Israel Air Force (IAF) air strikes (and sea-based strikes along the Gaza Strip) increased considerably and were mostly targeted against PA security and governmental installations as well as ammunition warehouses in order to punish the PA for supporting the uprising and terror/guerrilla campaign. While the IAF air campaign enabled Israel to degrade effectively the PA’s military infrastructure, it was far less successful in eliminating potential suicide bombers, which the IDF dubbed as ‘ticking bombs’. By early 2001, Hamas and PIJ had fully resumed suicide terror bombings within Israel itself. The decision to create a security barrier, which would separate Israelis from Palestinians and protect Israel from further terrorist infiltration, had already been taken in late 2001. The partial construction and operation of this security fence by 2003 was very effective in reducing the number of successful suicide attacks in Israel and, according to some analysts, proved to be a much more effective method than Israel’s targeted killing policy. https://t.center/ApartheidPalestine/70 https://t.center/ApartheidPalestine/89 https://t.center/ApartheidPalestine/83 Though the IDF had been effective in reducing the number of successful suicide attacks against Israeli civilian targets by mid-2004, Palestinian violence increased, particularly within the Gaza Strip, where the Intifada had become an ‘“over/under” conflict, with mortar shells and Qassam rockets being increasingly fired against Israeli settlements’ and Israeli towns bordering the Gaza Strip and IEDs being targeted against Israeli convoys more frequently than had been the case at the start of the conflict. So, while the IDF was able to reduce the phenomenon of suicide terrorism by late 2004, Palestinian insurgency had adapted itself by relying more on Gaza-based rocket and IED attacks. Such attacks increased even after the IDF decided to conduct two major operations in the Gaza Strip (i.e., Operations ‘Rainbow’ in May 2004 and ‘Days of Penitence’ in October 2004).