Timeline Palestine 2011 (A) thru 2015
2011 Jan 1, Jawaher Abu Rahma (36), a Palestinian woman, died one day after allegedly inhaling massive amounts of tear gas fired by the Israeli military at a West Bank demonstration. On Jan 20 Israel's military said Rahma was the victim of a medical error and was not killed by tear gas.
(AFP, 1/3/11)(AP, 1/20/11)
2011 Jan 2, Israel's PM Netanyahu said that he's ready to sit down with the Palestinian president for continuous one-on-one talks until they reach a peace deal. Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian at a checkpoint near the West Bank city of Nablus. Palestinian security sources said Mohammed Daraghmeh was trying to pass through the checkpoint on his way to work at a West Bank settlement and a row broke out with troops when they refused him passage.
(AP, 1/2/11)(AFP, 1/2/11)(AFP, 1/3/11)
2011 Jan 3, In Lebanon Ahmed Yamani (86), one of the founders of the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, died in Beirut after a stroke. The PFLP was launched by the late Palestinian leader George Habash in December 1967, six months after the Arabs lost the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Syria's Golan Heights to Israel.
(AP, 1/4/11)
2011 Jan 5, Israeli troops killed two Palestinians along the Israel-Gaza border. Troops opened fire at two men trying to cross the border fence into Israel.
(AP, 1/6/11)
2011 Jan 7, Chile recognized Palestinian statehood, joining other South American nations in a push for Palestinians and Israelis to keep negotiating toward a lasting peace in the Middle East.
(AP, 1/8/11)
2011 Jan 7, Israeli troops mistakenly shot and killed Omar Kawasmeh, a 65-year-old Palestinian man, during a predawn raid to arrest a Hamas militant in the West Bank. The raid targeted one of six Hamas fighters released from prison a day earlier by the Western-backed Palestinian Authority. 5 of the freed militants, including the target of the raid in which the man was killed, were arrested overnight.
(AP, 1/7/11)
2011 Jan 8, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian who tried to throw explosives at a West Bank checkpoint. A mortar attack from Gaza wounded 2 Thai workers in southern Israel.
(AP, 1/8/11)(SSFC, 1/9/11, p.A5)
2011 Jan 9, Israeli organizers said at least 165 professors have declared a boycott against a contentious Israeli college in the West Bank, deepening an internal rift in Israel over the expansion of West Bank settlements. They said Ariel University Center is an "illegal settlement" intended to prevent Palestinians from establishing an independent state. Bulldozers demolished a wing of the Hotel Shepherd in Jerusalem to make way for a new Israeli enclave in the heart of a Palestinian neighborhood.
(AP, 1/9/11)(Econ, 1/15/11, p.50)
2011 Jan 10, Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian farmer (65) in the northern Gaza Strip.
(AFP, 1/10/11)
2011 Jan 11, An Israeli military court extended the jail term of Palestinian activist Abdullah Abu Rahma by 16 months. Rahma has already served over a year in prison for organizing protests against Israel's security barrier.
(AP, 1/11/11)
2011 Jan 11, The Palestinian Hamas movement in Gaza urged militants to halt their attacks, saying that continued violence would only invite Israeli reprisals. An Israeli airstrike killed a person riding a motorcycle in the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 1/11/11)
2011 Jan 13, A Palestinian minister said Gaza's Hamas rulers will ensure a truce on rocket fire against Israel is protected, a day after militant factions agreed to a period of calm.
(AFP, 1/13/11)
2011 Jan 13, Guyana recognized Palestinian statehood, joining a string of other South American nations in a push for Palestinians and Israelis to negotiate a peace deal.
(AP, 1/13/11)
2011 Jan 14, An Israeli newspaper reported that the army is to begin collecting weapons from Jewish settlers as a result of the calm in the West Bank and over fears they may be used against Palestinians.
(AFP, 1/14/11)
2011 Jan 16, Israeli authorities said they are moving ahead with a new proposal to build 1,400 apartments in a contested part of Jerusalem, enraging Palestinians who denounced the plan as another settler land grab.
