Terrorism in Israel

Buses, restaurants, schools, religious gatherings, public markets, and residential communities have been targets of terrorist attacks in Israel.[1] Attacks have involved Palestinian organizations, individual assailants without known organizational affiliations, and Jewish extremists, while Israeli and Jewish targets abroad have also been attacked.[1] During the Second Intifada, suicide bombings in urban centers caused many civilian casualties and helped reshape Israeli civilian life and public attitudes toward security and politics.[4]

The geographical reach of this history extends beyond attacks occurring inside Israel: historical chronologies include cross-border raids, attacks in Jerusalem, and the murder of Israeli Olympic team members in Munich.[1][6] More recent reporting also covers attacks in the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — alongside incidents in Jerusalem and Israel.[7] Rocket, mortar, missile, and drone attacks have added a cross-border dimension affecting communities near Gaza and Lebanon and areas farther from those borders.[8]

An estimate published by 2017 placed the historical death toll at approximately 3,100, including 122 foreigners killed in attacks in Israel and 100 Israelis killed abroad.[1] That estimate excluded civilian victims of Israeli military operations and Palestinians killed in political violence by Israeli Jews.[1] It therefore represented a particular historical accounting rather than a total covering every form of violence associated with the conflict.[1]

Attacks on Jews during British rule in Palestine form part of the pre-state history of the subject, including the 1929 Hebron massacre, in which nearly 70 Jews were killed.[1] A historical account by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs places these events within a history of terrorism and reports 113 Jews killed and 339 injured in the wider violence of 1929.[9] The same account reports 400 Jews killed during the 1936–1939 Arab Revolt and describes attacks on transportation, homes, schools, and crops.[9]

Jewish armed organizations also carried out attacks that killed civilians before Israel’s establishment.[1] On July 22, 1946, Irgun members bombed the British administrative headquarters in Jerusalem’s King David Hotel, killing 91 people.[10] Irgun sought to drive the British out of Palestine; Jewish Agency head David Ben-Gurion condemned the bombing and called Irgun an enemy of the Jewish people.[10]

After Israel’s establishment in 1948, Palestinian fedayeen carried out cross-border raids that resulted in hundreds of Israeli deaths and prompted Israeli reprisal operations during the 1950s and 1960s.[1] Infiltration began soon after the 1949 armistice agreements, and Egypt subsequently organized Palestinian fedayeen groups.[5] Armed Palestinian organizations later established bases in the eastern Jordan Valley; Israel pursued them there from 1968 to 1970, and many organizations moved to southern Lebanon and Syria after their expulsion from Jordan.[5]

Following the Six-Day War, Palestinian organizations became more organized and increasingly conducted independent operations, including attacks on Israeli civilian aviation.[1][11] Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine used more powerful weapons, including rockets.[11] A July 1968 El Al hijacking diverted an aircraft to Algeria, while a November 1968 car bomb at Jerusalem’s Mahaneh Yehuda market killed 12 people and injured 52.[5][12] In May 1970, an attack on a school bus at Avivim killed 12 people, nine of them children, and wounded 24.[12]

On May 30, 1972, three Japanese Red Army members working with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine–External Operations attacked Lod Airport, now Ben Gurion Airport, with machine guns and hand grenades.[13] They killed 26 people—17 Christian pilgrims from Puerto Rico, eight Israelis, and one Canadian—and wounded 80.[13] The attackers arrived from Rome with weapons concealed in violin cases, attracting little attention from security officers looking for Arab terrorists.[13]

Black September killed 11 members of Israel’s Olympic team at Munich in September 1972.[6] The Jewish Review of Books recounts that eight armed attackers entered the Israeli compound, killing two Israelis during the seizure; the remaining nine hostages died during a failed rescue at Fürstenfeldbruck, together with five attackers and a German policeman.[14] Its account records demands for the release of 236 people, mainly Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, as well as other prisoners.[14]

The 1974 Ma’alot school attack killed more than two dozen people, including 22 children.[1] In 1976, the hijacking of an Air France aircraft to Entebbe, Uganda, was followed by an Israeli military rescue mission on July 4.[5] The 1985 Achille Lauro hijacking was another major episode in the international history of attacks associated with the conflict.[6]

