MERIP Primer on the Uprising in Palestine

Invasion and Occupation

Israel's military response to the uprising escalated in intensity and scale throughout 2001 into 2002 following the election of Ariel Sharon. Israeli operations increasingly targeted the infrastructure of the PA and its police and security forces and eroded the boundaries separating PA-ruled areas from areas of full Israeli military control. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) carried out armed incursions into PA-controlled areas, bulldozed Palestinian houses and crops, conducted systematic assassinations of key Fatah and Hamas militants and rocketed PA police stations from F-16 warplanes.

Following several suicide bombings in early December, Ariel Sharon declared that Arafat and the PA were no longer partners for negotiations and placed Arafat under virtual house arrest in Ramallah. The IDF began a series of deeper military incursions into PA-controlled areas, repositioned tanks and troops to new positions and conducted mass arrests.

The growing Israeli military encirclement of and penetration into PA-ruled areas entered a new phase in March-April 2002, when Israeli forces answered suicide bombings with two massive invasions of Palestinian towns and refugee camps.

On March 29, 2002, Israeli launched its largest military operation since the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 by sending armored divisions into Ramallah and fully reoccupying the city. Israeli forces attacked the presidential compound, and held Arafat hostage with no electricity, water or phone lines. The IDF then invaded and reoccupied nearly all of the PA self-rule areas, including the cities of Bethlehem, Jenin, Tulkaram, Qalqilya and Nablus. Soldiers imposed tight 24-hour curfews and cut electricity and water supply to the population. Palestinians, both militiamen and some policemen given arms by Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements, resisted the offensives with force, particularly during pitched battles in Nablus and Jenin.

The Israeli operation has been characterized by massive tank deployments and intense shelling of PA and civilian buildings, house-to-house searches, confiscations of arms and mass arrests of Palestinian men between the ages of 14 and 45, who were rounded up, stripped, blindfolded and taken away to undisclosed detention centers.

Forcible intimidation, including several IDF shootings, prevented journalists, observers and medical personnel from gathering full details of this offensive. But multiple reports confirmed instances of ambulance workers unable to reach Palestinian wounded, Israeli soldiers raiding hospitals and troops using Palestinians as human shields, all contraventions of the Geneva Conventions. Numerous Palestinian civilians have been shot dead during the invasions or in violation of Israeli-imposed curfews.

In mid-April 2002, the Red Cross warned of a severe humanitarian crisis in West Bank towns and refugee camps due to the lack of food, water and electricity, and army restrictions on the movement of residents and rescue workers.

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