(AP, 1/16/11)
2011 Jan 18, Palestinians welcomed Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to the West Bank. Medvedev gave a political boost to the Palestinians, backing their claim to east Jerusalem as a capital and their demand that Israel must freeze all settlement construction before peace talks can resume.
(AP, 1/18/11)
2011 Jan 18, Israeli forces killed a Palestinian on the Gaza border after militants set off a bomb.
(AP, 1/19/11)
2011 Jan 20, A Palestinian man opened fire at an Israeli guard post in the West Bank and soldiers returned fire, killing him.
(AP, 1/20/11)
2011 Jan 21, Dozens of Palestinians, enraged by France's sympathy for an Israeli soldier held by Gaza militants, ambushed the French foreign minister's motorcade in the Gaza Strip, pelting it with eggs and hurling a shoe that narrowly missed hitting her.
(AP, 1/21/11)
2011 Jan 24, Palestinian protesters smashed windows and sprayed graffiti outside the headquarters of the Al-Jazeera TV channel in the West Bank. Al-Jazeera the previous evening had aired what it said were leaked documents showing that Palestinian leaders agreed to deep concessions on two of the thorniest issues in negotiations with Israel: Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees.
(AP, 1/24/11)
2011 Jan 24, Israel's foreign minister confirmed that he has drawn up a plan for the creation of an interim Palestinian state with temporary borders in the absence of a full peace agreement.
(AP, 1/24/11)
2011 Jan 24, Peru joined a growing number of South American countries in recognizing an independent and sovereign Palestinian state. The decision does not recognize Palestine's borders pre-dating the Six-Day War of 1967. Peru also recognized Israel's indisputable right to exist without any threats to its people.
(AP, 1/24/11)
2011 Jan 25, Ireland said it is upgrading its diplomatic relations with the Palestinian territories in recognition of progress being made by the Palestinian Authority. The decision recognizes Ireland's long-standing support for Palestinian statehood, but does not involve any recognition of a Palestinian state.
(AP, 1/25/11)
2011 Jan 28, An Israeli settler shot and critically wounded a Palestinian teenager in the West Bank, in the second such shooting in two days. The teenager from the village of Beit Safa was shot in the head during a clash with settlers near the city of Hebron.
(AP, 1/28/11)
2011 Feb 1, The Palestinian Cabinet in West Bank said it would hold long-promised municipal elections "as soon as possible."
(AP, 2/1/11)
2011 Feb 1, Suriname’s President Desi Bouterse expressed his country's support for Palestinian national rights and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, the latest Latin American country to do so.
(www.israel-palestinenews.org/2011/02/surinam-recognizes-palestinian-state.html)
2011 Feb 7, In Israel Jerusalem officials pushed forward plans to build new Jewish housing in an Arab neighborhood in the city's eastern sector, drawing swift condemnation from Palestinians who see it as encroaching on land they seek for a future state.
(AP, 2/7/11)
2011 Feb 8, The Palestinian Authority set long-overdue local council elections for July 9 in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the government spokesman said. The rival Hamas government that rules Gaza promptly rejected the move.
(AP, 2/8/11)
2011 Feb 9, Israeli aircraft overnight carried out retaliatory airstrikes in the Gaza territory after militants launched rockets into Israel on Feb 8. The airstrikes lightly wounded 8 Palestinians.
(AP, 2/9/11)
2011 Feb 10, India and Pakistan announced they would resume wide-ranging peace talks that were frozen after the 2008 terrorist attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai, which were blamed on Pakistan-based militants.
(AP, 2/10/11)
2011 Feb 14, Palestinian PM Salam Fayyad dissolved his Cabinet in an emergency meeting in what appeared to be a gesture inspired by unrest rocking the Arab world. This gave him six weeks to name a new Cabinet.
(AP, 2/14/11)
2011 Feb 14, In Israel Jerusalem's municipal council approved the construction of 120 new homes in the Jewish settlement neighborhood of Ramot in occupied east Jerusalem.
(AFP, 2/14/11)
2011 Feb 17, Israeli forces shot dead three Palestinians along the tense border with the Gaza Strip before dawn. Soldiers fired on the men after they were spotted planting an explosive device in a no-go zone along the border between 2 and 3 am.
