Intifada

Abstract

One afternoon in December of 1987 an Israeli truck crashed into two carloads of Arab workers in the Jabalya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, killing four of them. An Israeli had been stabbed to death in the central market of Gaza City two days before, and for the Palestinian relatives of the men the truck had been deliberately driven into the cars as an act of vengeance. Thousands of mourners attended the funerals. On their return they passed an IDF outpost. Stones and bottles were hurled at the soldiers who in turn fired into the air. The disorder lasted until well into the night and resumed the next day. The violence spread to the West Bank town of Nablus, where schools and shops closed down. If giving the impression they had been carefully orchestrated, the uprising and mass demonstrations were in fact entirely spontaneous. Pent up feelings of frustration, victimhood, and a sense of weakness required a spark to set off an explosion of repressed anger. The “Intifada,” the Arabic word for “shaking off,” had begun.¹