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This Happened

This Happened—December 9: The First Intifada Ignites

A series of Palestinian protests and violent uprisings in the West Bank, Gaza and Israel began in defiance of Israeli occupation.

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How Did The Intifada Begin? 

An Israeli Defense Forces' (IDF) truck collided with a civilian car, killing four Palestinian workers, three of whom were from the Jabalia refugee camp. Palestinians thought that the collision was a deliberate response for the killing of a Jewish person in Gaza several days earlier.

Though Israel denied that the crash was intentional, the tragedy came at a time of heightened tensions in the region. Palestinians retaliated by throwing rocks, road-blocking and tire burning throughout the territories.

How did the world react to the Intifada?

On 17 February 1989, the UN Security Council drafted a resolution condemning Israel for disregarding Security Council resolutions, and for not complying with Geneva Convention law. The United States put a veto on a draft resolution condemning alleged Israeli violations of human rights

The Intifada was recognized as an occasion where the Palestinians acted cohesively and independently of their leadership or assistance of neighboring Arab states, and broke the image of Jerusalem as a Israeli city. There was international coverage, and the Israeli response was criticized by media outlets internationally.

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Image of a group of police officers, in uniform, on their motorbikes in the street.

Police officers from the Memphis Police Department, in Memphis, USA.

Ian T. Adams and Seth W. Stoughton

The officers charged in the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols were not your everyday uniformed patrol officers.

Rather, they were part of an elite squad: Memphis Police Department’s SCORPION team. A rather tortured acronym for “Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods,” SCORPION is a crime suppression unit – that is, officers detailed specifically to prevent, detect and interrupt violent crime by proactively using stops, frisks, searches and arrests. Such specialized units are common in forces across the U.S. and tend to rely on aggressive policing tactics.

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