(AP, 2/17/11)
2011 Feb 18, The Obama administration vetoed a UN Arab-backed Security Council resolution that would have condemned Israel for continuing to build Jewish-only settlements in the West Bank.
(AP, 2/19/11)
2011 Feb 19, Dirar Abu Sisi (42), a Palestinian engineer, went missing "under unknown circumstances" after boarding a train in the Ukraine city of Kharkiv bound for the capital Kiev. The UN refugee agency later confirmed his wife's fears that he is being held in prison by the Israeli secret service. Sisi's Ukrainian wife, Veronika (32), alleged the Israeli secret service Mossad carried out the abduction in order to sabotage a key electric power plant in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip where he worked as a senior manager.
(AP, 3/10/11)
2011 Feb 20, Palestinian PM Salam Fayyad angrily denounced the US veto of a United Nations resolution condemning Israel's West Bank settlements and offered to form a unity government with the rival Hamas militant group.
(AP, 2/20/11)
2011 Feb 21, The Palestinian Center for Human Rights said that five male hairdressers were interrogated in Gaza and forced to sign declarations that they wouldn't work in women's salons.
(AP, 2/21/11)
2011 Feb 23, Israeli tank fire wounded 11 people in the Gaza Strip, including at least six militants. The military said it opened fire after the militants detonated a bomb targeting a passing Israeli patrol near the border and then fired mortars at the soldiers.
(AP, 2/23/11)
2011 Feb 26, Israeli warplanes bombed militant training camps in the Gaza Strip for a second time, wounding four people, including a toddler. The raids came after pre-dawn strikes against two other training camps of the hardline Islamic Jihad group.
(AFP, 2/26/11)
2011 Feb 27, A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit Israeli territory, raising Israel's alert level but causing no damage or casualties.
(AFP, 2/27/11)
2011 Feb 28, Hamas moved swiftly to break up a small demonstration in Gaza City where people called for Palestinian reconciliation. Hamas police arrested a protest organizer, seizing a tape from a German TV crew showing a security official slapping the man.
(AP, 3/1/11)
2011 Feb 28, Israeli police demolished two structures at an unauthorized West Bank outpost. This was followed by new hints from PM Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel could soon be forced to curb construction in the settlements.
(AP, 3/1/11)
2011 Feb, Palestinian Hossam al-Ruweidi (24) was killed during an attack in central Jerusalem by four Jewish youths. In 2012 one of the youths (16) was sentenced to eight years in jail.
(AFP, 7/13/12)
2011 Mar 1, Suspected Jewish settlers smashed the windows of 7 Palestinian cars and threw a fire bomb at a Palestinian house in the West Bank.
(AP, 3/1/11)
2011 Mar 2, Jerusalem officials approved new housing for Jews in the heart of an Arab neighborhood, infuriating Palestinians who see the growing Jewish presence in the city's war-won eastern sector as undermining their aspirations to statehood. Israel closed the Karni Crossing east of Gaza City citing security concerns. This left only the Kerem Shalom checkpoint for commercial crossing.
(AP, 3/2/11)(SFC, 3/3/11, p.A2)
2011 Mar 7, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas travelled to Britain for a one-day visit to discuss the stalled peace process with Israel.
(AFP, 3/7/11)
2011 Mar 8, Palestinian women took to the streets to call for unity and an end to the Israeli occupation in a series of rallies called to mark International Women's Day.
(AP, 3/8/11)
2011 Mar 8, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that Israeli troops would remain on the border between Jordan and the West Bank under any future peace deal with the Palestinians.
(AFP, 3/8/11)
2011 Mar 11, An Israeli family of five, Ehud and Ruthy Fogel, their two young children and a baby, were knifed to death as they slept at the Itamar West Bank settlement. In September Hakim Awwad (18) was sentenced to five consecutive life sentences for the slayings. On Oct 4 an army statement said Amjad Awwad (19), a cousin of Hakim Awwad, has confessed to involvement in the slayings.
(AP, 3/12/11)(AFP, 10/4/11)
2011 Mar 13, Israel said it has approved the building of 300 to 500 apartments and settler homes. They would take place in major West Bank settlement blocs that Israel expects to hold on to in any final peace deal.
