第2次インティファーダ
As a response to IDF statistics about Palestinian casualties in the West Bank, the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem reported that two-thirds of the Palestinians killed in 2004 did not participate in the fighting.
Prior to 2003, B'Tselem's methodology differentiated between civilians and members of Palestinian military groups, rather than between combatants and non-combatants, leading to criticism from some pro-Israel sources. B'Tselem no longer uses the term "civilian" and instead describes those killed as "participating" or "not participating in fighting at the time of death".
Others argue that Palestinian National Authority has, throughout the Intifada, placed unarmed men, women, children and the elderly in the line of fire, and that announcing the time and place of anti-occupation demonstrations via television, radio, sermons, and calls from mosque loudspeaker systems is done for this purpose.
In 2009, historian Benny Morris stated in his retrospective book One State, Two States that about one third of the Palestinian deaths up to 2004 had been civilians.
B'Tselem reports that through 30 April 2008, there were 577 Palestinians killed by Palestinians. Of those, 120 were "Palestinians killed by Palestinians for suspected collaboration with Israel". B'Tselem maintains a list of deaths of Palestinians killed by Palestinians with details about the circumstances of the deaths. Some of the many causes of death are crossfire, factional fighting, kidnappings, collaboration, etc.
Concerning the killing of Palestinians by other Palestinians, a January 2003 The Humanist magazine article reports:
For over a decade the PA has violated Palestinian human rights and civil liberties by routinely killing civilians—including collaborators, demonstrators, journalists, and others—without charge or fair trial. Of the total number of Palestinian civilians killed during this period by both Israeli and Palestinian security forces, 16 percent were the victims of Palestinian security forces.
... According to Freedom House's annual survey of political rights and civil liberties, Freedom in the World 2001–2002, the chaotic nature of the Intifada along with strong Israeli reprisals has resulted in a deterioration of living conditions for Palestinians in Israeli-administered areas. The survey states:
Civil liberties declined due to: shooting deaths of Palestinian civilians by Palestinian security personnel; the summary trial and executions of alleged collaborators by the Palestinian Authority (PA); extra-judicial killings of suspected collaborators by militias; and the apparent official encouragement of Palestinian youth to confront Israeli soldiers, thus placing them directly in harm's way.
Internal Palestinian violence has been called an Intra'fada during this Intifada and the previous one.
2006年1月25日、パレスチナの立法評議会の2006年パレスチナ立法評議会総選挙が行われ、ハマースが74議席を勝ち取り、ファタハは45議席、その他の政党と無所属は13議席に終わった。ハマースはアメリカと欧州連合により正式にテロ組織として扱われているので、ハマースがパレスチナ自治政府で政権を握った場合は、テロ組織への支援を禁止する法令により自治政府への国際的な基金が危険にさらされる可能性がある。
6月9日、ガザの海岸でGhalia一家7人が2006年ガザ海岸爆発事件が発生した。爆発の原因は不明だが、ハマースは2005年に交わした停戦協定の終了を宣言し、イスラエルへの攻撃を再開すると表明した。パレスチナは、イスラエルがガザ北部で砲撃を行ったことが事件につながったと非難した一方で、イスラエルの調査では潔白が明らかになった。
6月25日、パレスチナ過激派により前哨基地が攻撃され、銃撃戦によりイスラエル兵士2人、パレスチナ過激派3人が死亡した。イスラエルのギルアド・シャリート伍長が捕虜となり、イスラエルは無傷で解放せねば直ちに軍事的に報復すると警告した。6月28日の未明に、イスラエルの戦車、アチザリットと部隊がガザ地区に侵攻し、わずか数時間で空軍が主要な橋2つと唯一の発電所を破壊して効果的と水と電気を遮断した。ガザ・イスラエル紛争の第一段階である夏の雨作戦が開始され、
インティファーダとは独立して継続した。
2006年11月26日、イスラエルとパレスチナ自治政府との間で停戦が発効した。2007年1月10日のロイターの記事では、「ハマースは11月26日の休戦協定に大いに従い、ガザ地区におけるイスラエルとパレスチナの暴力が落ち着いている。」と報じられた。
