Wholesale massacres during the first intifada 1987-1993

Wholesale massacres during the first intifada 1987-1993:

According to documented data, the Israeli occupation has committed crimes against Palestinian children, women, elders and youths over the years of the first intifada from 1987-1993. War crimes were happening daily, they were collective and individual and caused damage and harm to all the families and Palestinian homes, and caused destruction in properties, lands and crops.

“The number of Palestinian victims shot by Israeli soldiers during the first intifada reached about two thousand martyrs, 120 thousand injured and more than 120 thousand prisoners in addition to material losses estimated at billions of dollars.”[i]

According to a Palestinian reports:

” 455 martyrs and nearly 76,455 injured people are from the Gaza Strip,” while another report pointed out that “the practices of the occupation in the Gaza Strip during the period from 1967 to 1987, have resulted in the death of 612 Palestinians and the injury of 75 thousand Palestinians, while causing the displacement of about 150 thousand Palestinians. “[ii]

A report issued by the Gaza Center for Rights and Law pointed out that “about 70 thousand Palestinians were victims of the Israeli rubber bullets, as follows:

– 22 256 Palestinians were shot in 1988.

– 17 230 Palestinians were shot during 1989 and 1990.

– 9709 Palestinians were shot during 1991.

– 5 806 Palestinians were shot during 1992.

– 4 649 Palestinians were shot during 1993.

– While 1369 Palestinians were shot in 1994, and 2188 were shot during 1995 and 1996”.[iii]

4-4-1- Detention camps during the first intifada

–    From the very beginning of the Israeli occupation, the State pursued the policy of arrests and wholesale intensive and extensive prosecutions which it also applied during the first years of the first Intifada 1987-1993. According to Israeli and Palestinian sources, mass arrests reached between 750-850 thousand Palestinians over the years 1967-1997. And according to the International Red Cross statistics, as reported by the Palestinian Prisoners Club released in June 1997, about a third of the Palestinian people were arrested”

–    Moshe Dayan, the minister of war at the time declared, commenting on pursuing this policy:

“Israeli prisons will release disabled, elderly inmates who will be burden on the Palestinian people”,

–    And this is what made Yitzhak Rabin Minister of suppressing the uprising in the government of Yitzhak Shamir, declare before the heads of Jewish Organizations  Conference and emphasize very clearly

that “The Intifada is a confrontation between the two entities, and the evidence for that is the very large number of Palestinian prisoners,” adding that “the solution to such a conflict would only be by a joint military policy,”and pointing to the mass arrests of Palestinians in camps, the most prominent one being the camp Ketziot in the Negev desert, about which he said: “As long as there is an uprising, Ketziot will stay.”

–    Many different Israeli sources have revealed the dimensions of this issue, saying:

“Without exaggeration we can say that the important categories among the efficient categories of the Palestinian uprising, or at least the majority of them, have passed through the “Ansar – 3″camp in the Neqab, which turned into a Palestinian national smelting oven that promotes the Intifada.”

The policy of arrests, collective trials and detention camps was from the very beginning of the occupation an open, repressive, terrorist front,

The purpose behind this (policy) is to repress and kill morally and physically and burry Palestinian militants alive and kill the Palestinian Arab people’s morale and paralyze their mobility by arresting their leaders, activists and militants as widely as possible. The arrest policy reached its peak during the first intifada, and is still continuing at the moment of writing the lines of this book after more than five years of the second intifada, Al-Aqsa and independence intifada in 2000. According to different indicators it is not expected to stop as long as the occupation stays.

“As long as there is occupation and killing… there will be an intifada and resistance… and Ktziot will stay” as Rabin said.

Therefore, the Occupying Power was keen to open and expand detention camps and prisons over the years of occupation.

[i]. Al-Quds, Al-Fajr, Al-shaab Palestinian newspapers dated 1-2-3/1/1993.

[ii]. Ra’y Jordanian newspaper 15/6/1992.

[iii]. Al-Sabil Jordanian newspaper as stated by the Gaza center for rights and law 21/11/2000.