Editing First Intifada (section)

== Background ==
{{see also|Causes of the First Intifada}}

According to [[Mubarak Awad]], a Palestinian American clinical psychologist, the Intifada was a protest against Israeli repression including "beatings, shootings, killings, house demolitions, uprooting of trees, deportations, extended imprisonments, and detentions without trial".<ref name="AckermanDuVall2000">[[#AckermanDuVall2000|Ackerman; DuVall (2000)]], p&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=OVtKS9DCN0kC&pg=PA403 407.]</ref> In the years prior to the Intifada, Awad had been "among the keenest advocates for nonviolent struggle", founding the [[Palestinian Centre for the Study of Nonviolence|Palestinian Center for the Study of Nonviolence]].<ref name="King" /> After Israel's capture of the [[West Bank]], [[Jerusalem]], [[Sinai Peninsula]], and [[Gaza Strip]] from [[Jordan]] and [[Egypt]] in the [[Six-Day War]] in 1967, frustration grew among Palestinians in the [[Israeli-occupied territories]]. Israel opened its labor market to Palestinians in the newly occupied territories, who were recruited mainly to do unskilled or semi-skilled labor jobs Israelis did not want. By the time of the Intifada, over 40 percent of the Palestinian workforce worked in Israel daily. Additionally, Israeli expropriation of Palestinian land, high birthrates in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the limited allocation of land for new building and agriculture created conditions marked by growing population density and rising unemployment, even for those with university degrees. At the time of the Intifada, only one in eight college-educated Palestinians could find degree-related work.<ref name="AckermanDuVall2000_401">[[#AckermanDuVall2000|Ackerman; DuVall (2000)]], p&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=OVtKS9DCN0kC&pg=PA401 401.]</ref> This was coupled with an expansion of a Palestinian university system catering to people from refugee camps, villages, and small towns, generating a new Palestinian [[elite]] from a lower social strata that was more activistic and confrontational with Israel.<ref>Robinson, Glenn E. "The Palestinians." ''The Contemporary Middle East'', Third Edition. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2013. 126–127.</ref> According to Israeli historian and diplomat [[Shlomo Ben-Ami]] in his book ''[[Scars of War, Wounds of Peace]]'', the Intifada was also a rebellion against the [[Palestine Liberation Organization]] (PLO). Ben-Ami describes the PLO as uncompromising and reliant on international terrorism, which he says exacerbated Palestinian grievances.{{sfn|Ben-Ami|2006|p=189}} 

The [[Israeli Labor Party]]'s [[Yitzhak Rabin]], then [[Ministry of Defense (Israel)|Defense Minister]], added deportations in August 1985 to Israel's "Iron Fist" policy of cracking down on Palestinian nationalism.<ref>[[Helena Cobban]], 'The PLO and the Intifada', in Robert Owen Freedman, (ed.) ''The Intifada: Its Impact on Israel, the Arab World, and the Superpowers'', University Press of Florida, 1991 pp. 70–106, pp. 94–95.'must be considered as an essential part of the backdrop against which the intifada germinated'.(p. 95)</ref> This, which led to 50 deportations in the following 4 years,<ref>[[Helena Cobban]], 'The PLO and the Intifada', p. 94. In the immediate aftermath of the 6 Day War in 1967, some 15,000 Gazans had been deported to Egypt. A further 1,150 were deported between September 1967 and May 1978. This pattern was drastically curtailed by the [[Likud]] governments under [[Menachem Begin]] between 1978 and 1984.</ref> was accompanied by economic integration and increasing Israeli [[Israeli settler|settlements]], such that the Jewish settler population in the West Bank alone nearly doubled from 35,000 in 1984 to 64,000 in 1988, reaching 130,000 by the mid-nineties.<ref name=BM1>{{cite book|last=Morris|first=Benny|title=Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist–Arab Conflict, 1881–2001|year=2001|publisher=Vintage|isbn=978-0-679-74475-7|page=[https://archive.org/details/righteousvictims00morr_0/page/567 567]|url=https://archive.org/details/righteousvictims00morr_0/page/567}}</ref> Referring to the developments, Israeli minister of Economics and Finance, [[Gad Yaacobi|Gad Ya'acobi]], stated that "a creeping process of ''de facto'' annexation" contributed to a growing militancy in Palestinian society.<ref name="LockmanBeinin1989_32">[[#LockmanBeinin1989|Lockman; Beinin (1989)]], p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=KYPVNdzXUJkC&pg=PA32 32.]</ref>

