Violence, terror and the damage to peace

What this page says

This site condemns without reservation terror, deliberate attacks on civilians, kidnapping and incitement to harm people. The condemnation is the same in every case, whoever the perpetrator or the victim.

The page explains how violence changes what people feel and choose. It does not rank suffering or set one pain against another. There is no graphic detail here, and every figure comes with whoever counted it. And a complex process does not fail for one reason: the examples describe what happened and what is known of its effect, nothing more.

How violence hurts the chance of a deal

Fear

The international Mitchell committee wrote in 2001 that fear, hate, anger and frustration had grown on both sides, and that each had lost faith in the other.¹

Trauma and loss

A study that followed 996 Israelis and 631 Palestinians over time found that people personally exposed to terror and political violence supported peace efforts less. According to the researchers, distress and a sense of threat are the link.²

Revenge and escalation

The Mitchell committee found no basis for saying the Palestinian Authority had planned a wave of violence in autumn 2000. It pointed to the Israeli police's lethal fire on demonstrators on 29 September, and then to a lack of restraint on both sides.¹

Radicalisation

A study of Israeli elections found that an attack in a town in the three months before an election raised support there for the right-wing bloc by 1.35 percentage points.³ Another study argues that extremists time violence to moments when moderates are negotiating, to exploit the mistrust between them.⁴

Shooting the leaders

The researcher Stephen Stedman called those who use violence to wreck a deal that threatens their power “spoilers”.⁵ The extreme form is killing a leader: Sadat and Rabin were both assassinated by citizens of their own countries.⁶⁷

Talks stop

When violence rises, meetings stop. The Mitchell committee recommended restoring security cooperation at once and returning to the table.¹

Life itself

Violence, and the occupation itself, hit daily life. In the West Bank the UN counted 925 movement obstacles at the end of 2025, which lengthen the way to work, clinics and fields for 3.4 million Palestinians.⁸ According to the UN, more than 6,199 people in the West Bank lost their homes between January 2023 and August 2026 because of settler attacks and access restrictions.⁹ In Gaza only 14 of 36 hospitals were working in October 2025.¹⁰ In Israel, six months after 7 October, about 100,000 people from towns near Gaza and the Lebanese border still could not go home, according to Israel's Channel 12.¹¹

Examples from history

6 October 1981: the assassination of Anwar Sadat

Egypt's President Anwar Sadat was shot at a military parade in Cairo by Lieutenant Khalid al-Islambouli and his accomplices, members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad.⁶ The documented motives were several, among them the visit to Israel and the Camp David Accords.⁶ The peace treaty survived the murder.

25 February 1994: the terrorist massacre at the Cave of the Patriarchs / Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron

Baruch Goldstein, a settler and Kach supporter, opened fire on Muslim worshippers at dawn prayer in Ramadan and murdered 29 of them.¹² It was a terrorist massacre. On 13 March 1994 Israel's government declared Kach and Kahane Chai terrorist organisations.¹³ The UN Security Council condemned the massacre and said it and its aftermath took the lives of more than 50 Palestinian civilians.¹⁴ Talks between Israel and the PLO stopped.¹³ On 6 April a Hamas suicide bomber killed 8 people in Afula; in JTA's list it is the first suicide bombing.¹⁵

4 November 1995: the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was shot at the end of a peace rally in Tel Aviv by Yigal Amir, a law student who opposed the Oslo process.⁷ Shimon Peres took over and lost the election of May 1996.⁷ The fate of the process cannot be pinned on the murder alone.

February–March 1996: four suicide bombings in nine days

Between 25 February and 4 March 1996 suicide bombers murdered 59 people: twice on the No. 18 bus in Jerusalem, near Ashkelon and at Dizengoff Center in Tel Aviv. JTA's list attributes all four attacks to Hamas.¹⁵ According to the US Office of the Historian, they hurt support for the Labor Party,¹⁶ and in May Peres lost the election.⁷ They were one cause among several.

From late September 2000: the Second Intifada

Violence broke out after Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount / Haram al-Sharif on 28 September 2000.¹⁶ Armed Palestinian groups attacked Israeli civilians, including with suicide bombings, and Israeli military operations killed many Palestinians who were not fighting. According to B'Tselem, in the decade from 29 September 2000 Palestinians killed 1,083 Israelis, 741 of them civilians, and Israeli security forces killed 6,371 Palestinians, at least 2,996 of whom took no part in hostilities.¹⁷

27 March 2002: the Park Hotel bombing in Netanya

On Passover eve a Hamas suicide bomber murdered 30 people at the Park Hotel in Netanya, and nearly 200 were wounded.¹⁸ The next day the Arab League adopted the Arab Peace Initiative in Beirut. The day after, Israel launched Operation Defensive Shield and sent its army back into West Bank cities.¹⁸ Three days: a massacre, a peace offer and a military operation. According to the analyst Yossi Alpher, the bombings convinced many Israelis they had no partner.¹⁸

7 October 2023: the Hamas-led terrorist attack

On 7 October 2023 Hamas, a terrorist organisation, led a terrorist attack in Israel: civilians were murdered and hostages taken. According to Israeli government figures, about 1,200 people were killed and 251 abducted.¹⁰ The first phase of the October 2025 ceasefire brought the release of the last remaining hostages.¹⁹

October 2023 – October 2025: the war in Gaza

In the war that followed, Israeli military operations in Gaza killed at least 67,869 Palestinians, among them 20,179 children, by the ceasefire of October 2025, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza.¹⁰ The ministry is run by Hamas, and its count does not say how many of the dead were fighters; Israel says it targets Hamas.¹⁹ According to UNRWA, the toll had risen to 73,914 by 24 September 2026.²⁰

2023–2026: settler violence in the West Bank

The UN humanitarian office (OCHA) recorded more than 6,500 settler attacks between January 2023 and August 2026 that caused Palestinian casualties or damage to their property.⁹ In 2026 alone more than 1,600 such attacks were recorded by mid-September.²⁰ The attackers are individuals and groups, not a whole public.

Non-violent ways to make a difference

Diplomacy

The peace treaty with Egypt and the peace treaty with Jordan were won in talks, not on the battlefield. The Mitchell committee, too, ended with a call to return to the table.¹

Joint movements

Women Wage Peace describes itself as Israel's largest grassroots peace movement,²¹ and works with the Palestinian movement Women of the Sun.²² Standing Together organises Jewish and Arab citizens.²³ Combatants for Peace was founded in 2006 by former fighters from both sides.²⁴ Each has a page for joining; a fuller list is on the page Israelis and Palestinians: options for the future.

A shared need

Since 1994 EcoPeace Middle East has brought Jordanian, Palestinian and Israeli environmentalists together around water, the Jordan River and the Dead Sea, and it runs programmes for young people.²⁵

Learning together

In the Hand in Hand network more than 2,000 Jewish and Arab pupils learn together, in Hebrew and Arabic, on six campuses.²⁶

Bereaved families who chose dialogue

The Parents Circle – Families Forum has more than 800 Israeli and Palestinian members who lost a close relative in the conflict. It holds dialogue meetings, a camp for teenagers and a joint Memorial Day ceremony,²⁷ which Combatants for Peace co-organises.²⁴

Going out to the square

A rally is a way to make a difference too. Rabin was murdered at the end of a peace rally in Kings of Israel Square in Tel Aviv, now Rabin Square.⁷