page_title: Ramallah
section_title: Second Intifada
hierarchical_section_title: Ramallah / History / Palestinian Authority rule / Second Intifada
caption_attribution_description: English: Taken today [January 16th 2013] of the Palestinian Presidential Compound, the Ramallah Muqataa, and provides a more clear view of what the compound really looks like.
context_page_description: Ramallah is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank located 10 km north of Jerusalem at an average elevation of 880 meters above sea level, adjacent to al-Bireh. It currently serves as the de facto administrative capital of the Palestinian National Authority. While historically an Arab Christian town, Muslims constituted a majority of Ramallah's 27,902 residents by 2007, with Christians making up a significant minority.
context_section_description: Young Ramallah residents demonstrated daily against the Israeli army, with marches to the Israeli checkpoints at the outskirts of the city. Over time, the marches were replaced by sporadic use of live ammunition against Israeli soldiers; and various attacks targeting Jewish settlers, particularly on the Israeli-only bypass roads. Army checkpoints were established to restrict movement in and out of Ramallah.
  On October 12, 2000, two Israeli army reservists, Vadim Norzhich and Yosef Avrahami were lynched in Ramallah. They had taken a wrong turn, and were set upon by a mob, enraged in particular by the Muhammad al-Durrah incident in Gaza. A frenzied crowd killed the two IDF reservists, mutilated their bodies, and dragged them through the streets. Later that afternoon, the Israeli army carried out an air strike on Ramallah, demolishing the police station. Israel later succeeded in capturing and prosecuting some of those involved in the deaths of the reservists.
  The IDF has occasionally operated inside Ramallah, in breach of the 1995 Oslo Accords. The first and largest incursion was the 2002 Operation Defensive Shield, with a more recent intervention coming in March 2017 while attempting to arrest a suspected terrorist. In 2002, the army imposed curfews, electricity cuts, school closures and disruptions of commercial life. Many Ramallah institutions, including government ministries, were vandalized, and equipment was destroyed or stolen. The IDF took over local Ramallah television stations, and social and economic conditions deteriorated. Many expatriates left, as did many other Palestinians who complained that the living conditions had become intolerable. Construction of the Israeli West Bank barrier has added to Ramallah's isolation.
  Yasser Arafat established his West Bank headquarters, the Mukataa, in Ramallah. Although considered an interim solution, Ramallah became the de facto capital of the Palestinian Authority, now officially known as the State of Palestine. It hosts almost all governmental headquarters. In December 2001, Arafat held meetings at the Mukataa, but lived with his wife and daughter in Gaza City. After suicide bombings in Haifa, Arafat was confined to the Ramallah compound. In 2002, the compound was partly demolished by the Israeli Defense Forces and Arafat's building was cut off from the rest of the compound.
  On November 11, 2004 Arafat died at the Percy training hospital of the Armies near Paris. He was buried in the courtyard of the Mukataa on November 12, 2004. The site still serves as the Ramallah headquarters of the Palestinian Authority, as well the official West Bank office of Mahmoud Abbas. Throughout 2005, while the Disengagement Plan was underway, some US government officials suggested to the Palestinian leadership to move the provisional capital back to Gaza, where it had been when the Palestinian Authority was first established in 1994. President Abbas, however, refrained from doing so, arguing that at this point, it was important to keep the administrative center in the West Bank in order to remind the international community that the West Bank was still awaiting a territorial solution.
caption: Mukataa in 2013.
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