Radical Islamic groups in the Palestinian Territories declared their truce over with Israel on the new year even though in 2005, a year of peace, they carried out 2,990 attacks:
As Islamic Jihad, the Popular Resistance Committees and Fatah’s Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades announced an end to their self-declared truce of January 2005, under which they pledged to refrain from attacking Israeli targets, an annual summary of terror activities for 2005 released by the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) on Sunday revealed that a total of 2,990 attacks were launched against Israeli targets. The attacks occurred after the truce was announced the report stated.
According to the report, motivation among all the terror groups to attack Israel remains high with the number of monthly terror alerts averaging 57.
There was a significant decrease in the number of Israeli fatalities stemming from terror attacks in 2005 with 45 Israelis killed, a 60 percent reduction from the 117 Israelis killed in such attacks in 2004. Twenty-three of the fatalities in 2005 were killed in seven suicide bomb attacks. There was also a 30% decrease in the number of Israeli casualties in attacks during 2005 with 406 Israelis wounded compared with 589 the previous year.
