Israeli–Palestinian Conflict: 2003

By early 2003, the Second Intifada had claimed hundreds of Israeli lives. The year 2002 saw 5,301 attacks against Israeli targets and 451 Israelis killed — soldiers and civilians combined — a toll that concentrated international pressure on all parties to find a political framework capable of halting the violence.[4]

The answer came on April 30, 2003, when the Quartet — the United States, European Union, Russia, and United Nations — presented the "Performance-Based Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution" to Israel and the Palestinian Authority.[6][1] The plan was structured in three phases. Phase I focused on ending violence and incitement, normalizing Palestinian civilian life, and building Palestinian institutions; among its specific provisions was the reopening of the Palestinian Chamber of Commerce and other closed Palestinian institutions in East Jerusalem.[7] Phase II, scheduled for June through December 2003, envisaged the possible establishment of an independent Palestinian state with provisional borders and attributes of sovereignty, alongside continued security cooperation and democratic institution-building.[8] Phase III projected a permanent-status agreement — covering borders, Jerusalem, refugees, and settlements — by 2004–2005.[1]

The Roadmap described its logic as reciprocal: progress in each phase was conditional on both parties meeting their obligations.[9] It called on the Palestinian Authority to end violence and incitement, restrain groups planning or carrying out attacks, and reform security institutions. Simultaneously, Israel was required to withdraw from territories entered since September 2000 as security cooperation progressed, freeze settlement activity, and dismantle certain unauthorized settlement outposts.[1]

Israel's government accepted the plan on May 25 subject to fourteen reservations, after a U.S. statement said Israeli concerns would be addressed "fully and seriously" during implementation. The Palestinian Authority also announced its acceptance.[7][3] On May 26, Sharon made what the Congressional Research Service described as his first public use of the word "occupation," saying, "to keep 3.5 million people under occupation is bad for us and them."[5]

Even as diplomacy gathered pace, Palestinian terrorist organizations continued attacks throughout the early months of 2003. On January 5, two suicide bombers detonated explosives near Tel Aviv's old central bus station. The U.S. State Department recorded 22 people killed and at least 100 wounded, while a Congressional Research Service chronology gave 23 killed and 100 wounded.[10][11] The State Department reported that the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claimed responsibility, while a Jewish Virtual Library timeline listed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.[10][12]

On March 5, a suicide bomber detonated an explosive belt aboard Egged route 37 in Haifa as the bus traveled from the central bus station toward the University of Haifa. Contemporary Ynet reporting identified 15 people killed, including many teenagers and young adults; a later Ynet retrospective gave 17 dead.[13][14] The contemporary account tentatively identified the attacker as a 20-year-old Hamas member from Hebron, but said no Palestinian organization had officially claimed responsibility at the time.[13]

On March 7, Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat named Mahmoud Abbas — also known as Abu Mazen — as Palestinian prime minister, a move the Congressional Research Service described as a gesture intended to appeal to the Quartet.[5] Other accounts date the formal appointment to March 10.[12]

On March 30, Islamic Jihad carried out a suicide bombing at a café in Netanya that wounded 38 people; the bomber was the only fatality. The organization characterized the attack as a "gift to the people of Iraq," referring to the U.S.-led invasion then under way.[10]

On April 29 or 30 — sources differ on the date — a suicide bombing struck Mike's Place, a Tel Aviv waterfront restaurant. The Israeli Security Agency's annual review dates the attack to April 30, identifies the bomber as Asif Hanif and his helper as Omar Khan Sharif, both British citizens, and records three people killed and more than 60 wounded. It describes this as the first terrorist attack in Israel carried out by perpetrators holding foreign passports.[4]

May brought two more major attacks. On May 18, a suicide bomber disguised as a religious Jew detonated a device on Egged route 6 in Jerusalem's French Hill district, killing seven people and wounding at least 20; Hamas claimed responsibility. The following day, a female Palestinian student carried out a suicide bombing at a shopping mall in Afula, killing three and wounding 52, with Islamic Jihad and the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades both claiming responsibility.[10] The May 18 attack prompted Sharon to cancel a planned trip to Washington to discuss the Roadmap with President Bush.[15]

