The 2014 Jerusalem unrest, sometimes referred as the Silent Intifada[1][2][3] (other names given include urban intifada,[1][4][5][6][7]Firecracker intifada, car intifada, Jerusalem intifada,[8] and Third intifada[3][5]) is a term occasionally used to refer to an increase in violence focused on Jerusalem in 2014, especially from July of that year.[9][10] Although the name "silent intifada," appears to have been coined in the summer of 2014,[clarification needed] suggestions that there should be or already is an incipient intifada had circulated among activists, columnists, journalists and on social media since 2011.[11][12][13] Commentators speculated about the varying utility to the Palestinian and Israeli left, right, and center of not only of naming, but of asserting or denying that there is or is about to be a new intifada.[8][14]
By some estimates,[clarification needed] more than 150 attacks occurred in July and August 2014.[15] By October some news sources, and Israeli politicians from both the far right and far left,[16] were referring to the wave of attacks as a Third Intifada[17] (following the First Intifada from 1987–93, and the Second Intifada from 2000–05), although many journalists and Israeli analysts in the security establishment deny the events have amounted to a full scale intifada.[8][14][18][19]
Since the Six-Day War, Palestinians have engaged in two national uprisings against Israel. These revolts were known as the intifadas, meaning to "shudder", from a root meaning "to shake off".[26]
Mention of the outbreak of a third Intifada long predates the circumstances of late 2014.[12]
Other sources describe the "methodical campaign of arrest and assassination by Israel" of mid-level and senior-level leadership across the Palestinian political spectrum, resulting in 40,000 arrests and more than 300 assassinations, as the reason for Hamas and Al-Fatah not having an appetite for a third uprising.[27]
The U.S. Congressional Research Service foresaw, immediately after the outbreak of the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict, that the conflict might engage the Obama Administration in a search for means to avoid a spillover into what could become a Third Intifada.[29] By late September U.S. administration officials were pressing for a renewal of peace talks as a means of preventing 'greater Israeli–Palestinian conflict in Jerusalem and the West Bank', for they were convinced that 'the absence of negotiations leads to violence', as the collapse of John Kerry's initiative in April was seen as one cause for the July–August war in Gaza and the turmoil in the West Bank and Jerusalem.[30]
In the immediate wake of the kidnapping and murder of three Jewish teenage boys, Jewish mobs attacked Palestinians in Jerusalem.[31][32] Immediately after their funeral, two attempts were made to kidnap and murder Palestinian children, and the second kidnapping succeeded, leading to the petrol-dowsing and torching of Mohammad Abu Khdeir. Discovery of his body led to massive Palestinian protests, with chants of "Enough of the suffering, enough of the pain," in East Jerusalem, and calls for a third intifada.[33] Police used live fire, rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse protesters at his funeral. Some 18 Palestinians were wounded in East Jerusalem and 8 in Ramallah.[34]
The wave of political violence from the Palestinian side includes sniper fire and knife attacks on Jewish pedestrians and the stoning of vehicles carrying Jewish passengers,[35][36][37] and stone-throwing and firebomb attacks including a September 30, 2014 attack on a nursery school for Jewish children.[38][39][40][41]
Tensions in East Jerusalem began to rise in late October, as the number of Palestinian Jerusalemites injured by Israeli forces since July 1 rose to 1,333 (among which 80 children), while 4 had been shot dead. In the same period, 3 Israelis were killed and 65, of whom 33 were civilians, suffered injuries from Palestinians. .[42]
Particularly notable is the Palestinian use of firecrackers thrown at civilian targets and at police, some have caused severe burn injuries and hearing loss.[43] In November 2014, Israeli authorities seized an enormous shipment of weapons bound for East Jerusalem. The containers – labeled "Christmas decorations" – included: "18,000 fireworks, including those of calibers that are restricted in Israel; 5,200 commando knives; 4,300 flashlights that can be used as electro-shockers; 5,500 Taser electro-shockers; and 1,000 swords."[44]
Nir Barkat, Jerusalem's mayor, accused the Israeli Ministry of Public Safety of failing to protect Jerusalem residents from attacks including a series of terrorist ramming attacks and the destruction of 3 stations on the Jerusalem Light Rail.[45] As of early October 2014, 30% of the cars on the Light Rail were out of commission due to what are described as "focused behavior" that take place where the rail line runs through the predominantly Arab neighborhood of Shuafat.[citation needed]
