Traffic Accident at Erez Crossing

Date: December 8, 1987 • Location: Sederot, Israel

This milestone marked the outbreak and beginning of this historic period, which spanned 1987–1993.

Arab–Israeli conflict: An Israeli army tank transporter killed four Palestinian refugees and injured seven others during a traffic accident at the Erez Crossing on the Israel–Gaza Strip border, sparking the First Intifada.

Since the declaration of Israel's establishment in 1948, conflict has existed between Israel and the surrounding Arab countries, rooted in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Zionists viewed the region of Palestine as the Jewish ancestral homeland and sought to establish a Jewish state or homeland there through colonization, while Arabs generally opposed Zionism, envisioning Palestine as Arab Palestinian land and an essential part of the Arab world.