Israeli Responses to the First Intifada

The Israeli intelligence community and military authorities did not anticipate a popular uprising and initially expected that the disturbances beginning in Gaza in December 1987 would remain limited and quickly subside.[8] Five days into the unrest, an Israeli assessment described the situation as a wave of disorder rather than civil revolt, reported that security forces controlled the situation, and predicted that the unrest would pass within days. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir similarly argued that most residents wanted public order and that the IDF remained in control.[9] These assessments proved mistaken.

The IDF had no established plans for sustained civil unrest, and many of the troops deployed were trained primarily for conventional combat rather than crowd control in densely populated areas.[10] Former Southern Command chief Yitzhak Mordechai recalled that only 50 reservists had been assigned to maintain order in Jabalya on the morning of December 9, 1987. After a Palestinian youth throwing stones was shot and killed, the situation rapidly escaped control.[2] Mordechai said that his command initially had about 10 companies — roughly 800 personnel — and little equipment, while Gaza had approximately 650,000 residents. He also said that the army lacked intelligence, doctrine, and suitable training for the situation.[2]

Responsibilities in the territories were divided among the IDF, Border Police, Shin Bet, Civil Administration, regular police, and Israel Prisons Service, without effective coordination.[2] Large reinforcements were not sent to Gaza until two weeks after the rioting began, and reinforcements for Judea and Samaria arrived later.[8]

During the first two weeks, Israeli forces operating in small units frequently confronted large crowds and opened fire. Twelve people were killed and 108 wounded in Gaza, while seven were killed and 56 wounded in Judea and Samaria.[8] By the end of December 1987, 24 demonstrators had been killed.[11] A report published around the first anniversary estimated that more than 300 Palestinians had been killed, approximately 5,500 detained, and between 3,000 and 20,000 wounded, with the injury range reflecting differing IDF and UNRWA figures.[12]

Israel's initial response extended methods it had employed against violent and non-violent protests in the territories since 1967. The IDF used live fire, tear gas, beatings, and widespread arrests in an effort to restore calm and deter rioters. Israel also expelled activists, imposed administrative detention and curfews, and closed universities and colleges.[3] Pre-uprising policies characterized as an "Iron Fist" also included censorship, travel controls, deportations, home demolitions, border closures, trade restrictions, and destruction of agricultural property.[11]

The first reinforcements in Gaza were improvised. Mordechai recalled that after a request for additional forces was refused, he activated a Givati battalion without authorization and imposed a curfew on Jabalya. Rabin ordered large-scale reinforcements the following day, although Mordechai said that implementation was delayed.[2] The force in Gaza eventually grew to 70 companies, with the Border Police becoming the main operational element. Officials also began weekly coordination meetings under the defense minister and developed a doctrine for dispersing demonstrations.[2]

Nightly curfews were imposed on Palestinian towns and villages, while workers commuting into Israel were screened and subjected to border examinations. School closures in communities considered prone to violence affected approximately 300,000 children, and the West Bank's six largest colleges remained closed for more than four years, until early 1992.[13] House demolitions, destruction or confiscation of agricultural land, mass arrests, and curfews lasting as long as a week were also employed.[11]

International media coverage focused heavily on confrontations between armed Israeli soldiers and Palestinian stone-throwing youths. These images generated international sympathy for the Palestinian cause and criticism of Israel.[3][8] A CBS camera crew recorded soldiers beating two Palestinian teenagers in early 1988, and retrospective reporting described such footage as influential in presenting the conflict as an asymmetrical confrontation. Broadcast images of live fire against stone-throwers were associated with more than 15 deaths in the uprising's first weeks and were followed by international condemnation.[12]

Rabin became closely associated with a hardline posture. Former commander Yehuda Meir recalled that Rabin told commanders, "Break their bones." Meir said he interpreted the statement literally and that security forces began beating demonstrators to disperse crowds. He also said that neither Rabin nor outgoing chief of staff Dan Shomron supported him when he was prosecuted, demoted from colonel to private, and expelled from the IDF.[2] The wording, intent, and status of Rabin's statement as a formal directive remain disputed; other retrospective sources describe the government as publicly encouraging the breaking of bones or refer more generally to an order to break limbs rather than shoot.[14][11]

Retired IDF Military Advocate General Amnon Straschnov said that Israel relied on British-era emergency defense regulations enacted in 1945. According to his retrospective account, Israel held approximately 200 administrative detainees before the uprising and was required to bring each before a judge within 48 hours. When the number of detainees reached into the thousands, the procedure was changed so detainees could petition to appear before a judge rather than being brought automatically. Straschnov also described six-month detention periods requiring military-judge approval, judicial approval for extensions, and access to Supreme Court review.[15]