(AP, 3/13/11)
2011 Mar 15, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas proposed holding elections "as soon as possible" in order to end the divide within the national movement. Thousands of Palestinians thronged major squares in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank to deliver an impassioned appeal to their leaders to end the long-running feud that has divided the Palestinian people between two rival governments.
(AFP, 3/15/11)(AP, 3/15/11)
2011 Mar 15, The Israeli navy intercepted an Egyptian-bound ship carrying a large delivery of weapons off the Mediterranean coast, saying the arms had been sent by Syria to Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip. PM Netanyahu said the source of the weaponry was Iran.
(AP, 3/15/11)
2011 Mar 15, Uruguay said it has joined a string of South American nations in recognizing an independent Palestinian state.
(AP, 3/16/11)
2011 Mar 16, Dozens of Hamas police and security forces entered Gaza City's Al Azhar university and began beating up students heading out for a protest.
(AFP, 3/16/11)
2011 Mar 16, Israeli aircraft fired rockets at a Hamas training ground in the Gaza Strip, killing two militants from the Islamist group.
(AFP, 3/16/11)
2011 Mar 19, Palestinian militants in Gaza fired 54 rockets into Israel, the heaviest barrage in two years. A Hamas official was killed and four civilians were wounded when Israel hit back with tank fire and air strikes. The Israeli army opened fire on two men who were spotted moving suspiciously toward a frontier "no-go" zone. The bodies of Salah Abu Attwa and Imad Faraj, both 17, were found the next day.
(AP, 3/19/11)(AFP, 3/20/11)
2011 Mar 20, Palestinian militants fired a rocket into southern Israel, while Israeli troops killed two Palestinians in a fresh wave of violence along the volatile border with Gaza.
(AP, 3/20/11)
2011 Mar 22, The Israeli military struck a series of Palestinian militant targets in the Gaza Strip, damaging smuggling tunnels and suspected weapons sites. Palestinian officials said 19 people were wounded. The shelling killed 3 children and their uncle and wounded 13 other family members as they played soccer in a backyard.
(AP, 3/22/11)(SFC, 3/23/11, p.A2)
2011 Mar 23, The Israeli parliament approved a pair of laws that critics said were discriminatory and aimed against the country's Arab minority, who made up roughly one-fifth of Israel's 7.7 million people. A bomb exploded at a bus stop in central Jerusalem, killing a British woman, Mary Jean Gardner (59), and wounding 38 people. Two Grad rockets slammed into the Israeli city of Beersheva, as Gaza militants vowed to strike deep into the Jewish state after raids killed 8 Gazans.
(AP, 3/23/11)(AFP, 3/23/11)(SFC, 3/24/11, p.A5)(SFC, 3/25/11, p.A3)
2011 Mar 23, South Africa’s University of Johannesburg voted to sever ties with Israel's Ben-Gurion University, acting on calls from hundreds of South African academics and intellectuals for an academic boycott in a growing campaign to isolate Israel for its attacks on Palestinians in Gaza. It will end a 25-year relationship on April 1, but professors can continue to work individually with Ben-Gurion.
(AP, 3/24/11)
2011 Mar 24, Israeli aircraft struck the Gaza Strip in response to militant rocket and mortar attacks, stoking concerns that a grave new round of hostilities will fill the vacuum left by an impasse in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking. At least 10 rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 3/24/11)(SFC, 3/25/11, p.A3)
2011 Mar 25, A Palestinian was shot and wounded by Israeli police after he injured a soldier in the West Bank.
(AP, 3/25/11)
2011 Mar 25, Israel deployed its newly developed "Iron Dome" rocket defense system for the first time to defend its southern communities from attacks by Gaza militants after a bloody week of Palestinian strikes and Israeli reprisals.
(AP, 3/25/11)
2011 Mar 26, Gaza militants fired over 50 mortar shells into southern Israel. One rocket damaged a house.
(SSFC, 3/27/11, p.A2)
2011 Mar 27, Israel deployed a cutting-edge rocket defense system on the outskirts of Beersheba. “Iron Dome” is expected to be fully operational in a matter of months. Israeli aircraft struck a Palestinian rocket squad in the Gaza Strip, killing two militants as the military activated a new defense system to shoot down incoming rockets.
