Unified National Leadership of the Uprising

The Unified National Leadership of the Uprising (UNLU) (al-Qiyada al Muwhhada) was a coalition of the Local Palestinian leadership during the First Intifada and played an important role in mobilizing grassroots support for the uprising. In 1987 The Intifada caught the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) by surprise, the leadership abroad could only indirectly influence the events. A new local leadership emerged, the Unified National Leadership of the Uprising (UNLU), comprising many leading Palestinian factions. The disturbances initially spontaneous soon came under local leadership from groups and organizations loyal to the PLO that operated within the West Bank and Gaza Strip; Fatah, the Popular Front, the Democratic Front and the Palestine Communist Party. The UNLU was the focus of the social cohesion that sustained the persistent disturbances. After King Hussein of Jordan proclaimed the administrative and legal separation of the West Bank from Jordan in 1988, the UNLU organised to fill the political vacuum.