Second Intifada in the context of "Palestine Liberation Organization"

The Palestinian Authority (PA), officially known as the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), is the Fatah-controlled government body that exercises partial civil control over the Palestinian enclaves in the Israeli-occupied West Bank as a consequence of the 1993–1995 Oslo Accords. The Palestinian Authority controlled the Gaza Strip prior to the Palestinian elections of 2006 and the subsequent Gaza conflict between the Fatah and Hamas parties, when it lost control to Hamas; the PA continues to claim the Gaza Strip, although Hamas exercises de facto control. Since January 2013, following United Nations General Assembly resolution 67/19, the Palestinian Authority has used the name "State of Palestine" on official documents, without prejudice to the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) role as "representative of the Palestinian people".

The Palestinian Authority was formed on 4 May 1994, pursuant to the Gaza–Jericho Agreement between the PLO and the government of Israel, and was intended to be a five-year interim body. Further negotiations were then meant to take place between the two parties regarding its final status. According to the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority was designated to have exclusive control over both security-related and civilian issues in Palestinian urban areas (referred to as "Area A") and only civilian control over Palestinian rural areas ("Area B"). The remainder of the territories, including Israeli settlements, the Jordan Valley region and bypass roads between Palestinian communities, were to remain under Israeli control ("Area C"). East Jerusalem was excluded from the Accords. Negotiations with several Israeli governments had resulted in the Authority gaining further control of some areas, but control was then lost in some areas when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) retook several strategic positions during the Second ("Al-Aqsa") Intifada. In 2005, after the Second Intifada, Israel withdrew unilaterally from its settlements in the Gaza Strip, thereby expanding Palestinian Authority control to the entire strip while Israel continued to control the crossing points, airspace, and the waters of the Gaza Strip's coast.

Fatah (/ˈfɑːtə, fəˈtɑː/ FAH-tə, fə-TAH; Arabic: فتح, romanized: Fatḥ [ˈfʌtɑħ]), officially the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (حركة التحرير الوطني الفلسطيني, Ḥarakat at-Taḥrīr al-Waṭanī l-Filasṭīnī), is a Palestinian nationalist and social democratic political party. It is the largest faction of the confederated multi-party Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the second-largest party in the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, is the chairman of Fatah.

Fatah was historically involved in armed struggle against the state of Israel (as well as Jordan during the Black September conflict in 1970–1971) and maintained a number of militant groups, which carried out attacks against military targets as well as Israeli civilians, notably including the 1978 coastal road massacre, though the group disengaged from armed conflict against Israel around the time of the Oslo Accords (1993–1995), when it recognised Israel, which gave it limited control over the occupied Palestinian territories. During the Second Intifada (2000–2005), Fatah intensified armed conflict against Israel, claiming responsibility for a number of suicide attacks. Fatah had been closely identified with the leadership of its founder and chairman, Yasser Arafat, until his death in 2004, when Farouk Kaddoumi constitutionally succeeded him to the position of Fatah Chairman and continued in the position until 2009, when Abbas was elected chairman. Since Arafat's death, factionalism within the ideologically diverse movement has become more apparent.

The Israeli permit regime in the West Bank is the legal regime that requires Palestinians to obtain a number of separate permits from the Israeli military authorities governing Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank for a wide range of activities. The first military order requiring permits for the Palestinians was issued before the end of the 1967 Six-Day War. The two uprisings of 1987 and 2001 were met by increased security measures, differentiation of IDs into green and red, policies of village closures, curfews and more stringent restrictions on Palestinian movement, with the general exit permit of 1972 replaced by individual permits. The stated Israeli justification for this new permit regime regarding movements was to contain the expansion of the uprisings and protect both the IDF and Israeli civilians from military confrontations with armed Palestinians. The regime has since expanded to 101 different types of permits covering nearly every aspect of Palestinian life, governing movement in Israel and in Israeli settlements, transit between Gaza and the West Bank, movement in Jerusalem and the seam zone, and travel abroad via international borders. The Israeli High Court has rejected petitions against the permit regime, allowing that it severely impinges on the rights of Palestinian residents but that the harm was proportionate.

Considered an example of racial profiling by scholars like Ronit Lentin, Yael Berda and others, the regime has been characterized as arbitrary and as one that turned such rights as freedom of movement into mere privileges that could be granted or revoked by the military authority. The regime itself has been likened to the South African pass laws under apartheid, with Jennifer Loewenstein writing that the regime is "more complex and ruthlessly enforced than the pass system of the apartheid regime." Israel has defended the permit regime as necessary to protect Israelis in the West Bank against what it describes as continued threats of attacks by Palestinian militants.