During the 1980s a number of mainstream Israeli politicians referred to policies of transferring the Palestinian population out of the territories, leading to Palestinian fears that Israel planned to evict them. Public statements calling for transfer of the Palestinian population were made by Deputy Defense Minister [[Michael Dekel]], Cabinet Minister [[Mordechai Tzipori]] and government Minister [[Yosef Shapira]] among others.<ref name="BM1" /> Describing the causes of the Intifada, [[Benny Morris]] refers to the "all-pervading element of humiliation", caused by the protracted occupation which he says was "always a brutal and mortifying experience for the occupied" and was "founded on brute force, repression and fear, collaboration and treachery, beatings and torture chambers, and daily intimidation, humiliation, and manipulation."<ref name=BM2>{{cite book|last=Morris|first=Benny|title=Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–2001|year=2001|publisher=Vintage|isbn=978-0-679-74475-7|pages=[https://archive.org/details/righteousvictims00morr_0/page/341 341, 568]|url=https://archive.org/details/righteousvictims00morr_0/page/341}}</ref>

=== Trigger for the uprising ===
[[File:Intifada in Gaza Strip (FL45884553).jpg|thumb|Protests in the Gaza Strip at the onset of the First Intifada in 1987]]
While the catalyst for the First Intifada is generally dated to a truck incident involving several Palestinian fatalities at the Erez Crossing in December 1987,<ref name="neff">{{Cite journal| volume=1997|pages=81–83|last=Neff|first=Donald|title=The Intifada Erupts, Forcing Israel to Recognize Palestinians|journal =Washington Report on Middle East Affairs|series=December|access-date=13 May 2008|url=http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/1297/9712081.html}}</ref> [[Mazin Qumsiyeh]] argues, against [[Donald Neff]], that it began with multiple youth demonstrations earlier in the preceding month.<ref>M. B. Qumsiyeh  ''Popular Resistance in Palestine; A History of Hope and Empowerment'', Pluto Press; New York 2011.pp. 135</ref> Some sources consider that the perceived IDF failure in late November 1987 to stop a Palestinian guerrilla operation, the [[Night of the Gliders]], in which six Israeli soldiers were killed, helped catalyze local Palestinians to rebel.<ref name="neff" /><ref name="Shai2005_74">[[#Shay2005|Shay (2005)]], p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=4kGIpMI5HC0C&pg=PA74 74.]</ref><ref name="oren">{{Cite news|last=Oren|first=Amir|title=Secrets of the Ya-Ya brotherhood|work=Haaretz|access-date=13 May 2008|date=18 October 2006|url=http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/775582.html|archive-date=15 June 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080615040905/http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/775582.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Mass demonstrations had [[December 1986 Birzeit University protests|occurred a year earlier]] when, after two Gaza students at [[Birzeit University]] had been shot by Israeli soldiers on campus on 4 December 1986, the Israelis responded with harsh punitive measures, involving summary arrest, detention, and systematic beatings of handcuffed Palestinian youths, ex-prisoners and activists, some 250 of whom were detained in four cells inside a converted army camp, known popularly as [[Ansar, Lebanon|Ansar 11]], outside Gaza City.<ref>Anita Vitullo, 'Uprising in Gaza,' in Lockman and Beinin 1989 pp. 43–55 pp. 43–44.</ref> A policy of deportation was introduced to intimidate activists in January 1987. Violence simmered as a schoolboy from [[Khan Yunis]] was shot dead by Israeli soldiers pursuing him in a Jeep. Over the summer the IDF's Lieutenant Ron Tal, who was responsible for guarding detainees at Ansar 11, was shot dead at point-blank range while stuck in a Gaza traffic jam. A curfew forbidding Gaza residents from leaving their homes was imposed for three days, during the Islamic holiday of [[Eid al-Adha]]. In two incidents on 1 and 6 October 1987, the [[Israel Defense Forces|IDF]] ambushed and killed seven Gaza men, reportedly affiliated with [[Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine|Islamic Jihad]], who had escaped from prison in May.<ref>Vitullo, p. 44 The first incident involved two unarmed men, one a well-known Gaza businessman, at a roadblock. The second occurred in a residential raid, where subsequently a small cache of weapons were found in the cars of four men. The army them bulldozed their homes. A general strike took place, and in response Israel arrested and ordered the deportation of Shaykh 'Abd al-'Aziz Awad, who was held responsible for the growth of popular support for Islamic Jihad, on 15 November.</ref> Some days later, a 17-year-old schoolgirl, Intisar al-'Attar, was shot in the back while in her schoolyard in [[Deir al-Balah]] by a settler in the Gaza Strip, who claimed the girl had been throwing stones.<ref>Vitullo, pp45-6. The settlers did not report the killing. An Israeli schoolteacher was arrested for the incident after a ballistics test was undertaken, but an Israel judge released him after a week, in the wake of Israeli settler protests. Settlers said she had been throwing stones.</ref> The Arab summit in [[Amman]] in November 1987 focused on the [[Iran–Iraq War]], and the Palestinian issue was shunted to the sidelines for the first time in years.<ref name="Shalev1991_33">[[#Shalev1991|Shalev (1991)]], p.&nbsp;33.</ref><ref name="NassarHeacock1990_31">[[#NassarHeacock1990|Nassar; Heacock (1990)]], p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=_P5W5ErBQRYC&pg=PA31 31.]</ref>