Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Palestinian youths burn tires during an anti-Israel demonstration at El-Bireh, West Bank, March 2000. On the
right is Amana Jawad, later convicted and jailed for the murder of an Israeli teenager whom she had lured
to the PA-ruled town of Ramallah. (Getty Images / Image Bank.)
Finally, the terrorist attacks and Palestinian refusal to accept terms to end the confl ict also
signaled the growing challenge to the traditional nationalist leadership from even harder-line
Islamist groups, mainly Hamas. Arafat had tried to use these organizations as his tools, but
they were increasingly gaining as much support as his Fatah group. This trend paralleled what
was happening elsewhere in the Middle East and even the world, as signaled by the Septem-
ber 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.
Meanwhile, Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians continued, causing more
casualties within Israel than ever before. For example, twenty-fi ve Israelis were killed and
many more were wounded in attacks in Haifa and Jerusalem on December 1-2, 2001. Dip-
lomatic efforts to end the fi ghting repeatedly failed, for Arafat, despite what he said publicly,
continued to order and encourage assaults. Arafat even tried to escalate the fi ghting by pur-
chasing a large amount of arms from Iran. But on January 3, 2002, Israeli naval commandos
captured a freighter, the
Karine A,
in the Red Sea carrying 55 tons (50 metric tons) of heavy
weapons. These included rockets that would have allowed the PA to target Israel's airport and
major cities. On February 10, 2002, Hamas fi red rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel for the
fi rst time.
In the eighteen months of violence between September 2000 and March 2002, a total of
1,065 Palestinians and 344 Israelis were killed. In March 2002 alone, 130 Israelis died in a spate
of suicide bombings and armed attacks. The attacks culminated on March 27, when a Hamas
