Mohammad Mahdi Asadollahi, political researcher
Historical background
In the late twentieth century, at a time when the socio-political landscape of the Islamic world appeared motionless and locked in stagnation, a sudden uprising emerged from the will of the true owners of the land of Palestine. This movement fundamentally altered the course of regional developments. This time, the Zionist regime was confronted with the collective resolve of a people who, after enduring years of oppression and occupation, decided to change the complex equation of occupation using the simplest of tools and by relying on faith. Revisiting this historical precedent places before us a crucial question: how can the collective will of a nation, even under asymmetric power relations, influence and redirect the political trajectory of an entire region? This question has gained renewed importance in understanding the dynamics of current developments.
In the decades preceding 1987, Palestinians had endured a long history of military occupation and socio-economic restrictions. Since 1967, with the occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip by the Zionist regime, many young Palestinians came of age in an environment where hope for any initiative to end the occupation was virtually nonexistent. Extensive settlement construction, movement restrictions, and, most crucially, the continued occupation of their land created a profound sense of deprivation and disillusionment across society, particularly among the youth.
This accumulation of rage and hatred resulting from the enemy’s occupation had transformed into a reservoir of explosive resentment that needed only a small spark to confront this terrorist and occupying gang with a serious and widespread tension. On December 8, 1987, a truck driven by a Zionist operative in Jabalia caused the death of several Palestinians. This tragedy was the very spark that detonated a wave of public disgust and hatred against the occupiers. In the hours and days that followed, honorable Palestinian men and women, without any formal command or organizational directive, poured into the streets and engaged in widespread clashes with the occupying forces. The movement was initially confined to the area where the incident occurred, but it quickly expanded to nearby cities and regions.
The popular nature of the Intifada
As previously noted, the First Intifada, unlike many armed movements, was a spontaneous and genuinely popular uprising. Strong social bonds and a shared sense that injustice and occupation was occurring became the driving force behind this movement. From schools and universities to neighborhoods, people engaged in self-mobilization, with every individual contributing according to their capacity. Teenagers and young men took to the fight with stones in hand, women supported the men by preparing food and providing medical aid, and store owners joined the movement through strikes and civil disobedience.
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The role of factions and movements in organizing the uprising
While the First Intifada was inherently a people’s movement, several local factions and figures played a role in coordinating and supporting it. In the West Bank, nationalist factions, particularly the Fatah movement and the Palestine Liberation Organization, sought to play a part in spreading information, public calls for mobilization, and coordination between various cities and neighborhoods. In the Gaza Strip, newly established Islamic movements, including Palestinian Islamic Jihad, also contributed to coordination and communication. Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a cleric and founder of Islamic networks in Gaza, played a significant role in establishing supportive social structures. Concurrent with the popular protests against the occupation, he founded a movement called the “Islamic Resistance Movement – Hamas.”
Hamas emerged not merely as a political or social organization but as a representative of the Palestinian people’s resistance built upon an Islamic framework – a structure capable of organizing the collective will against the occupation. This initiative utilized mosques and local charitable institutions to create a network for providing education and social services, which indirectly supported the popular movements of the Intifada. In this manner, various groups and movements served as facilitators and supporters. Yet the central axis of the movement remained the nation itself – a people determined to deliver a clear message of the power of their determination and their faith to the occupying forces of the Zionist regime.
Efforts to suppress the Intifada
The First Intifada brought thousands of defiant Palestinians into the streets across the occupied territories. The apartheid Zionist regime, deploying its military forces, sought to impose a severe and brutal crackdown. The Palestinian people bore immense costs and suffered heavy losses, yet in turn, they inflicted significant costs on the Zionist enemy. According to credible sources, over the approximately six-year course of the Intifada, around 1,600 Palestinians were martyred by the Zionist regime, of whom 280 were adolescents under the age of seventeen, while an additional 115 Palestinians were martyred at the hands of Zionist settler-occupiers.
The policies of widespread repression against Palestinians, initiated during the early years of the Intifada, have continued in increasingly intensified forms to the present day. Among these measures are:
- The extensive use of live ammunition against teenagers whose only weapons were stones
- Mass arrests, torture, and beatings
- Disrupting the daily lives of Palestinians through the imposition of severe curfews and movement restrictions
- Forcing the closure of schools, universities, and marketplaces
- Demolition and confiscation of the homes of all individuals accused or suspected of participating in protests
These same longstanding policies, now combined with advanced technologies and artificial intelligence, have cast a heavier shadow than ever before over the lives of Palestinians.
The losses inflicted on the Zionist regime in the First Intifada
Although the First Intifada was an unarmed movement, it inflicted a range of unprecedented security, economic, social, and political losses on the occupying Zionist regime. On the security level, the continuous protests and repeated confrontations between Palestinians and occupying soldiers resulted in the deaths of approximately 160 occupation troops and injuries to thousands more. This forced the terrorist occupying army to dramatically increase its troops in the West Bank and Gaza, driving military expenditures ever higher. Economically, the Zionist regime faced stagnation caused by insecurity and widespread civil disobedience. Domestically, the First Intifada created deep rifts within the occupied territories. The occupiers were confronted with pressing questions: Was the continuation of the occupation economically and socially sustainable? Could security be maintained by positioning an army against the will of an entire nation?
