The Palestinian cause remains alive despite every attempt to erase it. Whenever the world bets on its fading, Palestinians rise to reawaken collective consciousness. They did so in the First Intifada of 1987, the Al-Aqsa Intifada of 2000, and the Al-Quds Intifada of 2015—and they continue today in the face of genocide and starvation in Gaza, rampant settlement expansion in the West Bank, and the hardships of the refugee camps.
The First Intifada of 1987 erupted after a deliberate vehicular attack carried out by the usurping entity against Palestinian workers in Gaza, igniting mass confrontations across the West Bank and the Strip that lasted for months. Marches and public strikes spread, stones became a symbol of resistance, and the uprising restored national identity while exposing the occupier’s inability to break the people’s will despite repression and arrests.
Next came the Al-Aqsa Intifada of 2000, sparked when the criminal Ariel Sharon stormed the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque, unleashing pent-up anger. Popular protests quickly escalated into a broader confrontation under bloody repression, large-scale invasions, and siege. This uprising exacted a heavy toll in blood and destruction but proved that the settlement project could never crush the will to liberation and returned the choice of resistance to the heart of Palestinian consciousness.
Then followed the Al-Quds Intifada of 2015, ignited by repeated incursions by the usurping entity into Al-Aqsa Mosque, settler violence, the horrific burning of the Dawabsheh family and the killing of the child Muhammad Abu Khdeir, alongside relentless settlement expansion. This wave of outrage spread through Al-Quds and the West Bank, becoming a pivotal moment that reaffirmed national identity and underscored that any violation of holy sites and rights would trigger a popular eruption.
These uprisings were not isolated incidents but successive popular responses to attempts to sideline the Palestinian cause and deny an entire people their rights. In each phase, the street reset the compass, proving that Palestinians can assert their presence and their inalienable rights.
Today, since October 7, 2023, the Gaza Strip endures aggression, blockade, and a campaign of extermination against all its people. Yet its residents offer an extraordinary example of steadfastness: life reclaimed from beneath the rubble, an unyielding resolve to remain, and a refusal to be displaced. In the West Bank, settler attacks, raids, arrests, and home demolitions continue, but towns and villages cling to their land and confront settler violence with daily determination, proving that the land is defended through action, not words.
These realities have been accompanied by massive global demonstrations, where millions raised the Palestinian flag and demanded an end to the massacres and accountability for the perpetrators—restoring the centrality of the Palestinian cause in international public opinion and weakening the colonial narrative’s grip on the global discourse.
From the stones of 1987 to the fury of Al-Aqsa in 2000, the Al-Quds Intifada of 2015, and the present steadfastness of Gaza and the West Bank, one truth stands clear: the cause does not die as long as its people resist. The Al-Quds Intifada, in its broad meaning, is the name of a memory renewed each time the
