the leaders of the Islamic Jihad and the Hamas, for them to rally behind him and respect the truce. Ismail Haniyah, a senior leader of the group Hamas said that "its position regarding calm will continue unchanged and Israel will bear responsibility for any new violation or aggression." In the middle of June, Palestinian factions intensified bombardment over the city of Sderot with improvised Qassam rockets. Palestinian attacks resulted in 2 Palestinians and 1 Chinese civilian killed by a Qassam, and 2 Israelis were killed. The wave of attacks lessened support for the disengagement plan among the Israeli public. Attacks on Israel by the Islamic Jihad and the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades increased in July, and on 12 July, a suicide bombing hit the coastal city of Netanya, killing 5 civilians. On 14 July, Hamas started to shell Israeli settlements inside and outside the Gaza Strip with dozens of Qassam rockets, killing an Israeli woman. On 15 July, Israel resumed its "targeted killing" policy, killing 7 Hamas militants and bombing about 4 Hamas facilities. The continuation of shelling rockets over Israeli settlements, and street battles between Hamas militants and Palestinian policemen, threatened to shatter the truce agreed in the Sharm el-Sheikh Summit of 2005. The Israeli Defence Force also started to build up armored forces around the Gaza Strip in response to the shelling. End of the Intifada The ending date of the Second Intifada is disputed, as there was no definite event that brought it to an end. The general views is that it ended in 2005, while some sources include events and statistic for the intifada as far as 2007. Some commentators such as Sever Plocker consider the intifada to have ended in late 2004. With the sickness and then death of Yasser Arafat in November 2004, the Palestinians lost their internationally recognised leader of the previous three decades, after which the intifada lost momentum and lead to internal fighting between Palestinian factions (most notably the Fatah–Hamas conflict), as well as conflict within Fatah itself. Israel's unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip, announced in June 2004 and completed in August 2005, is also cited, for instance by Ramzy Baroud, as signalling the end of the intifada. Some consider 8 February 2005 to be the official end of the Second Intifada, although sporadic violence still continued outside PA control or condonation. On that day, Abbas and Sharon met at the