During this period, divisions within Zionist society intensified. A segment of the population began to question whether a nation could be permanently controlled through an “Iron-Fist” policy. These internal disagreements later guided the political arena toward accepting the Oslo Accords. The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin following the Oslo Agreement also demonstrates that after the accord, this rift within Zionist society not only failed to diminish but was in fact substantially deepened.
On the international stage, the First Intifada not only amplified the Palestinian narrative in global media but also triggered a wave of resolutions and international condemnations against the Zionist regime. Ultimately, the regime’s perceived legitimacy in global public opinion suffered noticeable damage.
How the Intifada drew the Zionist regime to the negotiating table
The First Intifada initiated a process that ultimately broke the decades-long political deadlock surrounding the Palestinian issue. Prior to 1987, the occupying regime was confident it could maintain the status quo through military might and security management. However, six years of sustained nationwide protest, civil disobedience, the heavy costs of occupation, human casualties, global media pressure, and the political crisis in Tel Aviv gradually shattered this confidence. The Intifada demonstrated that the Palestinian nation was not merely a population under occupation, but a political agent capable of transforming everyday resistance into a strategic crisis for the enemy. The Zionist regime realized that the military control of millions of people, especially in the age of mass media, carried an unsustainable cost. This situation, combined with increasing international pressure toward the end of the Intifada, led the Zionist regime – for the first time, albeit unwillingly and under compulsion – to accept the political existence of Palestinians in the form of negotiations. The path to the Madrid Conference and subsequently the Oslo Accords emerged directly from the erosion caused by the Intifada and significant international developments, including the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, a fundamental gap emerged between the expectations of the people and the political outcomes of the negotiations. Many Palestinians had hoped that the heavy sacrifices of the Intifada – from the blood of children to arrests, from prolonged strikes to economic disruption – would lead to tangible achievements on the path to full independence.
Yet the Oslo framework, with its continuation of settlement-building and occupation, failed to fulfill these expectations. Thus, the Intifada changed the fundamental policies of the Zionist regime, but the political outcome produced by Oslo failed to reflect the depth of the people’s collective will. This enduring gap – the legacy of the Oslo Accords – became a foundation for subsequent resistance experiences, internal political shifts, and distrust of political processes over the next two decades.
Developments on the ground demonstrate that Palestinians reject any political plan that does not fulfill the right to self-determination and the complete removal of occupation from the river to the sea. They have realized that resistance is the only path to Palestine's independence.
The Leader of the Islamic Revolution expressed this clearly in his Quds Day speech on April 29, 2022:
“These incidents and what has occurred in Palestine in recent years is a seal of annulment on all schemes for compromise with the Zionist enemy. This is because no scheme or plan about Palestine is implementable in the absence of Palestine or against the consent of its owners – the Palestinians. This means that all former agreements such as the Oslo Accords, the Arabian two-state solution, the Deal of the Century and the recent humiliating attempts for the normalization of relations have been nullified.”
A lesson from history: True power lies in the will of the nations
The First Palestinian Intifada stands as a living testament to the power arising from within the people. Ordinary individuals, standing resolutely against the occupiers armed only with stones, made a tangible impact on the course of the Palestinian cause – an impact that even the highly equipped Arab armies of previous decades, despite their advanced weaponry, had failed to achieve. This experience proved that no political solution or high-level agreement could restrain the occupation and greed of the Zionist regime, leading the Palestinians to form a stronger and more determined resistance.
From marketplaces and streets to schools and refugee camps, the First Intifada, was not merely a protest but a self-mobilized and cohesive movement that projected a message of freedom and the right to self-determination to the world. Over time, Palestinian resistance evolved: its tools and methods advanced, and its ability to confront the occupiers increased, ranging from simple stones to sophisticated operations such as “Sword of Al-Quds” and “Al-Aqsa Flood.” Yet the spirit of the movement has always remained popular and self-mobilized, demonstrating that the main pillar of resistance – the unity, solidarity, and faith of the community – is one no power can defeat.
At the International Conference in Support of the Palestinian Intifada[1] on October 1, 2011, the Leader of the Islamic Revolution emphasized:
“Instead of relying on Arab governments and seeking help from global organizations such as the United Nations, which were accomplices of the arrogant powers, Palestine started to rely on itself, its youth, its deep Islamic faith and its selfless men and women. This is the key to all achievements.”
This statement articulates the essence of all effective Palestinian resistance movements: true power resides within society itself, in shared faith, and in the solidarity and self-sacrifice of its men and women. Any power that ignores this truth is destined to fail. The experience of Palestinians has shown the world that freedom and steadfastness are possible only through reliance on oneself, one’s community, and shared faith, and that what changes the course of history rises from the grassroots upward.
(The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of Khamenei.ir.)
[1] This conference, initiated by the Islamic Republic of Iran to support the will and aspirations of the Palestinian people, took place on five occasions—1991, 2001, 2006, 2009, and 2011—and included Iranian officials, a speech by the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, and representatives of Islamic states.
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