However, by late October, violent incidents were described as "sporadic", and rioting was not widespread or large-scale.[46] Asked on November 11, 2014 whether the situation amounts to a new intifada, Israel Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon responded that although the military would deal with the present, "escalation", in his view: "In Judea and Samaria today, we don’t see the masses taking to the streets… This is mainly lone attackers. Let’s wait to see what we call it."[47]
On November 17, Haaretz military correspondent Anshel Pfeffer gave his opinion that the "current upsurge in stabbings, terror attacks using cars, Jewish vigilante reprisals, and clashes between police and rock-throwing youths at the usual flash points" is not an intifada because neither Fatah nor Hamas has decided to back it, as the PLO did with the two previous intifadas.[12] Writing in the wake of the November 18, synagogue massacre, Pfeffer made a second distinction. Whereas the suicide bombers of the Second Intifada were sent by handlers from towns and villages in the West Bank to attack targets with which they were not familiar, the perpetrators of the summer and fall of 2014 are self-motivating lone wolves who carry residency status that entitles them to move freely around the city. They often attack targets in the neighborhoods where they work; in Pfeffer's words, "they know when and where to do it," and this makes them hard to stop.[48]
Ingrid Jaradat Gassner, of the Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem, remarked in November 2014 that Palestinians feel that they have no leader to stand up for their rights, with politics in flux a decade after the death of Yassir Arafat. The depth of frustration, in her view, has grown significantly due to creeping settlement of their lands, border restrictions on movement, and collective punishment meted out on them when attacks take place. They have, she argues, a sense that Israelis are raising more and more obstacles before the Palestinians' quest for "normal lives".[49]
A 2014 article published by USA Today also stated that the house demolition policy has been a cause of tension, while mentioning other issues such as the lack of basic municipal services to Palestinian families and the inability of obtaining permits to build new places to live.[2]
In terms of Jerusalem specifically, a February 2015 article by the Times of Israel stated that the approximately 80,000 residents in the eastern area separated by the West Bank barrier wall faced severe problems in terms of mail delivery, garbage services, and water supply. The publication quoted Mayor Barkat as asking the IDF for assistance in terms of having private contractors with police escort in order to sort things out.[50]
Israeli news sources have marked the beginning of the latest intifada as July 2014,[51][52][53] corresponding with the murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, a sixteen-year-old Palestinian who was kidnapped and burned alive by Jewish extremists — a retaliatory attack following the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers.[54][55] Three weeks later, thousands of Palestinians marched from Ramallah toward Jerusalem. Protesters were stopped and confronted by Israeli border guards near the Qalandiya checkpoint where violence erupted, leaving 200 Palestinians wounded and two dead.[22][56] A notable increase of attacks in Jerusalem was observed by Israeli security sources in the aftermath of the Khdeir murder and Israel's Operation Protective Edge on the Gaza Strip.[53][57][58]
The violence seemed to be waning until,[59] on October 22, Adbel-Rahman Shaloudi, a twenty-one-year-old Hamas operative from Silwan, rammed his car into a group of passengers waiting at the Ammunition Hill light rail station. The attack left two dead, including a three-month-old baby, and seven injured.[60][61] A brief uptick in Arab rioting followed.[59] A week later, prominent right-wing activist Yehuda Glick, described as an "Israeli-American agitator",[62][63][64] was shot point blank and critically wounded minutes after his speech at a conference titled "Israel returns to the Temple Mount".[63] The suspected attacker, Muataz Hijazi, was killed within hours as Israeli security forces raided his Abu Tor home.[65] The failed assassination attempt prompted Israeli officials to bar access to the Temple Mount — a 14-year first — after security assessments were made.[66] Thereafter, a minimum age of 50 years for men stayed in place into November.[66] Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called the closure a "declaration of war."[67]
On November 5, 2014, Ibrahim al-Akri, a Hamas operative from Shuafat, deliberately drove a van at high speed into a crowd of people waiting at the Shimon HaTzadik light rail station in the Arzei HaBira neighborhood of Jerusalem. The attack left two people dead and thirteen wounded.[68] A few hours later, a second vehicular attack occurred in Gush Etzion. Hamam Jamal Badawi Masalmeh rammed into three soldiers waiting at a bus stop, injuring all three. Masalmeh fled the scene and turned himself in to the police the next morning claiming it was an accident. Police later determined it was a terrorist attack.[69] Following the vehicular attacks, political cartoons were posted to Fatah and Hamas websites by supporters dubbing the acts the "car intifada", likening cars to small arms and Hamas M-75 rockets.[70][71]
