Today, in 2002, the IDF began Operation Defensive Shield in Judea and Samaria.
The second intifada began in October 2000, after Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount (although it is proven that Yasser Arafat, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, planned to start a wave of terror, in any case), and brought the State of Israel together with the harshest reality of terrorism it has ever known, with suicide attacks and hundreds of deaths. Israel’s defensive policy did not do its job, nor did turning Sharon (with the aggressive stance) into the prime minister (who was neutralized by diplomatic pressure). The beginning of the global war on terror at the end of 2001 brought international pressure down from Israel, and in March 2002, after a horribly lethal month culminating in a terrible attack during the Seder at the Park Hotel in Netanya, Sharon carried out Operation Defensive Shield – which included the re-occupation of most Palestinian cities in Judea and Samaria, while eliminating terrorists, Destroying “terrorist laboratories” and confiscating weapons. Within a month and a half, the IDF was able to fulfill its missions, when Arafat was besieged and the Palestinian Authority was disarmed from most of its weapons; the wave of terror was halted, and the Intifada began to fade until it was finished in late 2003.