The United Nations reported that thousands of Palestinians were detained during the uprising, thousands were transferred to prisons in Israel, and many were deported. Reports submitted to the General Assembly also documented severe measures and instances of maltreatment in Israeli prisons.[16] B'Tselem data reproduced in INSS research records that, from the uprising's beginning through September 13, 1993, 1,060 Palestinians were killed by Israeli security forces and another 54 by Israeli civilians.[3] Encyclopedia.com gives figures of 1,205 Palestinians and 172 Israelis killed between December 8, 1987, and September 13, 1993, with approximately 175,000 Palestinians arrested, while noting that casualty estimates vary.[11]

As civilian participation declined and armed attacks increased, Israeli measures intensified. Special units pursued activists, arrests were conducted regularly, and parents could be charged steep fines to secure the release of children arrested for stone throwing. In October 1990, the Ministry of Defense approved opening fire at stone throwers when soldiers' lives appeared to be in danger.[3] Rubber bullets were introduced to disperse protesters and reduce casualties but were sometimes lethal.[3] Other crowd-control equipment included stun grenades, tear gas, trucks fitted to spray malodorous liquid, and a device nicknamed "the gravel-maker," which projected small stones toward stone-throwers.[10]

By the uprising's second year, Israeli military strategy had changed substantially in response to defense, financial, and political considerations. The approach, first tried in Gaza, paid less attention to passive resistance and commercial strikes as long as roads remained clear and army movement remained possible. Many villages and portions of Gaza were left alone, while preemptive curfews, economic and administrative pressure, efforts to rebuild intelligence networks, and aggressive tactics against leaders of violent activity continued. Troop levels were reduced by more than 50 percent, and rules of engagement were changed.[4]

Rabin and the IDF also treated the revised strategy as serving a political objective: persuading Palestinians that continued confrontation would produce rising costs and casualties while Israel's proposed elections plan offered an alternative. The Washington Institute report characterized the strategy as "an open admission of the IDF's limitations" and an acknowledgment that the pre-uprising calm would not return. It reported that Rabin expected the costs of prolonged unrest to weigh more heavily on Palestinians than on Israel.[4]

Toward the end of the first year, as mass riots waned, Israel reduced its military presence in refugee camps and towns. From mid-1989 onward, fewer activists were expelled, and the destruction or sealing of homes in response to attacks declined. By mid-1991, the Civil Administration had approved economic initiatives and worked to reopen educational institutions closed during the unrest. The effect of these adjustments remained unclear; the INSS account cautions that the uprising changed form rather than simply ending.[3]

The First Intifada exposed limits in the IDF's ability to confront a violent grassroots uprising. The army reinforced forces on the ground, altered operational methods, and developed non-lethal crowd-control means. The shift toward policing-style tasks inaugurated a longer process of structural change that included the creation of territorial divisions for Judea and Samaria and Gaza, specialized undercover units, the later Kfir Brigade, and deeper integration of Border Patrol forces into military activity.[5]

Israel also pursued suspected PLO leaders outside the territories. In February 1988, Mossad agents assassinated three Fatah military commanders in Limassol, Cyprus. About two months later, Israeli commandos killed Abu Jihad — Yasser Arafat's deputy — and 17 associates at his headquarters in Tunis. Shin Bet personnel pursued PLO and Hamas terrorists in the territories, making arrests and sometimes killing suspects during raids and firefights.[13]

Straschnov characterized Israel's posture during the First Intifada as maintaining control on the ground using jeeps rather than tanks, helicopters, or armored personnel carriers. His statement is a former senior military legal official's description of the period rather than a comprehensive inventory of every Israeli deployment or operation.[15]

A major violent episode occurred during Sukkot in October 1990, when disturbances broke out on the Temple Mount. Seventeen Palestinians were killed and approximately 150 wounded. The disturbances were linked to an attempt by members of the Temple Mount Faithful to lay a cornerstone for a new Temple. Israeli police subsequently barred Jewish worship on the Temple Mount, including individual worship.[17]

The killings drew international condemnation. A Jerusalem Institute history concludes that the episode strengthened Hamas in Jerusalem to some extent, although it did not appear to alter the city's overall balance of political forces significantly.[18]

One of the most internationally noticed Israeli actions of the uprising followed the kidnapping and murder of Border Police Sergeant Major Nissim Toledano in December 1992. A Hamas cell abducted Toledano with the intention of exchanging him for Hamas prisoners, especially Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, but killed him at a hiding place near Ma'ale Adumim.[18] The government subsequently arrested more than 1,200 people and deported 415 imprisoned Hamas and Islamic Jihad activists to Lebanon.[10]