On June 3, President Bush traveled to Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, where he met Arab leaders including Jordan's King Abdullah II, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, Bahrain's King Hamad al-Khalifa, and Palestinian Prime Minister Abbas to seek regional support for the Roadmap.[16] The following day, King Abdullah hosted Bush, Sharon, and Abbas at Aqaba, Jordan, in a summit intended to begin implementing the plan.[12]

At Aqaba, Abbas called for an end to the armed intifada and renounced terrorism, declaring that the Palestinian goal was two states living in peace and security. He pledged to establish the rule of law and ensure that weapons remained in the hands of those responsible for maintaining order.[12] Sharon recognized the importance of territorial contiguity for a viable Palestinian state and committed to removing unauthorized outposts.[5] Abbas also stated that the Palestinian Authority had accepted the Roadmap without reservations.[6]

On June 11, a Hamas suicide bomber detonated a device aboard an Egged route 14 bus near Jerusalem's Central Mall. The State Department recorded 16 people killed and at least 70 wounded; Ynet reported 16 killed and more than 100 wounded.[17][18] Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin said the attack was revenge for an Israeli helicopter strike the previous day targeting Hamas official Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi in Gaza City.[18] Sharon and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz responded by freezing plans to transfer Palestinian cities to Palestinian Authority responsibility and imposing a general closure on West Bank and Gaza cities.[18]

On June 29, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad suspended military operations for three months, while Fatah declared a six-month truce.[5] The al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades did not join the arrangement. Israel was not a party to it but withdrew forces from northern Gaza and Bethlehem, closed some checkpoints, dismantled some unauthorized outposts in the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — released Palestinian prisoners, and allowed more Palestinians to work inside Israel. Israeli military commanders worried that armed groups would use the pause to rebuild their forces and restock weapons.[2]

The pause did not end attacks. An August 23 Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs analysis reported at least 240 attacks since June 29 and noted that the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades had rejected the truce.[19] On August 12, the first suicide bombings since the truce occurred: an attack at a supermarket in Rosh Ha'ayin killed one person and wounded 14, while a bombing near an Ariel-area bus stop killed one and wounded three. The al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claimed the first attack and Hamas claimed the second.[17]

The ceasefire's effective end came on August 19, when a Hamas operative from Hebron detonated a bomb on Egged route 2 in Jerusalem. The bus carried worshippers returning from the Western Wall.[19][20] Ynet reported 20 people killed and 136 wounded, while the Congressional Research Service reported 22 killed and more than 130 injured.[20][5] The Israeli Security Agency's annual review later recorded 23 killed and approximately 120 wounded; an Israeli government compilation gave 23 killed and approximately 115 wounded.[4][21]

The bomber's recorded statement described the attack as retaliation for deaths in Nablus and the killing of Islamic Jihad leader Muhammad Ayoub Sidr in an Israeli operation.[20] Hamas and Islamic Jihad both claimed the attack. Hamas leader al-Rantisi said that the group remained committed to the truce while reserving the right to respond to Israeli military actions.[17]

Israel's Cabinet declared an "all-out war" against Hamas and other terrorist organizations and voted on September 1 to freeze the diplomatic process with the Palestinian Authority.[3] A contemporaneous Jerusalem Center analysis argued that the hudna had never met the Roadmap's requirement for an unconditional cessation of violence.[19]

On September 6, Mahmoud Abbas resigned as Palestinian prime minister, citing a lack of support from Arafat, the United States, and Israel. An INSS account says he attributed his failure primarily to Arafat's obstruction of meaningful reform in the Palestinian security services, which prevented Abbas from consolidating authority over the apparatus needed to contain armed groups.[22] The following day, Arafat named Palestinian Legislative Council Speaker Ahmed Qurei — also known as Abu Ala — as prime minister.[5] Qurei's government was sworn in on November 12; unlike Abbas, Qurei did not commit publicly to containing the armed struggle, though he stated an intention to implement the Roadmap.[22]

