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Israeli-Palestinian conflict timeline

The neutrality of this article is disputed. The reader should keep in mind that the timeline below gives only a partial account of events.

This is a incomplete timeline of events in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. See also Israeli-Palestinian conflict external references for news stories.

September 6, 2003

Mahmoud Abbas resigns from the post of Prime Minister.

August 19, 2003

Islamic Jihad and Hamas claim joint responsibility for a suicide bombing that kills twenty Israelis. Mahmoud Abbas pledges a crackdown on militants, but he is prevented from doing so by Yassir Arafat

June 29, 2003

Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah agree to a three-month cease-fire.

June 2, 2003

A two-day summit is held in Egypt. Arab leaders announce their support for the road map and promised to work on cutting off funding to terrorist groups.

May 27, 2003

Ariel Sharon states that the "occupation" of Palestinian territories "can't continue endlessly."

April 30, 2003

The details of the Road map for peace are released.

March 24, 2003

Hilltop 26, an illegal Israeli settlement near the city of Hebron, is peacefully dismantled by the Israel Defence Force.

March 19, 2003

Mahmoud Abbas is appointed as the first Palestinian Prime Minister.

March 16, 2003

Rachel Corrie, an American member of the International Solidarity Movement is crushed by an Israel Defence Forces bulldozer, becoming the first ISM member to die in the conflict. Eyewitnesses allege murder, while Israel calls it a "regrettable accident".

August 14, 2002

Marwan Barghouti, captured April 15, was indicted in a civilian Israeli court.

July 22, 2002

In an interview with the British newspaper the Independent, Yasser Arafat's chief political representative in Jerusalem, Professor Sari Nusseibeh, condemned suicide bombings as "immoral". He said that the Palestinians have a right to resist the Israeli occupation but that violence was not the way. "The use of violence as a means of solving problems is demeaning to us as human beings", he said. "Attacking civilians of any kind anywhere is totally unacceptable". While this is only a minority view, commentators considered it significant that a senior representative of the PLO denounced all violence against civilians, including against Israeli settlers. No other Palestinian leader declared support to a non-violent conclusion of the conflict.

Fifteen Palestinians (including nine children) were killed, by an American-built F-16 Israeli jet which bombed a densely populated residential area of Gaza City. Among the innocent children killed, Mohammed al-Huwaiti was aged 4, his brother Subhi was aged 3, Ayman Mattar was only 1 and little Dunya Rami Mattar only 3 months. The victims included Salah Shehade (the leader of Hamas's military wing, the Izz ad-Din el-Qasam Brigades), and more than 100 others were wounded. The United Nations condemned this as a flagrant violation of international law. Two days later, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, Israel's minister of defense, claimed that Shehade had been "engaged" in planning an act of "mega-terror", involving the blowing-up of a truck loaded with a ton of explosives and capable of leading to hundreds of Israelis dead.

Although Ariel Sharon described Shahade's death, as "one of our biggest successes", some claim that it did not serve Israel's interest so well, as it came a few hours after the spiritual leader of Hamas, Ahmed Yassin, offered to halt all suicide attacks in exchange for full Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, in effect to the 1967 borders. However, shortly after the strike, masked Hamas militants vowed to wreak revenge on Israel, so it seemed unlikely that his offer still stood. It is not clear to what extent Yassin was committed to his offer.

June 24, 2002

US President George W. Bush calls for an independent Palestinian state living in peace with Israel.

May 18, 2002

Shin Bet officials announces they have arrested six Israelis for conspiring to bomb Palestinian schools in April, including Noam Federman, a leader of the Kach movement of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, and Menashe Levenger, son of Rabbi Moshe Levenger, a founder of the Hebron settlement.

May 9, 2002

Muhammad al-Madani, governor of Bethlehem, leaves the Church of the Nativity.

Israel calls up additional reserve forces and moves tanks into position for an expected incursion into the Gaza Strip in retaliation for the most recent suicide bombing.

April 2, 2002

Israeli troops occupy Bethlehem. Dozens of armed Palestinian gunmen, many of whom Israel has identified as terrorists, occupy the Church of the Nativity and hold the church and its clergy hostage.

March 31, 2002

Israeli troops exchange gunfire with guards of Yasir Arafat in Ramallah. In the past 18 months, according to the Associated Press, 1262 people have been killed on the Palestinian side and on 401 on the Israeli side; in March, 259 Palestinians and 130 Israelis were killed.

March 30, 2002

A suicide bomber explodes in My Coffee Shop, a Tel Aviv café at around 9:30 PM local time, wounding 32 people. President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell (USA) call on Yasir Arafat to condemn the wave of suicide bombings in Arabic, to his own people. Israeli spokespeople make similar demands. Arafat goes on television and swears in Arabic that he will "die a martyr, a martyr, a martyr". Members of Arafat's personal Al-Aqsa brigade state that they will refuse any form of cease-fire, and that they will continue suicide bombings of civilians in Israel.

March 29, 2002

Israeli forces begin Operation Defensive Shield, an incursion into the West Bank.