(AP, 3/27/11)(SFC, 3/28/11, p.A2)
2011 Mar 29, India and Pakistan agreed to set up a "terror hotline" to warn each other of possible militant attacks, a move to build trust as the two nuclear foes get their peace process back on track. India and Pakistan said they have agreed to host Indian investigators looking into the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks blamed on Pakistan-based militants.
(AFP, 3/29/11)(AP, 3/29/11)
2011 Mar 30, An Israeli aircraft attacked a pair of Palestinian militants riding on a motorcycle in the Gaza Strip, killing one and wounding the other.
(AP, 3/30/11)
2011 Apr 2, Israeli aircraft killed 3 Palestinian militants who were planning to abduct Israelis over the upcoming Jewish festival of Passover.
(AP, 4/2/11)
2011 Apr 4, An Israeli court indicted Dirar Abu Sisi, a Palestinian engineer captured on Feb 19 in Ukraine, on charges he was a senior Hamas operative who developed sophisticated rockets for the Islamic militant group.
(AP, 4/4/11)
2011 Apr 4, Israel asked Facebook to pull down a page with 350,000 “fans” calling for “the third Palestinian uprising.” Facebook at first refused, but took the page down a day later.
(SSFC, 4/10/11, p.F9)
2011 Apr 4, In the northern West Bank Juliano Mer-Khamis, a well-known actor and theatre director born of Jewish and Arab parents, died when a gunman opened fire on his car in the Jenin refugee camp as he was driving home with his infant son and the babysitter.
(AFP, 4/5/11)(Econ, 4/16/11, p.92)
2011 Apr 5, Palestinian authorities said Mohammed Shalha (21) was killed by Israeli fire along Gaza's volatile border. Relatives of Shalha said he was collecting gravel along the border. The Israeli military said the man was armed, and that soldiers opened fire after spotting him.
(AP, 4/5/11)
2011 Apr 6, Israeli aircraft attacked two targets in the Gaza Strip, wounding four people, among them a pregnant woman. A group of prominent Israelis, many of them former defense chiefs, launched a new peace plan calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.
(AFP, 4/6/11)
2011 Apr 6, Human Rights Watch criticized Palestinian security forces in the West Bank and Gaza Strip for what it said was an increase in attacks on local journalists, including arbitrary detentions and abuse.
(AP, 4/6/11)
2011 Apr 7, Israeli tanks quickly retaliated after an anti-tank missile fired from the Gaza Strip struck a school bus in southern Israel, wounding two people, including one child. The critically injured boy (16) died of his wounds on April 17. The missile attack came hours after Israel carried out a series of airstrikes against tunnels it says are used by militants to smuggle weapons under the Egyptian border and carry out attacks. The tank fire killed a 50-year-old man and wounded 7 other people.
(AP, 4/7/11)(SFC, 4/18/11, p.A2)
2011 Apr 8, Israeli aircraft and ground forces struck Gaza, killing 9 Palestinians including 5 militia fighters, in a surge of fighting sparked by a Palestinian rocket attack on an Israeli school bus the day before.
(AP, 4/8/11)(SFC, 4/9/11, p.A3)
2011 Apr 9, Palestinian militants fired over 30 rockets at southern Israel. Israeli warplanes killed 5 militants in the Gaza Strip.
(SSFC, 4/10/11, p.A4)
2011 Apr 10, A Palestinian official said Israel and militant groups in Gaza have agreed to a truce, as cross-border violence abated.
(Reuters, 4/10/11)
2011 Apr 11, Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu asked a government panel to put off final approval of 2,500 new apartments in east Jerusalem.
(AP, 4/11/11)
2011 Apr 12, Four Palestinians suffocated while trying to repair a Gaza smuggling tunnel hit in an Israeli airstrike last week. Human rights groups say about 160 workers have been killed in the tunnels over the past three years.
(AP, 4/13/11)
2011 Apr 14, Britain's Guardian newspaper published a statement by the co-authors of a scathing UN report on Israel's conduct during its 2008-2009 offensive in Gaza. They said they stand by their work, hitting back at critics who've pushed to have its findings withdrawn after the report's lead author, Richard Goldstone, aired doubts about one of its central conclusions.
