Understanding the Current Palestinian Revolt: Its Context and Consequences for Palestinian Society
Since the fall of 2015 the world has witnessed a deadly spate of attacks on Palestinians by Israeli soldiers, police, and settlers, with over 160 Palestinians killed. The violence began with tensions at Al Aqsa mosque and spread quickly beyond East Jerusalem to the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel as soldiers employed shoot-to-kill tactics, claiming that their assailants, many of them youth at checkpoints, were threatening them with knife attacks. With the eruption of this violence coinciding with the 15-year anniversary of the second intifada, journalists, analysts, and scholars debated whether the Palestinian revolt could be called a “third intifada.”