In mid-November, a Palestinian bus driver, Yussuf al-Ramuni, was found hanging in his bus in a northwest Jerusalem parking lot. Israeli examiners ruled the hanging an apparent suicide while those close to al-Ramuni told reporters his body showed signs of foul play.[72] Speculation was inflamed by controversial circumstances surrounding a Palestinian pathologist's involvement in the autopsy.[73] Consensus on the street quickly spread that another Palestinian had been murdered and a spate of protests were launched.[73] Days later during morning prayer, two Palestinian men entered a synagogue in the Har Nof neighbourhood of Jerusalem, opened fire on the worshippers, and attacked them with axes. Four rabbis were murdered, and eight other worshippers wounded before police officers exchanged fire with the attackers, killing both. Zidan Saif, an ethnic Druze police officer, was killed in the firefight.[74] Hamas and Fatah welcomed the attack, claiming it was a response to the death of al-Ramuni.[75][76][77] Around the same time, on November 19, Israeli security forces evacuated and destroyed a home in East Jerusalem belonging to the man responsible for the October vehicular attack on Ammunition Hill. Incited by the home demolition, a tactic which has long been contentious,[78][79] protesters as young as 10 years old took to the street where they were reported stating, "The intifada has started," and "we'll fight till the end."[78][80]
Toward late November, the New York-based Human Rights Watch called Israel's demolition policy "a war crime" that "unlawfully punishes people not accused of any wrongdoing."[79] referring to families and neighbors of accused terrorists, subsequently displaced by the destruction of their homes. The statement came amid several "vengeance" arsons in Ramallah by Israeli settlers, and pending orders for the destruction of additional homes linked to Silent Intifada attackers, including the man accused of attempting to assassinate Yehuda Glick.[79]
Impact and reactions
As a result of the increased rioting, the Israeli cabinet resolved to enact a new bill increasing the punishment for those convicted of stone throwing in Jerusalem. Under the old law, those convicted could be sentenced to up to two years in prison. The revised law, if approved by the Knesset, would increase the prison sentence to a maximum of twenty years.[81] Several other laws are being mooted: one proposed by the Minister of Home Security, Yitzhak Aharonovich, would brand the Arab Temple Guard, employed by the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mountwaqf as an "unlawful organization".i.e., redefine it as a terrorist group.[citation needed]
Following the series of events, and in particular following the Har Nof synagogue massacre, Jerusalem's city council has stationed security personnel at the kindergartens in the city.[82] Haredi Knesset member Eli Yishai called for security personnel to also be stationed in synagogues.[83]
The aforementioned Jerusalem Mayor, Nir Barkat, remarked in February 2015 that he felt the months of violence had been more of a local, social issue. He set forth a plan to enact a longer school day, and he argued that "violence came from teenagers, mostly under the age of 18" given that the "Facebook generation across the world doesn’t listen to its parents, or anyone else."[50]
The Palestinian Authority, officially known as the Palestinian National Authority or the State of Palestine, is the Fatah-controlled government body that exercises partial civil control over the Palestinian enclaves in the Israeli-occupied West Bank as a consequence of the 1993–1995 Oslo Accords. The Palestinian Authority controlled the Gaza Strip prior to the Palestinian elections of 2006 and the subsequent Gaza conflict between the Fatah and Hamas parties, when it lost control to Hamas; the PA continues to claim the Gaza Strip, although Hamas exercises de facto control. Since January 2013, following United Nations General Assembly resolution 67/19, the Palestinian Authority has used the name "State of Palestine" on official documents, without prejudice to the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) role as "representative of the Palestinian people".
The Second Intifada, also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada, was a major uprising by Palestinians against Israel and its occupation. The period of heightened violence in the Palestinian territories and Israel continued until the Sharm el-Sheikh Summit of 2005, which ended hostilities.
Marwan Barghouti is a Palestinian political leader convicted and imprisoned for his role in deadly attacks against Israel. He is regarded as a leader of the First and Second Intifadas. Barghouti at one time supported the peace process, but later became disillusioned after 2000, becoming a leader of Tanzim, a paramilitary offshoot of Fatah.
This page is a partial listing of incidents of violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 2004.