Three days after Abbas's resignation, two suicide bombings struck within hours of each other. Israeli government and later Ynet accounts record nine people killed and 14 wounded at a hitchhiking stop near the IDF Tzrifin base, followed by seven killed and approximately 70 wounded at Café Hillel in Jerusalem's German Colony.[21][23] The State Department chronology reported lower immediate counts — seven killed near Tzrifin and six at the café — and recorded that Hamas claimed responsibility the following day.[17]

On October 4, 2003, Hanadi Jaradat, a 29-year-old lawyer from Jenin, detonated a suicide belt inside the crowded Maxim restaurant near Haifa's southern entrance. The restaurant was jointly owned by Jews and Arabs, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad's military wing claimed responsibility.[24]

Ynet reported that Jaradat was believed to have acted in revenge for the deaths of her fiancé and brother in an Israeli military operation.[24]

Casualty figures differ across sources. The Israeli Security Agency's annual review records 21 Israelis killed and 60 wounded, while an Israeli government compilation gives 21 dead and 48 wounded.[4][21] A contemporary Ynet report recorded 19 killed — 15 at the scene and four who later died in hospital — and approximately 60 wounded, while a later Ynet retrospective gave 21 killed.[24][25] The later account says members of three generations from two families were among those killed.[25]

On October 5, Israel bombed what it characterized as a terrorist training camp in Syria in response to the attack — the first Israeli strike on Syrian territory in decades.[17]

On October 9, an attack on the IDF Coordination and Liaison headquarters in Tulkarm wounded four Israeli soldiers; the Israeli government attributed the attack to Fatah.[21]

On October 15, a bomb struck a U.S. diplomatic convoy in the Gaza Strip, killing three American security guards and wounding a fourth. The Israeli Security Agency's review described it as the first terrorist attack against a U.S. target in the region since 1967 and said it remained unsolved at year's end. The Popular Resistance Committees initially claimed responsibility and later rescinded the claim; Palestinian authorities arrested four suspects.[4][26]

On October 24, a joint Hamas–Islamic Jihad infiltration at the IDF post at Netzarim killed three soldiers and wounded two, according to the Israeli Security Agency's annual review.[4]

The security barrier remained a major point of contention throughout the autumn. In October, the Israeli government called for an additional 400 kilometers of barrier south of Kafr Kassem and Jerusalem, running on or largely adjacent to the 1967 boundary and extending almost to the Dead Sea. A contemporaneous Washington Institute analysis said approximately 85 percent of the West Bank was expected to lie east of the fence, where most Palestinians lived, and noted that funding for the additional section had not been included in the 2004 budget.[27]

The Israeli Security Agency's review describes how the barrier's completed northern sections made infiltration from the Samaria area more difficult; terrorist cells adapted by shifting dispatch points and searching for gaps in sections not yet constructed.[4]

On November 19, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1515, endorsing the Quartet's Roadmap and calling on both parties to fulfill their obligations under it in cooperation with the Quartet. The resolution reaffirmed the vision of Israel and Palestine living side by side within secure and recognized borders.[28]

On December 1, former Israeli minister Yossi Beilin and former Palestinian Authority minister Yasser Abed Rabbo publicly launched the Geneva Initiative — also called the Geneva Accord — a nongovernmental model permanent-status agreement produced through negotiations in 2002 and 2003. Israeli opposition politicians and prominent Palestinians signed the document. Its proposed terms addressed borders, Jerusalem, refugees, security arrangements, and prisoner releases, drawing on United Nations resolutions 242 and 338 as a framework.[5][29] Sources distinguish a separate unofficial signing ceremony in Jordan on October 12 from the December 1 public event in Geneva.[30] The initiative was not an official government agreement: Sharon's government rejected it, and it drew criticism from Israeli political and religious critics who objected to its concessions and from Palestinian rights groups, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad, which opposed its provisions concerning the refugee right of return.[29]