Lebanon refused to receive the deportees, who remained in a camp in the no-man's-land between Israel and Lebanon. Most were eventually returned to Judea and Samaria and Gaza.[10] The action generated extensive international criticism. Earlier in the uprising, Security Council resolutions 607 and 608 in January 1988 and 636 and 641 in July and August 1989 had called on Israel to desist from deporting Palestinian civilians and to ensure the safe and immediate return of those already deported.[16]

The international response to Israeli measures was swift and largely critical. On December 22, 1987, less than two weeks after the uprising began, UN Security Council Resolution 605 deplored Israeli policies and practices it characterized as violations of Palestinian human rights, specifically citing the opening of fire by the Israeli army that killed and wounded Palestinian civilians. The Security Council, General Assembly, and secretary-general continued to express concern over Israeli measures during the following years.[16]

The United Nations characterized house demolitions, prolonged curfews, and restrictive economic measures as collective reprisals. Its account also reported that schools, colleges, and universities were closed for extended periods, informal teaching was prohibited, social services were curtailed, and media and civil organizations were outlawed.[16] It documented more than 1,000 Palestinians killed and tens of thousands injured between 1987 and 1993, with force including live ammunition, beatings, and sometimes lethal use of tear gas.[16]

Media images of armed soldiers confronting stone-throwing children and teenagers played an important role in generating international attention and sympathy for the Palestinian struggle.[3][8] The uprising returned the Palestinian question to the international agenda, while its political effects, the end of the Cold War, and a changed international climate helped create conditions for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.[7]

Israel pursued political and diplomatic initiatives alongside its security measures. In late January 1989, Rabin announced a proposed two-stage process: negotiations with representatives elected in the territories on an interim arrangement, followed after a transitional period by talks on a permanent solution. He proposed three to six months of calm and elections for political representation as prerequisites. Palestinian leaders publicly rejected the plan while acknowledging positive elements in Rabin's willingness to consider accommodation and a possible Jordanian-territorial confederation.[8]

On May 14, 1989, the Israeli government formally proposed elections in the West Bank and Gaza as a way to initiate negotiations. The elections were the centerpiece of a proposed interim arrangement. Israeli aims included creating a locally based Palestinian negotiating leadership and reducing Israel's administrative responsibility for the population without surrendering territorial control. At this stage, Israel rejected both an independent Palestinian state and the PLO as a negotiating partner.[4]

East Jerusalem residents were excluded from the proposed elections. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's September 1989 ten-point proposal sought common ground and called for Palestinians in East Jerusalem to participate, reflecting Egypt's position that Jerusalem was part of the West Bank.[17]

Dore Gold argues that Shamir's national-unity government frequently sent mixed messages abroad during this period. In Gold's account, Shamir sought a formula based on the Camp David autonomy proposals and Jordanian involvement — a "functional compromise" rather than a settlement based solely on territorial withdrawal.[19]

At the Madrid Peace Conference in October 1991, jointly sponsored by the United States and Soviet Union, Israel held its first direct, face-to-face talks with Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and the Palestinians. Israel refused to negotiate with the terrorist PLO, so Palestinians were represented by residents of the West Bank and Gaza who were not formally associated with it, although PLO figures were widely understood to be guiding the delegation.[20] Israel demanded that Jerusalem not be discussed and that Jerusalem residents be excluded from the Palestinian delegation, while the joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation pressed for Jerusalem representatives and sought East Jerusalem's inclusion in interim self-rule arrangements.[17] Madrid produced no formal agreement but led to further talks and helped lay the groundwork for the Oslo process.[20]

The uprising imposed substantial economic costs on Israel. More than 60,000 Palestinians commuted from the West Bank and Gaza to work in Israel, and their strikes left parts of the construction industry and major citrus plantations nearly paralyzed for more than half a year. By February 1988, augmented military forces cost an estimated $5 million per day, Israeli business losses reached $19 million per day, and tourism had fallen by 50 percent by midsummer.[13]

Israeli casualties were also significant. INSS data reports that from the outbreak through the September 1993 Declaration of Principles, 53 Israelis were killed in terrorist attacks inside the Green Line, 47 Israelis in attacks in the West Bank and Gaza, 43 soldiers in the territories, and 17 soldiers in attacks inside the Green Line.[3] For the first four years, the IDF recorded more than 3,600 Molotov-cocktail attacks, 100 hand-grenade attacks, and 600 assaults with guns or explosives. Sixteen Israeli civilians and 11 soldiers were killed by Palestinians in the territories, while more than 1,400 civilians and 1,700 soldiers were injured.[21]

