Category: War, from Wikidata’s class “military operation”
Operation Defensive Shield
Part of: Second Intifada
Wikidata classes on our event-class list: military operation (all its classes: Wikidata item)
Operation Defensive Shield (Hebrew: מִבְצָע חוֹמַת מָגֵן Mīvtzāh Ḥōmat Māgēn) was a 2002 Israeli military operation in the Israeli-occupied West Bank during the Second Intifada. Lasting for just over a month, it was the largest combat operation in the territory since the 1967 Arab–Israeli War.
The operation began with an Israeli incursion into Ramallah, where Yasser Arafat was placed under siege at his compound. This was followed by successive incursions into the six largest West Bank cities and their surrounding localities. Israel's military moved into Tulkarm and Qalqilya on April 1, into Bethlehem on April 2, and into Jenin and Nablus on April 3. From April 3 to 21, Israel enforced strict curfews on the Palestinian populace of the West Bank and restricted movements of international personnel, including prohibiting entry to humanitarian and medical personnel and human rights monitors and journalists.
In May 2002, Israel withdrew from Palestinian cities in the West Bank, but maintained cordons of troops around certain towns and villages, and also continued carrying out raids on Palestinian-populated areas.
According to a report by the United Nations: "Combatants on both sides conducted themselves in ways that, at times, placed civilians in harm's way. Much of the fighting during Operation Defensive Shield occurred in areas heavily populated by civilians and in many cases heavy weaponry was used."
Text retrieved 2026-09-26 from Wikipedia.
Cite this
The link is the Wikipedia revision of August 22, 2026 (revision 1370631926), whose lead is exactly the text shown here.
APA 7
Operation Defensive Shield. (2026, August 22). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Operation_Defensive_Shield&oldid=1370631926
MLA 9
“Operation Defensive Shield.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 22 Aug. 2026, en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Operation_Defensive_Shield&oldid=1370631926.
Chicago (note)
Wikipedia, “Operation Defensive Shield,” last modified August 22, 2026, 05:08 (UTC), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Operation_Defensive_Shield&oldid=1370631926.
Chicago (shortened note)
Wikipedia, “Operation Defensive Shield.”
Chicago cites well-known reference works such as Wikipedia in notes only, not in the bibliography.
This event on Middle East, 1900–present: https://middleeast.events/event/operation-defensive-shield
If you use the map’s borders: CShapes 2.0 - historical country borders. Schvitz, G., et al. (2022). CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. https://icr.ethz.ch/data/cshapes/ (modified by middleeast.events); West Bank Areas A/B/C: UN OCHA / HDX "Oslo Agreement" Areas A/B/C (West Bank). Distributed under the legacy HumanitarianResponse.info terms: non-commercial use with credit to UN OCHA. https://data.humdata.org/dataset/state-of-palestine-other-0-0-0-0-0; some corrected border points: GeoNames - CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). https://www.geonames.org/
Includes 2 events in this dataset
No map location: Wikipedia and Wikidata give no coordinates for this event, so it has no marker on the map.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by Wikipedia contributors, from the article Operation Defensive Shield. Classes are Wikidata’s labels (CC0). “Part of” is Wikidata’s statement, in its labels (CC0).