On December 18, Sharon formally announced Israel's intention to pursue what he called "wide unilateral disengagement." The plan included removing Israeli civilians from the Gaza Strip and closing Israeli military bases there, alongside similar measures in northern Samaria. Development of the details was assigned as a high priority to the National Security Council, headed by Giora Eiland.[31] Sharon said the steps were intended "to ensure a Jewish and democratic Israel."[5] Israeli government approval and implementation of disengagement followed in 2004 and 2005.[3]

On December 25, a Palestinian suicide bomber killed four people at a bus stop near Petah Tikva. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility, describing the attack as retaliation for Israeli military operations in Nablus that had begun two days earlier.[10]

Israeli security data showed a significant, though incomplete, reduction in violence compared with 2002. The Israeli Security Agency's annual review counted 3,838 attacks against Israeli targets during 2003, resulting in 213 Israelis killed — 50 members of the security forces and 163 civilians.[4] This compared with 5,301 attacks and 451 killed in 2002, declines of roughly 30 percent in attacks and more than 50 percent in deaths.[32] The Washington Institute reported 26 successful suicide bombings in 2003, down from 60 in 2002.[33]

The review attributed part of the decline to intensive counterterrorism operations by the IDF, Israel Police, and the Israeli Security Agency, which it said generated an average of approximately 40 actionable warnings per day throughout the year.[4] Cells based in Gaza accounted for approximately 70 percent of total attacks, while terrorist infrastructure in Judea and Samaria was responsible for the majority of suicide attacks inside Israel and more than 60 percent of Israeli fatalities from terrorism that year.[4]

The Washington Institute argued that the completed northern section of the security barrier sharply reduced attacks originating in that area.[33] The Israeli Security Agency similarly reported that terrorist cells shifted dispatch points and sought routes through areas not yet covered by the barrier.[4] The Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research characterized 2003 as a year of Israeli tactical achievement in security terms — a measurable reduction in violence — but not a resolution of the underlying conflict.[34]

The Israeli Security Agency also recorded the June 8 infiltration at the Erez checkpoint as a joint Hamas–Fatah–Islamic Jihad attack in which four soldiers were killed and four wounded.[4] It identified the Mike's Place bombing in April as particularly notable for being the first attack perpetrated by terrorists holding foreign passports, a development it presented as evidence of the potential for international recruitment by terrorist organizations.[4]

The 2003 timeline contains significant discrepancies in casualty figures across the cited sources. For the August 19 Jerusalem bus bombing, Ynet reported 20 killed and 136 wounded, while the Congressional Research Service gave 22 killed and more than 130 wounded.[20][5] Israeli government and Israeli Security Agency accounts recorded 23 killed and approximately 115 to 120 wounded.[21][4]

For the October 4 Maxim restaurant bombing, contemporary Ynet reporting gave 19 deaths, while its later retrospective and the Israeli Security Agency review gave 21.[24][25] For the January 5 Tel Aviv double bombing, the State Department recorded 22 killed while the Congressional Research Service gave 23.[10][11] For the March 5 Haifa bus attack, a contemporary Ynet report gave 15 dead while a later retrospective from the same outlet gave 17.[13][14]

Annual figures also vary slightly by source. The Israeli Security Agency counted 213 Israeli deaths in terrorist attacks during 2003, while Washington Institute and Jerusalem Institute accounts gave 214.[4][33]

Some discrepancies may reflect publication timing, later hospital deaths, or differing counting methods, but the sources do not consistently explain them. Figures in this article are therefore presented as source-specific rather than silently reconciled. Responsibility claims and stated motives are attributed to the organizations, individuals, or official reviews that reported them and should not be read as independent judicial findings.