ガザ地区からのロケット攻撃の報復として、イスラエルがハマースの構成員と建物を目標とした「キャストレッド作戦」と呼ばれる軍事作戦を実行し、イスラエルとパレスチナの紛争が激化して、ガザ紛争が2008年12月27日(現地時間で11時30分、UTCで9時30分)に勃発した 。この作戦は、ハマース首脳やアラブ世界のメディアからは「ガザ虐殺」と呼ばれる。
2009年1月17日、イスラエルがガザ地区からのロケット攻撃や迫撃砲の攻撃をやめることを条件に一方的な停戦を表明し、数日後には撤退を開始した。ハマースもまた、撤退完了と検問所の開放を条件に停戦を表明した。これまでのところ、イスラエルは停戦違反と見なしていないが、ガザ地区からの迫撃砲攻撃が減少し続けている。攻撃頻度は上のグラフから読み取ることができる。データはガザ紛争のタイムラインに対応しており、主にハアレツの報道(2月1日 - 2月28日)を参考にしている。
2006年を通して暴力行為が続いた。12月27日、イスラエルの人権団体ベツェレムは、インティファーダに関する年次報告を発表した。それによると、パレスチナ人660人(2005年の3倍以上)とイスラエル人23人が2006年に亡くなった。12月28日のハアレツの記事で「死者のおよそ半数の322人は死亡時に戦闘に参加してはいなかった。そのうち22人が暗殺され、141人が未成年者だった。」と報じられた。660人のうち405人が2006年6月28日から11月26日まで続いたガザ侵攻で亡くなった。
Unlike the First Intifada, a Palestinian civil uprising mainly focused on mass protests and general strikes, the Second Intifada rapidly turned into an armed conflict between Palestinian militant groups and the Israel Defense Forces. Palestinian tactics focused on Israeli civilians, soldiers, police and other security forces, and methods of attack included suicide bombings, launching rockets and mortars into Israel, kidnapping of both soldiers and civilians, including children, shootings, assassination, stabbings, stonings, and lynchings.
Israeli tactics included curbing Palestinians' movements through the setting up of checkpoints and the enforcement of strict curfews in certain areas. Infrastructural attacks against Palestinian Authority targets such as police and prisons was another method to force the Palestinian Authority to repress the anti-Israeli protests and attacks on Israeli targets .July 2009
Militant groups involved in violence include Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. The most lethal Palestinian tactic was the suicide bombing (see List). Conducted as a single or double bombing, suicide bombings were generally conducted against "soft" targets, or "lightly hardened" targets (such as checkpoints) to try to raise the cost of the war to Israelis and demoralize the Israeli society. Most suicide bombing attacks (although not all) targeted civilians, and were conducted in crowded places in Israeli cities, such as public transport, restaurants, shopping malls and markets.
One major development was the use of suicide bombs carried by children. Unlike most suicide bombings, the use of these not only earned condemnation from the United States and from human rights groups such as Amnesty International, but also from many Palestinians and much of the Middle East press. The youngest Palestinian suicide bomber was 16-year-old Issa Bdeir, a high school student from the village of Al Doha, who shocked his friends and family when he blew himself up in a park in Rishon LeZion, killing a teenage boy and an elderly man. The youngest attempted suicide bombing was by a 14-year-old captured by soldiers at the Huwwara checkpoint before managing to do any harm.
Militant groups also waged a high-intensity campaign of guerrilla warfare against Israeli military and civilian targets inside Israel and in the Palestinian Territories, utilizing tactics such as ambushes, sniper attacks, and suicide bombings. Military equipment was mostly imported, while some light arms, hand grenades and explosive belts, assault rifles, and Qassam rockets were indigenously produced. They also increased use of remote-controlled landmines against Israeli armor, a tactic that was highly popular among the poorly armed groups. Car bombs were often used against "lightly hardened" targets such as Israeli armored jeeps and checkpoints. Also, more than 1,500 Palestinian drive-by shootings killed 75 people in only the first year of the Intifada.
