The Intifada is a Palestinian term which means uprising created from Palestinian people. It can be argued that one root cause for Palestine’s succession of revolts was the carve up of land by the colonial powers in the early 19th century. The Palestinians fought many revolutions that all called for an end to British colonialism and Jewish settlement and to defend their rights, the first of which was in , known as Nebi Musa revolt and struggle of peoples for their rights, and these Palestinian popular revolutions are an important indication of the falsehood of the Israeli occupation and the invalidity of its claims. Where the masses rejected the colonial and Zionist violations, and among these revolutions were: the Jaffa revolution, the Al-Buraq revolution in 1929 , the great Palestinian revolution, and first intifada. The first Palestinian intifada erupted dramatically on 8 December 1987 after hundreds of Palestinians witnessed the killing of four men when they were run down by an Israeli jeep outside Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza. Furthermore the first intifada was due to clashes with the occupation soldiers, including the events of 1981-82 in Rafah and Gaza and the events of 1984 in Birzeit and the clashes that continued sporadically until 1987. The funerals of those killed were attended by some 10,000 people, but they were forced to mourn once again the following day, when Israeli troops fired aimlessly into a crowd, killing 17 year-old Hatem Abu Sisi and wounding 16 others However, these violent individual acts — and those preceding them — were merely the last straws in a 20-year saga of military occupation and its debilitating effects on a population denied any control over their economic, social and political development. More than a knee-jerk reaction to that occupation, it was a united demonstration of a continuous political struggle for self-determination that had been playing out long before 1987 at the grassroots level.
On December 10, 1987, demonstrations and clashes with the occupation forces were renewed, as various cities, villages and camps in the West Bank and Gaza Strip were rife in the biggest challenge to the occupation authorities and their arbitrary and oppressive measures against the Palestinian people. The Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip faced bullets of the occupation forces with their bare chests. They sprayed stones, empty bottles and Molotov cocktails with their armored cars, which led to the death and injury of many citizens with bullets from the occupation army. In the Gaza Strip, the clash between the masses and the occupation forces turned into a real battle, as the city was completely closed. The protests grew larger, involving tens of thousands of people, including women and children. By 12 December, six Palestinians had been killed and 30 had been injured in the violence.
The first intifada was due to the poor conditions of Palestine occupied since 1967, which was going from bad to worse by Israeli false claims that it is the owner of the land, history and future, and was characterized by arbitrary control on all levels through the emergency law to settlement plans, and attempts Judaizing, blowing up homes, arresting thousands of citizens, imposing collective punishments, controlling life facilities, confiscating land, plundering water resources, economic warfare, closing scientific, trade union and professional institutions, and adopting slow bureaucracy with the aim of humiliation, leading to what is more important and fateful, which is depriving the Palestinian people of their national identity
Not only had Palestinians been dispossessed of their homeland and expelled from their homes in 1948 to make way for the boatloads of European Jewish immigrants flooding into Palestine on a promise of a Jewish state, they had been made to suffer the indignities of a people despised and rejected by the whole world. They were the victims of a colonialist project that denied their existence and their rights to self-determination in the land that they had continuously inhabited for millennia so that a state could be created in all of the land exclusively for Jews from anywhere in the world. To this day, the Zionist project has held powerful countries and august institutions hostage in its service, despite the indi
sputable rulings of international law and United Nations resolutions supporting the rights of the Palestinians.
What Israel had not bargained for, though, was the steadfastness of a wronged people and their indomitable spirit that sent the first stones hurtling towards army tanks and bulldozers in their desperate bid to shake off Israel’s crushing occupation. So began the ”War of the Stones.” The first Intifada been characterized by comprehensiveness and continuity and its consolidation.
of a prominent fact that the masses of the Palestinian people in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Galilee, the Triangle, and the Negev have seemed more united than ever before in confronting and rejecting the occupation Is committed to a unified political position based on the unity of destiny, and its goals are to achieve national independence under the Palestine Liberation Organization and the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people everywhere.. The intifada affirmed that the PLO is the sole and legitimate representative of the people in all its places, including the occupied territories in 1948, and this was evident through the slogans from which the uprising was launched, as it affirmed at the same time that any solution must pass through Palestinian legitimacy.
