May 1
Order Concerning Security Provisions (No. 378) is issued. It includes ninety-seven main sections that grant the IDF numerous powers, for example, in carrying out arrests and administrative detention, conducting searches, confiscating property, closing institutions or certain areas, and restricting the freedom of movement.September
“Black September.” Following an alleged attempt to assassinate Jordan’s King Hussein and the hijacking of three planes by Palestinian terrorists, a hijacking that ended on Jordanian land, where the hijackers blew the empty planes in front of TV cameras, the tension between the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and Palestinian resistance organizations increases and turns into open hostilities. The Jordanian Army attacks the resistance organizations. After ten months of fighting on and off, the resistance organizations are expelled from Jordan and reorganize in Lebanon.October 5
The report of the UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Population of the Occupied Territories states that Israel uses torture when interrogating Palestinians.November 30
The first NAHAL outpost in the Gaza Strip, Kfar Darom, is established.December
The army begins an operation, commanded by OC (Officer Commanding) Southern Command Ariel Sharon, to eliminate Palestinian resistance, mainly in refugee camps in the Gaza Strip. The operation follows a wave of armed resistance in the strip that began at the end of 1968. At first, Palestinian violence was primarily directed at alleged Palestinian collaborators and subsequently included attacks on security forces and Israeli civilians. During the operation, Israel builds a fence around the refugee camps in the strip, imposes curfew on them, and Israeli troops, together with the Shabak (the General Security Service) and Palestinian collaborators, make incursions into the camps to locate wanted persons. Some twelve thousand men are detained and taken to the Abu-Zneimah Detention Center in the Sinai Peninsula. About two thousand houses, in which some fifteen thousand people lived, are destroyed during the operation.———
The Gaza Strip is connected to the Israeli electricity grid.
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An army report summarizing three years of Israeli control of the Occupied Territories states: “The Six-Day War obliterated the ‘Green Line’ that separated Israel from the Territories,” and “the only way to prevent potential insurrection is to constantly seek to improve the standard of living and services.”
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In 1970, 1,261 Palestinian are administratively detained and held without trial. The number drops the following year, to 445. Between 1973 and 1977, about forty Palestinians a year, on average, are held in administrative detention.