In May 2004, Israel Defense minister Shaul Mofaz claimed that United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East's ambulances were used to take the bodies of dead Israeli soldiers in order to prevent the Israel Defense Forces from recovering their dead. Reuters has provided video of healthy armed men entering ambulance with UN markings for transport. UNRWA initially denied that its ambulances carry militants but later reported that the driver was forced to comply with threats from armed men. UNRWA still denies that their ambulances carried body parts of dead Israeli soldiers.
In August 2004, Israel said that an advanced explosives-detection device employed by the IDF at the Hawara checkpoint near Nablus discovered a Palestinian ambulance had transported explosive material.
Some of the Palestinian reaction to Israeli policy in the West Bank and Gaza Strip has consisted of non-violent protest, primarily in and near the village of Bil'in. Groups such as the Palestinian Centre for Rapprochement, which works out of Beit Sahour, formally encourage and organize non-violent resistance. Other groups, such as the International Solidarity Movement openly advocate non-violent resistance. Some of these activities are done in cooperation with internationals and Israelis, such as the weekly protests against the Israeli West Bank Barrier carried out in villages like Bi'lin, Biddu and Budrus. This model of resistance has spread to other villages like Beit Sira, Hebron, Saffa, and Ni'lein. During the Israeli re-invasion of Jenin and Nablus, "A Call for a Non-violent Resistance Strategy in Palestine" was issued by two Palestinian Christians in May 2002.
Non-violent tactics have sometimes been met with Israeli military force. For example, Amnesty International notes that "10-year-old Naji Abu Qamer, 11-year-old Mubarak Salim al-Hashash and 13-year-old Mahmoud Tariq Mansour were among eight unarmed demonstrators killed in the early afternoon of May 19, 2004 in Rafah, in the Gaza Strip, when the Israeli army open fire on a non-violent demonstration with tank shells and a missile launched from a helicopter gunship. Dozens of other unarmed demonstrators were wounded in the attack." According to Israeli army and government officials, the tanks shelled a nearby empty building and a helicopter fired a missile in a nearby open space in order to deter the demonstrators from proceeding towards Israeli army positions.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) countered Palestinian attacks with incursions against militant targets into the West Bank and Gaza Strip, adopting highly effective urban combat tactics. The IDF stressed the safety of their troops, using such heavily armored equipment as the Merkava heavy tank and armored personnel carriers, and carried out airstrikes with various military aircraft including F-16s, drone aircraft and helicopter gunships to strike militant targets. Much of the ground fighting was conducted house-to-house by well-armed and well-trained infantry. Due to its superior training, equipment, and numbers, the IDF had the upper hand during street fighting. Palestinian armed groups suffered heavy losses during combat, but the operations were often criticized internationally due to the civilian casualties often caused. Palestinian metalworking shops and other business facilities suspected by Israel of being used to manufacture weapons were regularly targeted by airstrikes, as well as Gaza Strip smuggling tunnels.
Israeli Caterpillar D9 armored bulldozers were routinely employed to detonate booby traps and IEDs, to demolish houses along the border with Egypt that were used for shooting at Israeli troops, to create "buffer zones", and to support military operations in the West Bank. Until February 2005, Israel had in place a policy to demolish the family homes of suicide bombers after giving them a notice to evacuate. Due to the considerable number of Palestinians living in single homes, the large quantity of homes destroyed, and collateral damage from home demolitions, it became an increasingly controversial tactic. Families began providing timely information to Israeli forces regarding suicide bombing activities in order to prevent the demolition of their homes, although families doing so risked being executed or otherwise punished for collaboration, either by the Palestinian Authority or extrajudicially by Palestinian militants. The IDF committee studying the issue recommended ending the practice because the policy was not effective enough to justify its costs to Israel's image internationally and the backlash it created among Palestinians.