as interchangeable final civilian totals.[22][24]