On March 11, 1978, 11 Palestinian attackers arrived by boat from Lebanon, landed north of Tel Aviv, hijacked a taxi and then two buses, and killed 38 civilians, including 17 children.[15] The Coastal Road operation was intended to derail Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s planned peace discussions with Egypt in the United States.[15] Nine attackers were killed; the two captured received life sentences but were released in a 1985 prisoner exchange.[15] Addressing the Knesset two days after the massacre, Begin declared: “Gone forever are the days when Jewish blood could be shed with impunity.”[15]

The First Intifada began in December 1987 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.[5] Hamas emerged in Gaza in 1987–1988, while Palestinian Islamic Jihad had been founded in the 1970s by Fathi Shaqaqi and Abd al-Aziz Awda, who returned to Gaza in the early 1980s to recruit and raise funds.[16][17] Israel outlawed Palestinian Islamic Jihad in 1988 after attacks on civilians and IDF forces.[17]

In a letter accompanying the 1993 Oslo process, PLO chairman Yasser Arafat recognized Israel’s right to exist in peace and security and stated that “the PLO renounces the use of terrorism and other acts of violence.”[1] Subsequent violence was largely carried out by other Palestinian groups.[1] Suicide bombings became a principal tactic during the 1990s, with Hamas conducting its first such attacks on Israeli targets in the middle of that decade.[1]

An April 1994 bus bombing in Afula killed eight people.[12] In October 1994, the bombing of Tel Aviv bus number 5 killed 21 Israelis and a Dutch national; two bombings of Jerusalem bus number 18 in February and March 1996 killed 26 and 19 people respectively.[12] Palestinian Islamic Jihad attacks included a 1995 double suicide bombing at a northern bus depot that killed 22 Israelis and a March 1996 bombing at a Purim parade in Tel Aviv that killed 13 and injured 125.[17]

A historical compilation drawing on University of Chicago data recorded 114 suicide attacks in Israel since 1994 and 721 deaths, including the perpetrators.[1] Its inclusion of attackers in the death toll distinguishes that figure from counts limited to victims.[1]

The Second Intifada began in September 2000, following the breakdown of Camp David peace talks, and lasted almost five years.[18] Its initial months featured mass disturbances and clashes, with shootings at Israeli vehicles, killings in Palestinian Authority-controlled areas, and ambushes of soldiers among the attacks.[19] Fatah-Tanzim, Hamas, and other organizations became increasingly active as violence expanded to roads, settlements, military bases, and population centers inside Israel.[19]

Suicide attacks struck places central to everyday civilian life.[12] The June 1, 2001, Dolphinarium bombing in Tel Aviv killed 21 people and wounded 120, while the August 9 Sbarro pizzeria bombing in Jerusalem killed 15 and injured 130.[12] Hamas also carried out attacks in Jerusalem and on a Haifa bus in December 2001, and later carried out the August 2004 Beersheba bus bombings.[16] Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s October 2003 attack on Haifa’s Maxim restaurant killed 21 people.[1]

The first three months of 2002 brought 173 Israeli deaths in attacks, 28 completed suicide bombings, and 11 thwarted suicide attacks.[19] Violence peaked in March, and the March 27 Hamas bombing of a Passover seder at Netanya’s Park Hotel killed 30 people and injured 140.[18][12] Further attacks occurred in Jerusalem and Elon Moreh during the following two days.[18]

Israel began Operation Defensive Shield on March 29, calling up 30,000 reservists and taking control of most West Bank cities within days.[19][18] Israeli forces killed or captured people identified as responsible for planning attacks.[18] The operation ended on April 17 amid increased international pressure, and Israel decided shortly afterward to construct a security barrier of fences, walls, and checkpoints intended to deter attacks.[18]

Between July 2002 and June 2004, 49 suicide bombings were carried out and 343 were prevented.[19] Annual suicide bombings fell from 60 in 2002 to 26 in 2003 and 13 through September 1, 2004; Israeli deaths fell from 452 to 214 and then 97 over those corresponding reporting periods.[19] By September 19, 2004, an accounting of 22,406 attacks, attempted attacks, and violent incidents recorded 989 Israelis killed and 6,709 wounded, including 694 civilian deaths and 4,711 civilian injuries.[19]

