page_title: Al-Aqsa Intifada
section_title: 2004
hierarchical_section_title: Al-Aqsa Intifada / Timeline / 2004
caption_attribution_description: 05/22/2004 IDF and Border Police forces uncovered a tunnel designated for smuggling munitions. Inside the 8 meter deep tunnel found near the Israeli-Egyptian border, forces found an explosive device weighing 40 kg.
context_page_description: The Second Intifada, also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada, was a period of intensified Israeli–Palestinian violence, which Palestinians describe as an uprising against Israel, while Israelis consider it a prolonged terror campaign perpetuated by the Palestinian National Authority and various Palestinian militant groups. The general triggers for the violence are proposed as the Israeli withdrawal from South Lebanon conflict in spring 2000 and failure of the 2000 Camp David Summit to reach final agreement on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in July 2000. The violence started in September 2000, after Ariel Sharon made a visit to the Temple Mount, seen by Palestinians as highly provocative. Palestinians threw stones at police and were dispersed by the Israeli army, using tear gas and rubber bullets.
  High numbers of casualties were caused among civilians as well as combatants. The Palestinians engaged in numerous suicide bombings, rock throwing and gunfire, while the Israelis responded with gunfire, tank and air attacks, and numerous targeted killings.
context_section_description: In response to repeated shelling of Israeli communities with Qassam rockets and mortar shells from Gaza, the IDF operated mainly in Rafah – to search and destroy smuggling tunnels used by militants to obtain weapons, ammunition, fugitives, cigarettes, car parts, electrical goods, foreign currency, gold, drugs, and cloth from Egypt. Between September 2000 and May 2004, ninety tunnels connecting Egypt and the Gaza Strip were found and destroyed. Raids in Rafah left many families homeless. Israel's official stance is that their houses were captured by militants and were destroyed during battles with IDF forces. Many of these houses are abandoned due to Israeli incursions and later destroyed. According to Human Rights Watch, over 1,500 houses were destroyed to create a large buffer zone in the city, many "in the absence of military necessity", displacing around sixteen thousand people.
  On 2 February 2004, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced his plan to transfer all the Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip. The Israeli opposition dismissed his announcement as "media spin", but the Israeli Labour Party said it would support such a move. Sharon's right-wing coalition partners National Religious Party and National Union rejected the plan and vowed to quit the government if it were implemented. Yossi Beilin, peace advocate and architect of the Oslo Accords and the Geneva Accord, also rejected the proposed withdrawal plan. He claimed that withdrawing from the Gaza Strip without a peace agreement would reward terror.
  Following the declaration of the disengagement plan by Ariel Sharon and as a response to suicide attacks on Erez crossing and Ashdod seaport (10 people were killed), the IDF launched a series of armored raids on the Gaza Strip (mainly Rafah and refugee camps around Gaza), killing about 70 Hamas militants. On 22 March 2004, an Israeli helicopter gunship killed Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, along with his two bodyguards and nine bystanders. On 17 April, after several failed attempts by Hamas to commit suicide bombings and a successful one that killed an Israeli policeman, Yassin's successor, Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, was killed in an almost identical way, along with a bodyguard and his son Mohammed.
  The fighting in Gaza Strip escalated severely in May 2004 after several failed attempts to attack Israeli checkpoints such as Erez crossing and Karni crossing. On 2 May, Palestinian militants attacked and shot dead a pregnant woman and her four young daughters. Amnesty International classified it as a crime against humanity and stated that it "reiterates its call on all Palestinian armed groups to put an immediate end to the deliberate targeting of Israeli civilians, in Israel and in the Occupied Territories". Additionally, on 11 and 12 May, Palestinian militants destroyed two IDF M-113 APCs, killing 13 soldiers and mutilating their bodies. The IDF launched two raids to recover the bodies in which about 20–40 Palestinians were killed and great damage was caused to structures in the Zaitoun neighbourhood in Gaza and in south-west Rafah.
  Subsequently, on 18 May the IDF launched Operation Rainbow with a stated aim of striking the militant infrastructure of Rafah, destroying smuggling tunnels, and stopping a shipment of SA-7 missiles and improved anti-tank weapons. A total of 41 Palestinian militants and 12 civilians were killed in the operation, and about 45–56 Palestinian structures were demolished. Israeli tanks shelled hundreds of Palestinian protesters approaching their positions, killing 10. The protesters had disregarded Israeli warnings to turn back. This incident led to a worldwide outcry against the operation.
  On 29 September, after a Qassam rocket hit the Israeli town of Sderot and killed two Israeli children, the IDF launched Operation Days of Penitence in the north of the Gaza Strip. The operation's stated aim was to remove the threat of Qassam rockets from Sderot and kill the Hamas militants launching them. The operation ended on 16 October, leaving widespread destruction and more than 100 Palestinians de
caption: Israeli forces uncover a smuggling tunnel in Gaza, May 2004
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