Mohammad Yusuf Dahlan is a Palestinian politician. Arrested by Israel for being involved with the Fatah Hawks—the Fatah youth movement—he subsequently helped in negotiations for the Oslo Accords, later becoming a critic of Yasser Arafat. The former leader of Fatah in the Gaza Strip, Dahlan's power there as head of the Preventive Security Force was at one time so substantial that the territory was nicknamed "Dahlanistan". Seen as a favorite by the George W. Bush administration to be Mahmoud Abbas' second-in-command, Dahlan was appointed by the latter to head the Palestinian National Security Council. An antagonist of Hamas, he participated in the Fatah–Hamas Mecca Agreement before his power began to decline after the latter gained the upper hand in the Battle of Gaza. He was controversially elected to the Central Committee of Fatah amid allegations of fraud. Living in exile in Abu Dhabi, Dahlan has, according to Foreign Policy, had a hand in facilitating the Abraham Accords.
Palestinian political violence refers to actions carried out by Palestinians with the intent to achieve political objectives that can involve the use of force, some of which are considered acts of terrorism, and often carried out in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Common objectives of political violence by Palestinian groups include self-determination in and sovereignty over all of Palestine, or the recognition of a Palestinian state inside the 1967 borders. This includes the objective of ending the Israeli occupation. More limited goals include the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel and recognition of the Palestinian right of return.
On 24 December 2009, three Palestinian gunmen opened fire on a vehicle near Shavei Shomron in the West Bank, killing an Israeli settler. The Imad Mughniyeh Group, a little-known affiliate of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, the armed wing of the Fatah party, claimed responsibility for the attack.
Jibril Mahmoud Muhammad Rajoub, also known by his kunya Abu Rami, is a Palestinian political leader, legislator, and former militant. He leads the Palestinian Football Association and the Palestine Olympic Committee. He was the head of the Preventive Security Force in the West Bank until being dismissed in 2002. He had been a member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council until 2009 and was elected to the Fatah Central Committee at the party's 2009 congress, serving as Deputy-Secretary until 2017, before being elected Secretary General of the Central Committee in 2017.
Events in the year 2004 in the Palestinian territories.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine is a secular Palestinian Marxist–Leninist and revolutionary socialist organization founded in 1967 by George Habash. It has consistently been the second-largest of the groups forming the Palestine Liberation Organization, the largest being Fatah.
The al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades are a Fatah-aligned coalition of Palestinian armed groups in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
A terrorist ramming attack occurred on 4 August 2014 in Jerusalem, when a Palestinian drove an excavator out of a construction site, injuring several pedestrians and killing a civilian before ramming the tractor into a public bus, overturning the bus and then hitting it repeatedly. The terrorist was shot dead at the scene by two police officers while still seated at the wheel of the tractor and continuing to attack the bus by swinging the arm of the excavator against it.
On 22 October 2014, a Palestinian rammed his car into a crowd of people waiting at the Ammunition Hill light rail station in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in East Jerusalem. The attack killed a three-month-old girl and a 22-year-old Ecuadorian potential convert to Judaism, and injured seven others. Police shot the driver of the vehicle as he fled the scene and he later died of his wounds.
On 5 November 2014, in a terrorist ramming attack, a Hamas operative deliberately drove a van at high speed into a crowd of people waiting at the Shimon HaTzadik light rail station in the Arzei HaBira neighborhood of Jerusalem.
Sergeant Almog Shiloni of the Israel Defense Forces was killed on 10 November 2014 after he was stabbed multiple times at Tel Aviv HaHagana Railway Station. He died in hospital from his wounds. Shiloni was off-duty, but in uniform and armed at the time.
On the morning of 18 November 2014, two Palestinian men from Jerusalem entered Kehilat Bnei Torah synagogue, in the Har Nof neighborhood of Jerusalem, and attacked the praying congregants with axes, knives, and a gun. They killed four dual-nationality worshippers, and critically wounded a responding Druze Israeli police officer, who later died of his wounds. They also injured seven male worshippers, one of whom never woke up from a coma and died 11 months later. The two attackers were then shot dead by the police.
This is a list of individual incidents and statistical breakdowns of incidents of violence between Israel and Palestinian dissident factions in 2014 as part of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
An increase of violence occurred in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict starting in the autumn of 2015 and lasting into the first half of 2016. It was called the "Intifada of the Individuals" by Israeli sources, the Knife Intifada, Stabbing Intifada or Jerusalem Intifada by international sources because of the many stabbings in Jerusalem, or Habba by Palestinian sources. 38 Israelis and 235 Palestinians were killed in the violence. 558 Israelis and thousands of Palestinians were injured.
A married Israeli couple from Neria, Eitam Simon Henkin, a doctoral student at Tel Aviv University who also held American citizenship, and Na'ama Henkin, a graphic designer, were shot and killed on October 1, 2015, in the West Bank. The Henkins were driving past the town of Beit Furik, when the attack occurred. The Henkins' four children were in the van at the time of their parents' killing.