A later 2000–2005 accounting recorded 25,770 attacks across Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza: 1,218 in Israeli territory, 9,495 in the West Bank, and 15,057 in Gaza.[20] It recorded 1,084 people killed and 7,454 injured, with the injury count including lightly injured people and people with post-traumatic disorder.[20] In 2005, seven suicide bombings killed 23 people and injured about 160; Palestinian Islamic Jihad was responsible for five of them, and 15 additional attempts were thwarted.[20] The same accounting recorded 54 Israelis killed and 484 injured that year, compared with 453 killed and approximately 2,350 injured in 2002.[20]

After Israel’s 2005 disengagement from Gaza, Hamas increased rocket and mortar attacks on Sderot, nearby communities, and the western Negev.[5] Palestinian Islamic Jihad also fired short-range rockets and mortars toward Sderot and surrounding communities and attempted to use domestically produced medium-range rockets against Ashkelon.[17] Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections and took control of Gaza in 2007.[16]

After 12,000 rockets had been fired from Gaza over eight years, including 3,000 in 2008, Israel launched Operation Cast Lead on December 27, 2008.[16] The 22-day air and ground campaign aimed to eliminate rocket fire, stop terrorism, and halt weapons smuggling.[16] The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs reports more than 10,000 rocket and mortar launches after disengagement through the end of 2014, with 32 deaths and 1,396 injuries.[9]

From autumn 2015, a wave of attacks involved knives, vehicle rammings, and shootings, including attacks by individuals without known organizational affiliations and others attributed to Hamas cells.[1] The 2015–2016 wave killed 30 Israelis and two United States citizens.[21]

In 2022, terrorist attacks killed 32 Israelis and foreigners: 21 Israeli civilians, eight security personnel, and three foreigners.[21] After 21 Israelis were killed between March and May, the IDF launched Operation Break the Wave and conducted almost daily West Bank raids for the remainder of the year.[21] Recorded shootings rose from 91 in 2021 to 305 in 2022, with more than 40 targeting Israeli civilians; most occurred during troop entries into Palestinian cities to arrest suspected terrorists.[21] Attackers included unaffiliated individuals and people inspired by or pledging allegiance to ISIS.[21]

On October 7, 2023, Hamas led a coordinated assault from Gaza by land, sea, and air, beginning with thousands of rockets fired toward Israel.[3][22] Attackers breached the border and entered communities using vehicles, boats, and motorized paragliders.[3] The assault occurred on Shabbat and Simchat Torah and targeted civilian communities, the Nova music festival, and military bases and posts.[3]

Approximately 6,000 Hamas and other attackers entered southern Israel, striking 22 civilian communities and about a dozen military installations.[3] A later geographical reconstruction documented incursions more than 20 kilometers from Gaza and attacks on 28 communities and 11 bases.[23] The victims included Jews, Muslims, Arabs, Bedouin, Druze, foreign nationals, and dual citizens.[3] An Israeli government account recorded 364 civilians killed at the Nova festival.[24]

Approximately 1,200 people were killed, and 251 people were abducted.[3] The attackers killed civilians and other captives, and the assault included reported rape, sexual assault, and mutilation.[22] Forty-four Americans were killed, and 12 Americans were among the hostages.[22] A medical-system study recorded about 1,800 wounded people evacuated to hospitals during the mass-casualty emergency.[25]

Israel declared war on Hamas on October 8, and Israeli forces remained in Gaza through the end of 2023.[22] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated the objectives as destroying Hamas’s and Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s military and governing capabilities in Gaza, returning the hostages, and preventing future threats from Gaza.[22] Tens of thousands of Israelis left the affected area, with many still displaced at year’s end.[22]

On October 8, Hizballah launched anti-tank missiles into northern Israel from Lebanon, followed by Israeli attacks.[22] Clashes continued throughout the year, killing nine IDF soldiers and six civilians in Israel, while approximately 200 Hizballah fighters were killed in Israeli strikes.[22] Israel evacuated approximately 80,000 civilians from the northern border amid daily hostilities.[22]