(AP, 4/14/11)
2011 Apr 15, Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni (36) was found hanged in a Gaza apartment just hours after he was abducted by an al-Qaida-inspired group. Hamas soon arrested 4 people in connection with the killing, and sought others.
(AP, 4/15/11)(AP, 4/16/11)
2011 Apr 17, Israel announced the arrests of two Palestinian teenagers in the deadly March 11 stabbings of a West Bank settler family. Hakim Awad (17) was arrested on April 5, and Amjad Awad (18), taken into custody on April 10. They said they are cousins, and that five other Palestinians have been arrested as suspected accomplices.
(AP, 4/17/11)
2011 Apr 18, Hamas police besieged a house in Gaza where al-Qaida-inspired militants implicated in the slaying of Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni were holed up, trading gunfire with the suspects after they refused to surrender. Two Salafists were killed in the shootout.
(AP, 4/19/11)(Econ, 4/30/11, p.50)
2011 Apr 20, Prominent Israeli intellectuals and artists came out in favor of creating a Palestinian state based on the 1967 line marking the West Bank. Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. 47 signatories to a statement released today called for an Israeli pullout from the West Bank.
(AP, 4/20/11)
2011 Apr 21, French President Nicolas Sarkozy hosted Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas in Paris as Europe reflects more and more openly on the prospect of recognizing an independent Palestine.
(AFP, 4/21/11)
2011 Apr 24, A Palestinian policeman opened fire at a group of Israelis who had come to pray at a Jewish holy site in the West Bank without authorization, killing one and wounding four. Hours later, Jewish settlers attacked Palestinian cars south of Nablus, setting fire to one after its passengers fled and stoning passing vehicles before Israeli soldiers dispersed them.
(AP, 4/24/11)
2011 Apr 27, Rival Palestinian groups said they reached an agreement on reuniting their governments in the West Bank and Gaza after years of bitter infighting that weakened them politically and caused the deaths of hundreds in violent clashes and crackdowns since. Israel swiftly rejected the prospect.
(AP, 4/27/11)
2011 Apr 28, Egypt's new foreign minister, Nabil al-Araby, said that the closure of the key Rafah border crossing with the Palestinian Gaza Strip was about to end, calling the decision to close the crossing "a disgusting matter" in an interview with Al-Jazeera.
(AP, 4/29/11)
2011 Apr 29, An Egyptian soldier of the border guard unit was killed in an exchange of gunfire with tunnel smugglers near the border with Gaza.
(AFP, 4/29/11)
2011 May 1, Israel's finance minister said Israel is suspending the transfer of Palestinian tax and customs fees to the Palestinian Authority (PA) until it is sure the money will not reach Hamas.
(AFP, 5/1/11)
2011 May 3, A top Palestinian negotiator said 15 smaller factions, including militant Islamic groups, have thrown their weight behind a reconciliation deal ending a four-year rift between the movement's main groups, Hamas and Fatah.
(AP, 5/3/11)
2011 May 4, Rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas proclaimed a landmark, Egyptian-mediated reconciliation pact signed in Cairo aimed at ending their bitter four-year rift. Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal said that his Islamist movement would work to achieve the "Palestinian national goal" of a sovereign state on the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Gaza's Hamas rulers executed a man convicted of collaborating with Israel. His execution was the 11th in Gaza since Hamas violently wrested control of the territory in June 2007.
(AP, 5/4/11)(AFP, 5/4/11)(AP, 5/5/11)(Econ, 5/7/11, p.51)
2011 May 9, The Palestinian Authority said it had not been able to pay salaries for the first time since 2007 because of Israel's decision to halt the transfer of funds it collects on its behalf.
(Reuters, 5/9/11)
2011 May 13, Palestinian teen Milad Said Ayyash was fatally wounded after being shot and wounded near a Jewish settler enclave in east Jerusalem. New clashes erupted in the disputed city ahead of Palestinian commemoration of their uprooting more than six decades ago.
