The motivation for the Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan becomes clear, when we consider that over half of the total terror attacks occurred in the Gaza strip. We can also judge the success of Israel's preventive measures, including the efficacy of the security barrier, in thwarting terror attacks, and judge whether or not the Intifada is really over as some are claiming.

According to IDF figures, from September 2000 until June 24, 2004 there were a total of 22,406 Palestinian terror attacks of all kinds, of which only 889 were inside the Green Line, 12,776 were in the Gaza Strip and 8,741 were in the West Bank. The Gaza strip accounts for 57% of all attacks.

There were about 1.5 attacks for each and every one of the approximately 8000 settlers, requiring a huge security overhead. This may explain why Ariel Sharon and security advisors are anxious to withdraw from Gaza. The figures are not broken down by month.

According to the IDF there were a total of 135 successful suicide attacks and 406 unsuccessful ones in green line Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza strip up to and including August of 2004. These figures include "work accidents" which the IDF presumes were suicide attacks in the making, but they apparently do not include fatal attacks that do not involve suicide bombings such as the killing of Shalhevet Pas by a sharpshooter in Hebron, or the "execution" of the Hatuel family in Gaza, or the killing of 14 year old Kobi Mandel. Separately compiled statististics indicate that about 89 of the suicide attacks were within the green line, and among those, about 30 were in the Jerusalem area.
The graph breaks down the statistics by months, and gives the number of attacks and the number of prevented attacks for each month.

The summarized data for monthly averages of attacks are given below.

Summarized data - monthly averages of attacks

YEAR	Successful attacks /month	Caught	Total	% Prevented
2000*	1.33	0	1.33	0%
2001	3.00	1.67	4.67	34%
2002	4.92	9.33	14.25	61%
2003	2.08	15.33	17.42	88%
2004	1.38	11.25	12.63	87%

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* Last 3 months of 2000, first 8 months of 2003)



2002 was the worst year in terms of successful attacks, averaging almost 5 successful attacks a month out of 14 attempts. But in 2002, the average success rate in preventing attacks climbed to 61% per month, while in 2003 and 2004 the IDF claims it was able to prevent about 88% of the attacks on average. More detailed figures tell us that the change occurred sometime after April 2004:

YEAR	Successful attacks /month	Caught	Total	% Prevented
Jan 02	3	0	3	0
Feb 02	8	3	11	27
Mar 02	17	8	25	32
Apr 02	5	4	9	44
May 02	7	7	14	50
Jun 02	5	10	15	67
Jul 02	2	12	14	86
Aug 02	2	10	12	83
Sep 02	2	9	11	82
Oct 02	4	15	19	79
Nov 02	4	19	23	83
Dec 02	0	15	15	100

March 2002 was the peak of the violence. Over 100 people were killed in a month, triggering operation Defensive Shield as well as tighter security measures. The IDF occupied Palestinian cities in the West Bank, arrested and killed leaders of terrorist groups and instituted event tighter closure and checkpoints. Captured documents boosted intelligence capabilities. The improvement in prevention of attacks is evident especially from June of 2002, and it cannot be due to the security barrier. In June of 2002, the Israeli government announced the intention of building the security barrier, but actual construction did not begin for some months, and it was not until July of 2003 that the government announced completion of the northern section of the fence. The security fence may be stopping some attacks or shifting some of the attacks. Given that attacks within green line Israel constituted only 4% of the total number of terror incidents (buth suicide attacks and nonsuicide attacks), it is hard to say that the barrier can going to stop a significant amount of terror. It may stop a significant percentage of suicide attacks, or it may shift them to the West Bank or to areas of Jerusalem accessible to Palestinians. But non-suicide attacks can kill too.

The security measures did not immediately reduce the number of attempted suicide attacks according to IDF figures. In 2002, there was an average of 14.25 attempts per month, while in 2003 there were 17.42 attempts per month on average. However, there were almost 5 successful attacks on average each month in 2002, but only 2 successful attacks per month in 2003, and only 1.38 successful attacks per month in 2004.

Is the Intifada over? In the first 8 months of 2004, there was also a statistically significant (p < 0.04 by one-tailed test) drop in the number of attempted suicide attacks to an average of 12.63 per month. We cannot say that the Intifada is over by any means however. There are still more attempted suicide attacks per month than there were in 2001, the first year of the Intifada, and we have no data regarding the number of attacks of all kinds in different periods. Total non-suicide attacks may be increasing. Qassam rocket attacks and mortar attacks for example, have increased in recent months.

Relative to the nightmare of Iraq, where terror attacks and kidnappings seem to be totally out of control, Israel has achieved some success in curbing suicide attacks, but this doesn't mean that Israel has won its war on terror. A country that suffers over a dozen attempted suicide attacks a month cannot say "business is normal," especially not if even one attack per month is successful. The success in preventing suicide attacks has been very expensive in manpower and in lives of Israeli soldiers. History also shows that when one particular tactic is mastered by a foe, terrorists find new ones to replace it.

Nobody should believe that terror can be stopped without a political solution. Anyone who is opposed to disengagement in Gaza should consider whether the questionable right of 8,000 Israelis to live Gaza has been worth the huge expense of maintaining them there, the cost in lives and the over 12,000 terror attacks they have drawn upon themselves and the soldiers guarding them in the last four years. Isn't incredible that this huge cost - 57% of all terror attacks in the last 4 years, is never mentioned in all the deliberations about disengagement? Isn't it odd that so much effort is put into building a barrier that may prevent 4% of the total attacks?

Ami Isseroff