Strategic Assessment

In March 2002, suicide bombings and other forms of Palestinian terrorism resulted in the largest number of casualties incurred by Israel since the violence began in September 2000, with more than one hundred dead and hundreds wounded. In turn, these attacks, and in particular the horrific assault on the Park Hotel in Netanya on the first night of Passover, led the Israeli government to order the IDF in early April to launch the largest and most sustained incursion into the West Bank since the Oslo accords were signed in September 1993. The stated objective of operation “Defensive Shield” was to destroy the terrorist infrastructure in the territories: the organizational backbone, weapons and munitions stores, and the workshops where such materiel was prepared.