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.

Table of contents 1 March 24, 2003 2 March 16, 2003 3 October 17, 2002 4 October 1, 2002 5 September 26, 2002 6 August 14, 2002 7 August 7, 2002 8 August 4, 2002 9 July 22, 2002 10 July 16, 2002 11 June 20, 2002 12 June 18, 2002 13 June 11, 2002 14 June 8, 2002 15 June 5, 2002 16 May 28, 2002 17 May 20, 2002 18 May 19, 2002 19 May 18, 2002 20 May 9, 2002 21 May 8, 2002 22 May 7, 2002 23 April 12, 2002 24 April 10, 2002 25 April 2, 2002 26 March 31, 2002 27 March 30, 2002 28 March 29, 2002 29 March 27, 2002 30 March 20, 2002 31 March 14, 2002 32 March 13, 2002 33 March 11, 2002 34 March 9, 2002 35 March 2, 2002 36 October 17, 2001 37 February 6, 2001 38 December 10, 2000 39 September 28, 2000 40 July 2000 41 May 24, 2000 42 May 17, 1999 43 October 23, 1998 44 May 1996 45 November 4, 1995 46 September 28, 1995 47 December 10, 1994 48 May 18, 1994 49 August 20, 1993 50 June 1992 51 January 1991 52 October 1987 53 August 1983 54 June 6, 1982 55 1981 56 September 17, 1978 57 May 1977 58 October 1973 59 June 1967 60 February 3, 1964 61 March 1957 62 October 29, 1956 63 April 1949 64 May 15, 1948 65 May 14, 1948 66 November 27, 1947 67 July 1937 68 May 7, 1936 69 July 24, 1922 70 December 9, 1917 71 November 2, 1917

March 24, 2003

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

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".

October 17, 2002

Six Palestinians were killed and about 50 injured as Isreali forces entered the refugee camp Rafah in southern Gaza strip. A 12 year old boy and two elderly women were among the casualties. The incident started when armed Palestinians opened fire on a Isreali bulldozer, according to the news agency AP.

October 1, 2002

Isreali soldiers killed two Palestinian boys and Palestinians killed one Israeli soldier in a shooting in Nablus. In Gaza a Palestinian man was killed as Isrealis answered to an ambush.

September 26, 2002

At least three Palestinians killed as Isreali helicopters open fire on two cars in the city of Gaza.

August 14, 2002

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

August 7, 2002

Israeli forces killed 6 Palestinians in response to the attacks of August 4. Israeli undercover soldiers killed four Palestinian militants and wounded three in a gun-fight in Tulkarm[?]. An Israeli sniper killed Hussam Hamdan[?], a member of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Israeli troops and 30 tanks pushed into northern Gaza, killing a Palestinian policeman.

August 4, 2002

A Palestinian suicide bombing claimed 9 lives, near Safed[?]; a shooting attack in Jerusalem killed two; an attack upon a Israeli settlement family killed the parents. Not all of the victims of these attacks were Israeli Jews; some were Israeli Arabs and Druze.

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.

July 16, 2002

9 people killed (one of them an infant born immediately after the attack) in a shooting attack near the settlement of Emmanuel. A similar attack, also fatal, happened at the same place just 7 months earlier. A day later, three civilians killed in a suicide bombing on the Tel-Aviv Old Bus Station.

June 20, 2002

A mother, her three sons and a neighbor coming to her rescue killed in an infiltration into the Itamar settlement.

June 18, 2002

19 people killed and 74 injured in a suicide bombing on the 32A bus in Jerusalem. The next day, 7 more killed in a suicide bombing on a crowded bus stop in the French Hill area.

June 11, 2002

14.5-year-old girl killed in a suicide bombing in the coastal city of Herzliya.

June 8, 2002

A civilian, a couple and their unborn baby all killed in an infiltration into the Karmei Zur settlement.

June 5, 2002

17 people killed and 38 injured on a suicide bombing (by the means of a kamikaze-driven car) of the 830 bus on the Megiddo junction.

May 28, 2002

Three high school yeshiva students killed in an infiltration into the Itamar settlement.

May 20, 2002

Two people killed in a suicide bombing in Rishon le-Zion. Five days later, an infant and her grandmother killed in a suicide bombing in Petah Tikva.

May 19, 2002

A suicide bomber disguised as an Israeli soldier kills at least two Israelis and wounds more than 50 in Netanya[?].

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 Gaza in retaliation for the most recent suicide bombing.

May 8, 2002

A palestinian suicide bomber badly injures himself near Megiddo, southeast of Haifa, when the explosives he was carrying go off prematurely.

May 7, 2002

A Palestinian suicide bomber kills 15 and wounds 58 in a billiards and gambling club in Rishon le Zion[?] at approximately 11 pm local time, while Ariel Sharon is meeting with President Bush in Washington D.C.

In April, a total of 311 Palestinians and 58 Israelis were killed, most during Israel's West Bank offensive.

April 12, 2002

A suicide bomber kills 4 Israelis and 2 Chinese workers at the entrance to the Mahaneh Yehuda[?] market in Jerusalem.

April 10, 2002

A bus bombing kills 8 Israelis in Haifa.

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. A suicide bomber identified as Shadi Tubasi[?], a resident of the refugee camp Jenin, kills 15 and wounds more than 40 in an Arab-owned restaurant in Haifa. Later, a suicide bomber wounds four members of an intensive care unit[?], one critically, in a paramedics' dispatch station in Efrat[?]. 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 27, 2002

At the start of Passover, a suicide bomber kills 28 and injures more than 100 in the Park Hotel in Netanya[?] during seder.

March 20, 2002

A bus bombing kills 7 Israelis at the Musmus[?] junction in Umm el-Fahm[?].

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

A. Raffaele Ciriello[?], an Italian photographer, is killed by Israeli forces in Ramallah.

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".

March 11, 2002

Israeli forces invade the Jabaliya[?] refugee camp and Ramallah, killing at least 17 residents and wounding 45.

March 9, 2002

A suicide bomber kills 11 Israelis at Cafe Moment[?] in Jerusalem, across the street from the official residence of Ariel Sharon.

March 2, 2002

A suicide bomber kills 9 Israelis in an ultra-Orthodox[?] neighborhood in Jerusalem.

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 futher 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.

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 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 27, 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.