Formed some time after 1982 in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, popular committees filled the institutional and organizational void as the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was in exile. Committees were responsible for basic services ranging from education to garbage collection as well as food distribution during Israeli-imposed curfews and sieges. They required a great deal of popular mobilization, and were instrumental in the First Intifada. Popular committees continue to function today in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and, particularly in the West Bank, have united under several coalitions in order to organize grassroots resistance against Israel’s occupation. The most prominent coalitions include the Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign founded in 2002 and the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee established in 2009. For information about the advent of popular committees during the First Intifada, see King, Mary Elizabeth. A Quiet Revolution: The First Palestinian Intifada and Nonviolent Resistance. New York: Nation Books, 2007; and Farsoun, Samih K. and Naseer H. Aruri. Palestine and the Palestinians, 2nd ed. Boulder: Westview Press, 2006. See also the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee’s website at http://www.popularstruggle.org and the Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign’s website at http://www.stopthewall.org.  http://www.justvision.org/glossary/popular-committee