The Intifada confirmed the unity of the Palestinian people in all its places, embodied the strength and roots of the Palestinian Arab Islamic identity, and embodied the Palestinian national consciousness that was strengthened by contacts between Palestinians in all the occupied Palestinian territories. The Intifada is the revolution of the people, all of the people, with all its groups and forces. Preparing for Intifada, the leadership of the PLO by the organizational frameworks for Fatah was keen to ensure that every Palestinian citizen has the right to participate in the Intifada and other Palestinian national action factions in the occupied territories
Arafat was in Baghdad when the Intifada began. He immediately realized that the Palestinian struggle had entered a new era. During the first week of the Intifada, Arafat issued press statements declaring that “The Intifada in the occupied territory expresses the determination of the people to get rid of Zionist imperialism. This is an Intifada that will last for a long time.”
Arafat exerted great effort for the Intifada to continue for as long as possible. He instructed his colleagues and deputies, especially Abu Jihad, to provide every form of support to the Unified National Command
With the beginning of the intifada, Abu Ammar, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the PLO, the Commander-in-Chief of the Palestinian Revolutionary Forces, called on the Palestinian masses in the occupied territories to escalate their uprising against the occupying invaders. The PLO Led by its leader Yasser Arafat continued its accompanied the intifada, directed it and supported it politically by exposing the Israeli practices against the Palestinian people in international forums, and in the media through its media institutions that were providing accurate and comprehensive coverage of the events of the intifada, which contributed to the creation of a global public opinion sympathetic to the Palestinian intifada.All the while, Arafat was focused on preventing any attempt to jeopardize national unity. The freedom fighters who were deported from the occupied territory by the Israeli occupying authorities significantly contributed to enhancing Arafat’s ability to control the events. Their insights into the situation on the ground and weaknesses of the Israeli army allowed Abu Jihad – the colleague and friend on whom Arafat depended and who was in charge of supporting and sustaining the Intifada – to better coordinate activities against the Israeli occupying forces .Israeli leaders deliberated over putting an end to the Intifada through killing Khalil Al-Wazir (Abu Jihad), who was immediately responsible for supporting and managing the Palestinian Intifada
Assassinating the legendary commander of the PLO’s military arm and resistance operations in the occupied territory had been a longtime goal of Israel’s for some time. Their preparations this time, however, were well planned: In early March 1988, Israel took the decision to assassinate Abu Jihad. On the night of the 16th of April 1988, Israeli assassins executed Abu Jihad in his home, firing 70 bullets into his body .Abu Jihad became the 142nd martyr of the Intifada. His assassination sparked violent demonstrations across the occupied territory. He was described as “the first bullet and the first stone,” and Arafat called him “The Prince of Martyrs.”He became a symbol of the seemingly unstoppable Intifada To the outside world, the throwing of stones became a powerful visual image of the first intifada, but it was the use of leaflets that effectively mobilized the Palestinians against the occupation. Messages of upcoming strikes, boycotts and specific campaigns made the rounds and gave the people a sense of unity of purpose. This was also a time when symbolism became very important to the national movement and the Palestinian flag and its colors were incorporated even in clothing and embroidery. When so much else was restricted in their lives, the Palestinians had found novel ways to resist nonviolently, which had Israel searching for ways to respond. Force was still its preferred method of control.
There was no doubt that this national movement gave every Palestinian a sense of empowerment.despite the peace attempts made on the world stage, the backdrop to the political negotiations remained one of ongoing violence. By the end of the intifada in 1993, almost 1,550 Palestinians were killed, 70000 were injured, and more than 100000 Palestinians had been arrested. The hugely disproportionate violence and casualties on the Palestinian side provoked widespread international condemnation which influenced the UN Security Council to draft resolutions 607 and 608, demanding Israel to stop deporting Palestinians from their land.