On 9 October 2016 in Jerusalem, Musbah Abu Sbaih, a Hamas militant shot 8 people from a car near the Ammunition Hill light rail stop, killing two and wounding six. The police gave chase, Shaih was shot and killed while shooting at pursuing police.
↑ Nathan Thrall, 'Rage in Jerusalem,'London Review of Books Vol. 36 No. 23 4 December 2014, pages 19-21.'The current upsurge in protests and violence has been called the silent intifada, the individual intifada, the children's intifada, the firecracker intifada, the car intifada, the run-over intifada, the Jerusalem intifada and the third intifada. But what it most closely resembles isn't the First (1987-93) or the Second (2000-05) Intifada but the surge in unco-ordinated, leaderless violence that preceded the largely non-lethal protests in the early part of the First Intifada.'
↑ Daniel K. Eisenbud (October 28, 2014). "Jerusalem's Silent Intifada Is Anything But Silent". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved December 2, 2014. the only issue that two of the city's most outspoken and diametrically opposed politicians can agree on is that the violence is indeed another intifada
↑ "Hamas calls for 'Day of Rage' in West Bank, Jerusalem". i24 News. November 21, 2014. Archived from the original on December 2, 2014. Retrieved December 2, 2014. Hamas's call for a "Day of Rage" against Israel [...] implored Palestinians to take to the streets "in solidarity with the Aksa Mosque and Jerusalem intifada.
↑ Sadan, Tsvi (October 23, 2014). "The 'Silent Intifada' and the collapse of decent Journalism". Israel Today. Retrieved November 22, 2014. the media continues to give the impression that this 'silent Intifada' resulted out of the kidnapping and murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir.
1 2 Dvorin, Tova (November 22, 2014). "Details Emerge on 'Comprehensive Plan' to Make Jerusalem Safer". Israeli National News. Arutz Sheva. Retrieved November 24, 2014. the 'silent intifada' that broke out after the 'revenge killing' of Arab teen Mohammed Abu-Khdeir by a mentally unwell man in July
↑ Beaumont, Peter (July 7, 2014). "Three Israelis 'confess to killing Palestinian teenager'". The Guardian. Jerusalem. Retrieved November 24, 2014. the killing last week of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, which investigators believe was revenge for the death of three Israeli teenagers
↑ Kareem Khadder, Samira Said and Susanna Capelouto (July 5, 2014). "Palestinian teen burned alive, autopsy shows". CNN. Retrieved November 24, 2014. Palestinians, many of whom believe he was killed in retaliation for the abduction and killing of three Israeli teens
↑ Daniel K. Eisenbud, Lahav Harkov (October 5, 2014). "Minister of Public Security blasts Barkat for blaming ministry for 'silent intifada'". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved November 24, 2014. The conflagration of violence erupted following the June murders of the three yeshiva students in Hebron, the July revenge slaying of an Arab east Jerusalem teen, and the 50-day Operation Protective Edge, resulting in ongoing rioting throughout east Jerusalem.
↑ Kershner, Isabel; Gladstone, Rick (October 29, 2014). "Activist in Israel Is Wounded in Shooting". The New York Times. Jerusalem. Retrieved November 24, 2014. An Israeli-American agitator [...] was shot and seriously wounded
1 2 Daniel K. Eisenbud, Khaled Abu Toameh (October 31, 2014). "Police on high alert in Jerusalem after Fatah calls for 'day of rage'". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved November 24, 2014. 'A strategic decision was made to close it in order to prevent any incidents or disturbances from taking place there,' said Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld
↑ Staff (November 17, 2014). "Thousands attend burial of hanged Palestinian". Al Jazeera. Retrieved November 21, 2014. Muatasem Fakeh, a colleague of the bus driver, said he had seen evidence of violence on Ramuni's body
1 2 Issacharoff, Avi (November 21, 2014). "The Jerusalem Intifada is underway, and it's going to get worse". The Times of Israel. Retrieved November 21, 2014. [After] an autopsy at the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute, with a Palestinian pathologist, Sabr al-Alul [...] leaked to the Palestinian press a conflicting conclusion.
1 2 King, Laura (November 19, 2014). "Israeli demolition of Palestinian home follows synagogue attack". Los Angeles Times. Jerusalem. Retrieved November 21, 2014. Home demolitions [...] were strongly condemned by the international community and human rights groups [...] more than a decade ago
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