March 14, 2002

Israeli forces continue the raid on Ramallah and other West Bank towns. A helicopter attack near Tulkarmkills Mutasen Hammad and two bystanders. A bomb in Gaza destroys an Israeli tank which was escorting settlers, killing 3 soldiers and wounding 2. A taxi in Tulkarm explodes, killing 4 Palestinians. Palestinians execute two accused collaborators in Bethlehem, planning to hang one of the corpses near the Church of the Nativity until Palestinian police stop them.

March 13, 2002

The U.S. pushes through the passage of U.N. Resolution 1397 by the Security Council, demanding an "immediate cessation of all acts of violence" and "affirming a vision of a region where two states, Israel and Palestine, live side by side within secure and recognized borders".

= December 4, 2001

A charity known as the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development is shut down. Its Richardson, Texas headquarters and its offices in San Diego, California, Bridgeview, Illinois, and Paterson, New Jersey are searched. The charity is accused of funding Hamas.

October 17, 2001

Tourism Minister Rechavam Ze'evy is assassinated in Jerusalem by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

February 6, 2001

Ariel Sharon of the Likud Party is elected Prime Minister.

December 10, 2000

Prime Minister Ehud Barak resigns.

September 28, 2000

Israeli Opposition Leader Ariel Sharon visits the Temple Mount which is administered by a Muslim organization. The visit results in violent confrontations between Muslims and Israeli Police.

July 2000

The Camp David Summit between Ehud Barak and Yassir Arafat demonstrates both parties' unwillingness to make further comprimizes.

May 24, 2000

The Israeli Army withdraws from southern
Lebanon, in compliance with U.N. Resolution 425.

May 17, 1999

Ehud Barak of the Labour Party is elected Prime Minister.

October 23, 1998

Benjamin Netanyahu and Yassir Arafat sign the Wye River Memorandum at a summit in Maryland hosted by Bill Clinton.

May 1996

Benjamin Netanyahu of the Likud Party is elected Prime Minister.

November 4, 1995

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated in Tel Aviv by Jewish extremist Yigal Amir. Shimon Peres assumes the position of acting Prime Minister.

September 28, 1995

Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip signed in Washington, DC.

December 10, 1994

Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Yassir Arafat are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

May 18, 1994

Israeli forces withdraw from Jericho and Gaza City in compliance with the Oslo accords.

August 20, 1993

Yassir Arafat and Yitzak Rabin sign the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government in Oslo.

June 1992

Yitzak Rabin of the Labour Party elected Prime Minister.

January 1991

Tel Aviv is hit by 40 Scud missles lauched by Iraq during the Persian Gulf War.

November 15, 1988

An independent State of Palestine was proclaimed by the Palestinian National Council meeting in Algiers, by a vote of 253 to 46.

October 1987

The
First Intifada begins. Violence continues until the 1993 Oslo Accords.

August 1983

The Israeli Army withdraws from most of Lebanon.

June 6, 1982

Israel enters southern Lebanon. Israel claims the invasion was in order to remove PLO forces.

1981

Heavily armed
PLO forces move into southern Lebanon, which they use as a base for attacks against Israel.

September 17, 1978

Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and sign the Camp David Accord, with Israel agreeing to withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula and to a framework for future negotiation over the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

May 1977

Menachem Begin of the Likud Party is elected Prime Minister, ending nearly 30 years of rule by the Labour Party.

October 1973

The Yom Kippur War. Syria and Egypt attack Israeli forces in the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula.

June 1967

The Six-Day War. Israel launches a pre-emptive strike agaist the Egyptian Air Force on suspicion that Egypt and Syria are plannig to invade. Israel defeat the combined forces of Egypt, Syria and Jordan and capture the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria.

February 3, 1964

The Palestine Liberation Organization is founded in Cairo with Yassir Arafat as its leader.

March 1957

Israel withdraws its forces from the Sinai Peninsula, ending the Suez Crisis.

October 29, 1956

Israel invades Egypt's Sinai Peninsula in secret alliance with France and Britain.

April 1949

Israel concludes Armistice Agreements with neighbouring countries. The territory of the British Mandate of Palestine is divided between the State of Israel, the Kingdom of the Jordan and Egypt.

May 15, 1948

Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Egypt and local Arabs attack the new Jewish state. The resulting war lasts 13 months.

May 14, 1948

Israel declares Independence from British rule.

November 29, 1947

The UN General Assembly passes a Partition Plan dividing the British Mandate of Palestine into two states.

July 1937

In an effort to end the Great Uprising, the Peel Commission limits Jewish immigration to Palestine to 12,000 per year.

May 7, 1936

Arab delegates from throughout Palestine declare a general strike to protest British rule, thus starting the Great Uprising .

July 24, 1922

The League of Nations grants Britain a mandate to administer Palestine.

December 9, 1917

British forces occupy Jerusalem.

November 2, 1917

British foreign affairs minister Arthur James Balfour sends a letter to Lord Rothschild, President of the Zionist Federation, declaring his government's intent to establish "a national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine.

See also: