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 and does not depend on who the perpetrator or the victim is.

The page explains mechanisms: how violence changes what people feel, think and choose. It does not rank suffering or weigh one pain against another. There is no graphic detail here, and every figure is given with the name of its source.

A complex political process does not fail for one reason. The examples below therefore describe what happened and what is known about its effect; they do not claim that one event decided everything.

How violence damages the chance of agreement

Fear

The international Mitchell committee wrote in 2001 that fear, hate, anger and frustration had risen on both sides, and that each side had lost confidence in the other¹.

Trauma and bereavement

A study that followed 996 Israelis and 631 Palestinians over time found that personal exposure to terrorism and political violence reduced support for peace efforts². According to the researchers, psychological distress and a sense of threat are what link exposure to the refusal to compromise².

Revenge and escalation

The Mitchell committee found no basis for concluding that the Palestinian Authority had planned a campaign of violence in advance in autumn 2000¹. It stressed what followed the visit to the Temple Mount / Haram al-Sharif: the Israeli police's use of lethal means against demonstrators on 29 September, and then a lack of restraint on both sides¹.

Radicalisation and the weakening of moderates

A study of Israeli elections found that an attack in a locality in the three months before an election raised support there for the right-wing bloc by 1.35 percentage points, and that terrorism polarises the electorate³. Another study argues that extremist violence is not random: it plays on the uncertainty and mistrust between the moderates who are negotiating⁴.

Targeting leaders and negotiators

The conflict researcher Stephen Stedman used the term spoilers for those who use violence to wreck an agreement they see as a threat to their power and interests⁵. Killing a leader is the most extreme form: Sadat and Rabin were both assassinated by citizens of their own states⁶⁷.

Collapse of dialogue channels

When violence rises, meetings stop. The Mitchell committee recommended an immediate return to security cooperation and to negotiations, after each side had stopped trusting the other¹.

Disruption of everyday life

Violence also hits ordinary life: movement, home and medical care. The Mitchell committee recommended lifting closures¹. According to the UN, more than 6,199 people were displaced from their homes in the West Bank between January 2023 and August 2026 because of settler attacks and access restrictions⁸. In Gaza only 14 of 36 hospitals were functioning in October 2025, some of them partially⁹.

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 the Egyptian Islamic Jihad organisation⁶. The documented motives were several: the failure to apply sharia law, a law that widened women's rights, and the visit to Israel and the Camp David Accords⁶. The Egypt–Israel peace treaty remained in force after the assassination.

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

Baruch Goldstein, an Israeli citizen, opened fire on Muslim worshippers at prayer during the month of Ramadan. The UN Security Council condemned the massacre and stated that it and its aftermath took the lives of more than 50 Palestinian civilians¹⁰. The Council called on Israel to take measures, including confiscating weapons, to prevent violence by settlers¹⁰.

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 and the Interim Agreement⁷. Shimon Peres succeeded him and lost the election of May 1996⁷. The murder was followed by a string of attacks by Hamas which, according to the US State Department's Office of the Historian, undermined support for the Labor Party¹¹. The fate of the process cannot be put down to the assassination alone.

From late September 2000 — the Second Intifada

Violence broke out after Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount / Haram al-Sharif on 28 September 2000¹¹. Armed Palestinian organisations carried out attacks on Israeli civilians, including suicide bombings; in Israeli military operations many Palestinians who were not taking part in the fighting were killed. According to the organisation B'Tselem, between 29 September 2000 and 26 September 2010, 1,083 Israelis were killed by Palestinians, 741 of them civilians, and 6,371 Palestinians were killed by Israeli security forces, at least 2,996 of whom were not taking part in hostilities¹². That count covers a full decade, including the fighting in Gaza in the years after the intifada.

7 October 2023 — the Hamas-led brutal terrorist attack and the war in Gaza

In the Hamas-led brutal terrorist attack of 7 October 2023 about 1,200 people were killed in Israel and 251 were taken hostage, according to Israeli government figures⁹. In the war that followed, the Gaza Health Ministry counted at least 67,869 Palestinians killed, 20,179 of them children, by the time of the ceasefire of October 2025⁹. That figure does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. According to UNRWA, the count had risen to 73,914 by 24 September 2026¹³.

2023–2026 — settler violence in the West Bank

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) documented more than 6,500 attacks by settlers between January 2023 and August 2026 that caused casualties among Palestinians or damage to their property⁸. In 2026 more than 1,600 such attacks had been recorded by 14 September, an average of 6.7 a day¹³. The perpetrators 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 reached through negotiation. The Mitchell committee, too, ended its recommendations with a call to return to talks¹.

Joint civic movements

Women Wage Peace describes itself as Israel's largest grassroots peace movement, with more than 44,000 members¹⁴. It works together with the Palestinian movement Women of the Sun¹⁵. Standing Together is a Jewish–Arab movement in Israel¹⁶. Combatants for Peace was founded in 2006 by former fighters from both sides and is committed to non-violence¹⁷.

Cooperation around a shared need

EcoPeace Middle East has brought together Jordanian, Palestinian and Israeli environmentalists since 1994, working on water security, the Jordan River and the Dead Sea¹⁸.

Education and encounter

Hand in Hand is a network of bilingual Jewish–Arab schools in Israel. It began in 1998 with 50 children, and today more than 2,000 pupils study on its six campuses¹⁹.

Bereaved families who chose dialogue

The Parents Circle – Families Forum is a joint organisation of more than 800 bereaved Israeli and Palestinian families. It was founded in 1995 and runs dialogue meetings and school programmes²⁰. Combatants for Peace holds a joint Israeli–Palestinian Memorial Day ceremony every year¹⁷.

Rallies and demonstrations

Going out to the square is also a way to make a difference. Rabin was murdered at the end of a peace rally in Kings of Israel Square in Tel Aviv, now Rabin Square⁷.