During the first year after October 7, approximately 13,200 rockets were launched from Gaza, 12,400 from Lebanon, 400 from Iran, 180 from Yemen, and 60 from Syria.[26] In 2024, a Hizballah rocket struck near a soccer field in Majdal Shams, a Druze town in the Golan Heights, killing 12 children and injuring more than 40 people.[27] An October attack at Jaffa’s Ehrlich light rail station killed seven and wounded 16; the two attackers shot train passengers and attacked pedestrians before an armed civilian and a municipal security guard returned fire.[27] Hamas claimed responsibility for that attack.[27]

The Jewish Underground, formed by members of the Orthodox Gush Emunim movement, conducted terrorist attacks against Palestinian officials and civilians.[28] On June 2, 1980, car bombs cost Nablus mayor Bassam Shakaa both legs and Ramallah mayor Karim Khalaf one leg.[28] In 1983, members attacked Hebron’s Islamic College with grenades and automatic rifles, killing three students and wounding 33.[28] A Shin Bet investigation led to arrests in 1984, foiled a plan to bomb five East Jerusalem buses, and prevented a plot to destroy the Dome of the Rock.[28]

In 1994, Baruch Goldstein killed 29 Muslim worshippers at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron.[1] Israeli right-wing extremist Yigal Amir assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on November 4, 1995.[5] In 2005, Eden Natan Zada killed four Israeli Arabs and wounded 12 on a bus in Shfaram.[29] Jewish perpetrators abducted and murdered Palestinian teenager Mohammed Abu Khdeir in 2014, and a 2015 firebombing in Duma killed an 18-month-old boy and his parents.[1]

The February 2023 attack on Huwara involved hundreds of Jewish extremists setting fire to dozens of homes and cars and killing a Palestinian.[30] It followed the killing of two Israeli brothers near the town; police arrested 14 suspects, all subsequently released by the courts.[22] Fifteen Palestinians were killed by settlers during 2023, eight after October 7, compared with 16 during the entire 2017–2022 period.[22]

Jewish extremist violence has included assaults, arson, stone-throwing, destruction of trees and crops, and damage to homes and vehicles.[30] More than 400 attacks by Jews were documented in the three months after October 7, 2023.[30] In August 2024, then-Shin Bet head Ronen Bar warned that Jewish terrorism had “spiraled out of control” and was causing Israel “incalculable damage.”[30]

The Knesset passed Israel’s Anti-Terrorism Law, 5776-2016, in June 2016, and it took effect on November 1.[31] The law supplies criminal- and public-law tools, establishes penalties for terrorists and members of terrorist organizations and certain forms of support or affiliation, and regulates organizational designation and administrative detention.[31]

The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs explains that the statutory framework requires an offense or threat motivated by political, religious, nationalist, or ideological purposes and intended to create public fear or coerce a government or international body.[32] Its legal analysis identifies a further requirement of specified serious harm or substantial risk, including bodily injury, serious disruption of public safety or health, or serious damage to property, religious artifacts, or essential infrastructure.[32]

Security responses have included intelligence investigations, arrests, military operations, border infrastructure, and aviation-security reform.[28][18] The Lod Airport massacre led to an overhaul of airport security and a division of responsibilities between police and state security.[13] During the Second Intifada, the security barrier was intended to deter attacks, while military operations sought people and systems involved in planning them.[18][19]

Separate from October 7 and the Gaza war, 43 Israelis and foreigners were killed in terrorist attacks during 2023, compared with 32 in 2022.[22] Recorded shootings declined from 305 to 289, including attacks during Israeli troop entries into Palestinian cities and attacks targeting civilians.[22] Examples included the January 27 Jerusalem synagogue shooting that killed seven, a February Jerusalem car ramming that killed three, and a November 30 bus-stop shooting in Jerusalem that killed three Israelis.[22]

A narrower 2023 inventory counted 179 “critical” attacks, up from 86 in 2022, with 27 occurring in Israeli territory.[33] Its reported categories included 108 shootings, 35 stabbings, 20 vehicle rammings, five improvised-explosive-device attacks, and five combined attacks.[33] Shootings caused 36 deaths, stabbings one, and vehicle rammings five.[33] The inventory identified increased involvement by local networks and established organizations, including Hamas, Fatah and its al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.[33]