Restrictions on the movement of Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories by Israel is an issue in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. According to B'Tselem, following the 1967 war, the occupied territories were proclaimed closed military zones. In 1972, general exit orders were issued allowing residents of those territories to move freely between the West Bank, Israel and the Gaza Strip. Following the First Intifada by 1991, the general exit orders were revoked, and personal exit permits were required. According to B'Tselem, a measure of overall closure of the territories was enacted for the first time in 1993, and would result in total closures following rises in Palestinian political violence.

In the mid-1990s, with the signing of the Oslo Accords and the division of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip into three separate administrative divisions, there was little change to these restrictions. Comprehensive closures following the outbreak of the Second Intifada resulted in a few months of almost complete prohibition on Palestinian movement into Israel and between the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israel then allowed limited travel by Palestinians into Israel for medical treatment, trade, and other needs, and a limited number of workers were allowed to work in Israel. This situation was still in place as of 2010. Israel occasionally still places comprehensive closures and cancels permits following acts of violence by Palestinians and during Israeli holidays. Israel says that the restrictions are necessary to protect Israelis living in Israel and Israeli settlements.

The Gaza–Israel conflict is a localized part of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict beginning in 1948, when about 200,000 of the more than 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes settled in the Gaza Strip as refugees. Since then, Israel and Palestinian militant groups have fought 15 wars in the Gaza Strip. The number of Palestinians killed in the Gaza war (ongoing since 2023) (70,000+) is higher than the combined death toll of all other wars in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

Israel fought three wars in the Egyptian-administered Gaza Strip: 1948 Palestine War, the first occupation of Gaza during the Suez Crisis, and the capture of Gaza in 1967. During the first occupation, 1% of Gaza Strip's population was either killed, tortured or imprisoned by Israel. Following two periods of low-level insurgencies, a major conflict between Israelis and Palestinians erupted in the First Intifada. The 1993 Oslo Accords brought a period of calm. But, in 2000 the Second Intifada erupted. Towards the end of the Second Intifada, Israel disengaged from Gaza in 2005, Hamas won the 2006 election and seized control of Gaza in 2007.

The West Bank barrier, West Bank wall or the West Bank separation barrier, is a separation barrier built by Israel along the Green Line and inside parts of the West Bank. Israel describes the wall as a necessary security barrier against Palestinian political violence, whereas Palestinians describe it as an element of racial segregation and a representation of Israeli apartheid, often calling it a "Wall of Apartheid". At a total length of 708 kilometres (440 mi) upon completion, the route traced by the barrier is more than double the length of the Green Line, with 15% of its length running along the Green Line or inside Israel, and the remaining 85% running as much as 18 kilometres (11 mi) inside the West Bank, effectively isolating about 9% of the land and approximately 25,000 Palestinians from the rest of the Palestinian territory.

The barrier was built by Israel following a wave of Palestinian political violence and incidents of terrorism inside Israel during the Second Intifada, which began in September 2000 and ended in February 2005. The Israeli government cites a decreased number of suicide bombings carried out from the West Bank as evidence of its efficacy, after such attacks fell from 73 between 2000 and July 2003 (the completion of the first continuous segment) to 12 between August 2003 and the end of 2006. While the barrier was initially presented as a temporary security measure at a time of heightened tensions, it has since been associated with a future political border between Israel and the State of Palestine.

The Israeli Ground Forces (Hebrew: זרוע היבשה, romanized: z'róa hibshá, lit. 'Land arm') are the ground forces of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The current commander of the ground forces is Major General Nadav Lotan.

An order from Defense Minister David Ben-Gurion on 26 May 1948 officially set up the Israel Defense Forces as a conscript army formed out of the paramilitary group Haganah, incorporating the militant groups Irgun and Lehi. The Ground Forces have served in all the country's major military operations—including the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, 1956 Suez Crisis, 1967 Six-Day War, 1973 Yom Kippur War, 1976 Operation Entebbe, 1982 Lebanon War, 1987–1993 First Intifada, 2000–2005 Second Intifada, 2006 Lebanon War, and the Gaza War (2008–09). While originally the IDF operated on three fronts—against Lebanon and Syria in the north, Jordan and Iraq in the east, and Egypt in the south—after the 1979 Egyptian–Israeli Peace Treaty, it has concentrated in southern Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, including the First and the Second Intifada.