The uprising also imposed institutional and psychological costs on the IDF. Israeli soldiers had been trained for combat rather than this form of uprising, and confusing directives accompanied some abuses.[6] An INSS retrospective concludes that the uprising's duration undermined Rabin's confidence that the IDF could meet the challenge through military means alone.[5]

After Israel's June 1992 election brought a Labor government led by Rabin to power on a "land for peace" platform, secret negotiations with the PLO began.[11] An INSS retrospective identifies the uprising's prolonged duration as one factor that led Rabin to support the secret Israeli-Palestinian dialogue in Oslo. The talks sought understandings that could lay the groundwork for peace negotiations, and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres oversaw and advanced the process until May 1993.[5]

The Oslo Accords included mutual-recognition letters between Israel and the PLO and established an interim Palestinian self-governing authority.[7] The Israel-PLO Mutual Recognition Memo, signed on September 13, 1993, formally ended the First Intifada according to the IDF and Ministry of Defense Archive.[1] Other accounts describe the uprising as beginning to die down around the signing of the Declaration of Principles, distinguishing its gradual decline from its formal endpoint.[11]

Accounts differ on the causes of the earlier decline. A Ynet retrospective attributes the decline beginning in 1991 to a combination of Israeli security-force actions, economic damage, and falling Palestinian living standards associated with arrests and closures.[9] A Mako retrospective instead emphasizes the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent Gulf War, arguing that they diverted Arab and international attention and reduced the uprising's momentum.[10]

The First Intifada left a lasting imprint on Israeli military organization, political culture, and strategic thinking. It forced the IDF to develop new crowd-control methods and policing capabilities and began a longer organizational process that produced territorial divisions, specialized undercover units, deeper Border Patrol integration, and eventually the Kfir Brigade.[5]

The uprising returned the Palestinian question to the international agenda and demonstrated to many Israelis that continued control of the West Bank and Gaza could not be treated as cost-free or indefinite.[7] It strengthened a public desire for normalcy and an end to the conflict, contributing to support for the peace negotiations of the 1990s.[6] Israeli public opinion shifted toward negotiations even as some settlers revived calls for Palestinian population transfer, and televised images of adolescents confronting armed soldiers influenced both Israeli and international opinion.[11]

Rabin's trajectory became emblematic in later retrospectives. After serving as defense minister during the period of harsh initial measures, he became prime minister in 1992 and pursued the negotiations that produced Oslo. These accounts present his shift as a realization that the conflict could not be resolved by force alone.[5][22] The uprising, the end of the Cold War, and the changed international environment together helped create the conditions for the secret Oslo talks.[7] Israel's experience of the First Intifada was therefore an important factor in both military adaptation and the political calculations that led to Oslo.

Casualty figures vary by source, counting methodology, and reporting period. B'Tselem data reproduced by INSS gives 1,060 Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces through September 13, 1993, while the Congressional Research Service reports more than 1,100 Palestinians and 160 Israelis killed over the six-year uprising.[3][7] Encyclopedia.com, also citing B'Tselem, gives 1,205 Palestinians and 172 Israelis killed between December 8, 1987, and September 13, 1993.[11] Britannica cites an International Red Cross estimate of more than 800 Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces by mid-1990, including more than 200 under age 16.[23] Because the figures cover different periods and categories, they are not directly comparable.

The phrase attributed to Rabin — "break their bones" or "break their arms and legs" — remains disputed in wording, context, and institutional significance. A Congressional Record retrospective states that the uprising caused Rabin to order the breaking of limbs instead of shooting, but the excerpt supplies no supporting documentation.[14] Former commander Yehuda Meir recalled receiving the instruction in person and said he applied it literally, while Encyclopedia.com describes the government as publicly encouraging the IDF to "break their bones."[11][2] These sources establish that the phrase circulated in contemporary and retrospective accounts, but not that its precise wording or formal status is uncontested.

The effects of Israeli force on the uprising's trajectory are also debated. INSS researcher Anat Kurz reports that the firm early response was regarded as fueling unrest, while other accounts emphasize that small Israeli units frequently faced large, violent crowds and sometimes opened fire when they believed themselves endangered.[3][8] Sources likewise differ on the reasons for the uprising's decline: some emphasize Israeli security measures and their economic effects, while others give greater weight to the Gulf crisis and the diversion of international attention.[10][9]