List of Palestinian suicide attacks

This article contains a non-comprehensive list of Palestinian suicide attacks carried out by Palestinian individuals and militant groups, usually against Israeli civilian targets. The use of indiscriminate attacks on civilian populations is illegal under international law.

The first suicide attack was carried out in 1989. The high point was in 2002 during the Second Intifada. The Al-Aqsa Intifada saw a dramatic upswing in suicide bombings, with A, 40% of the total number originated in East Jerusalem. A 2007 study of Palestinian suicide bombings during the Second Intifada (September 2000 through August 2005) found that 39.9% of the suicide attacks were carried out by Hamas, 26.4% by Fatah, 25.7% by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), 5.4% by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and 2.7% by other organizations. The attacks steeply declined by 2008.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center has advocated classifying suicide bombings as crimes against humanity, a position adopted by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch in 2002. Cheryl Rubin writes that the vast majority of Palestinian suicide attacks were retaliation for Israeli attacks (assassination, raid etc).

The criteria used for this list:


 * successful deliberate attacks committed by Palestinian militant groups or individuals against either civilians or security forces, in which the perpetrators intended to die during the attack.
 * The perpetrator(s) are not included in the death tolls noted in this list.

Sources and external links

 * Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs
 * Johnston's Terrorism Archive
 * Jewish Virtual Library Fatal terrorist attacks in Israel since the Declaration of Principles
 * Palestinian Suicide Bombers: A Statistical Analysis
 * Willing to Die: Palestinian suicide bombers, TruTV