For 2024, one security-data analysis recorded 6,828 attacks including stone-throwing and Molotov cocktails, compared with 3,436 in 2023.[7] Its narrower category of significant attacks in the West Bank and Jerusalem fell 44 percent, from 414 to 231.[7] It recorded 46 Israelis killed and 337 injured, excluding October 7 and attacks on the northern and southern wartime fronts.[7]

Another 2024 accounting recorded 103 Israeli and foreign victims killed: 45 inside Israel, 13 hostages killed by Hamas, and 45 victims of missiles or unmanned aircraft.[27] It recorded 179 shootings, down from 289 in 2023, with most occurring during Israeli entries into West Bank cities and many targeting civilians.[27]

A broader Israeli government annual summary counted 18,665 attacks, 134 people murdered, and 1,227 injured.[8] Categories included 16,400 rocket, mortar, or anti-tank attacks, 1,248 stone-throwing incidents, 399 unmanned aircraft crossing into Israel, 132 shootings, 89 explosive-device incidents, and 41 stabbings.[8] Approximately 15,400 rockets from Lebanon and 700 from Gaza crossed into Israel.[8] Rockets and unmanned aircraft together caused 71 deaths and 892 injuries.[8]

A related annual breakdown recorded 108 injuries in shootings, 28 in stabbings, and 86 in vehicle rammings.[34] Ynet’s account listed October as the deadliest month, with 37 people killed and 294 injured, while the underlying government PDF lists 394 injuries for that month.[34][8] More than 6,900 rocket launches were recorded during October amid intense fighting with Hizballah.[34] July recorded 191 events excluding rockets and hostile aircraft, compared with 109 in November.[34]

The Second Intifada affected Israeli politics, damaged the economy, and left a lasting imprint on public attitudes toward political and security questions.[4] Despite the violence, Israeli society remained cohesive through the period examined in a 2004 study, even as the confrontation continued and citizens’ security remained unassured.[19]

The October 7 mass-casualty emergency brought the Israeli trauma system into wartime operation and prompted research on medical policy and management.[25] Mass hostage-taking also became a subject of psychological research: a survey of 740 Israelis aged 18–85, conducted from December 2023 to January 2024, examined collective ambiguous loss following the abductions.[35]

Rocket and drone impacts also caused widespread environmental and agricultural damage.[8][34] The 2024 government summary recorded 610 associated fires and approximately 92,417 acres of burned Nature and Parks Authority land.[8] A related breakdown recorded 223,000 dunams burned in northern Israel, more than 173,000 dunams of grazing land completely burned, and more than 1,500 dunams of northern agricultural crops burned.[34]

There is no universally agreed formal definition of terrorism; common elements include illegal violence, political objectives, and intimidation.[2] Organized groups engaged in sufficiently intense and protracted violence may also meet the criteria for armed conflict, even when particular acts are described as terrorist.[2] Historical disputes encompass pre-state violence, the King David Hotel bombing, attacks on military targets, and allegations concerning Israeli state violence.[10][11]

Interpretations of the Second Intifada differ over origins, responsibility, and whether Israeli military responses contributed to escalation.[19] A detailed study criticized heavy military pressure and weakening of the Palestinian Authority, linking them to greater cooperation among armed organizations, while acknowledging that proposed alternatives involving reciprocal incentives were not guaranteed to work.[19] An end-of-2005 assessment instead emphasized several contributors to declining attacks, including Israeli operations, the incomplete security fence, a Palestinian lull agreement, leadership changes, and disengagement.[20]

Statistical differences often reflect geography and classification rather than a common measure: some inventories exclude stone-throwing, wartime fronts, or violence during security operations, while others include rockets, drones, and attacks abroad.[7][8] Published October 7 death estimates range from at least 1,139 to approximately 1,200.[16][22] Hostage estimates range from 240 to 253.[6][22] A later Center for Israel Education timeline reports 251 abductees.[16] These are source- and publication-specific estimates rather than interchangeable figures.[16][22]

Classification of Jewish extremist violence is likewise disputed: Israeli military reporting identified approximately 870 nationalist-crime incidents in 2025, including 120 severe incidents, while UN documentation recorded approximately 1,420 attacks against Palestinians in 2024.[30] These counts concern different years and definitions, and disagreements persist over reporting practices and the boundaries between terrorism, nationalist crime, and other violence.[30]