(AFP, 5/14/11)
2011 May 13, In Jordan heeding a call from Palestinian Facebook organizers, several hundred Jordanians took to the streets of the capital demanding a sovereign Palestinian state and that refugees be given the right to return home.
(AP, 5/13/11)
2011 May 15, Israeli troops clashed with Arab protesters along three hostile borders, leaving at least 12 people dead and dozens wounded in an unprecedented wave of violence marking the anniversary of the mass displacement of Palestinians surrounding Israel's establishment in 1948. Israeli gunfire killed two protesters and wounded dozens as civilians crossed from Syria onto the annexed Golan Heights, raising tensions between Damascus and the Jewish state. 10 of the dead were Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon.
(AP, 5/15/11)(AFP, 5/15/11)(AP, 5/16/11)
2011 May 16, The Israeli military blocked a Malaysian anti-war group's ship from reaching the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. The Malaysian group, the Perdana Global Peace Foundation, said its ship was fired at when it tried to reach Gaza. The military denied firing at the ship.
(AP, 5/16/11)
2011 May 19, A US federal judge awarded $300 million in punitive damages in each of two suicide bombings blamed on Iran and Iranian-backed Islamic groups. One ruling came on behalf of the family of Alan Beer, a US citizen who was killed in Jerusalem in 2003 in the bombing of a bus by the Iran-backed organization Hamas. The other was made to American citizen Seth Haim, his father and his brother. They were injured in the 1995 bombing of a bus in the Gaza Strip by the Iranian-supported Shaqaqi Faction of the Palestine Islamic Jihad.
(AP, 5/19/11)
2011 May 20, Two young Palestinians were moderately wounded in Gaza when Israeli troops opened fire at a protest near the border fence.
(AFP, 5/20/11)
2011 May 21, Palestinian officials said that Israel's dismissive response to President Barack Obama's new Mideast peace proposal proves there's not enough common ground for meaningful negotiations.
(AP, 5/21/11)
2011 May 21, Masked Palestinians shot dead Omar Helwan (32) of Beit Dajan village. The West Bank man was suspected of spying for Israel. This was the second such killing in the occupied territory this month.
(Reuters, 5/21/11)
2011 May 22, Anti-settlement NGO Peace Now reported that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has approved the construction of 294 new homes in Beitar Ilit settlement on the occupied West Bank.
(AFP, 5/22/11)
2011 May 25, Egypt decided to end its blockade of Gaza by opening the only crossing to the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory on May 28, easing the isolation of 1.4 million Palestinians there.
(AP, 5/25/11)
2011 May 28, The Arab League endorsed a Palestinian bid to seek recognition at the United Nations of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders. The announcement came after an Arab ministerial meeting in Qatar.
(AP, 5/29/11)
2011 May 28, Egypt lifted a four-year-old blockade on the Gaza Strip's main link to the outside world, bringing relief to the crowded territory's 1.5 million Palestinians but deepening a rift with Israel since the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak earlier this year.
(AP, 5/28/11)
2011 May 31, Egypt’s transitional government imposed a quote of no more than 400 passengers a day for crossing into Egypt at Rafah. A blacklist of 5,000 Gazans, who would not be allowed to cross, was reinstated.
(Econ, 6/4/11, p.58)
2011 May 31, The Israeli military said it has arrested a dozen Palestinian militants in nighttime raids around Jenin in the West Bank. The suspects were linked to Islamic Jihad, which has targeted Israeli civilians in suicide bombings and other deadly attacks.
(AP, 5/31/11)
2011 Jun 4, Egypt shut its border crossing with Gaza for the first time since opening it on a routine basis last month. Angry Palestinians stormed the gates in protest. An Egyptian security source said the terminal was shut for maintenance and may reopen in a day.
(Reuters, 6/4/11)
2011 Jun 5, Israeli troops opened fire across the Syrian frontier to disperse hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters who stormed the border of the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. Syrian state television said 20 people were killed by the Israeli Defense Forces. Israelis said only 10 demonstrators were killed near Kuneitra when their own Molotov cocktails triggered border anti-tank mines.
(AP, 6/5/11)(Reuters, 6/5/11)(AFP, 6/5/11)(SFC, 6/6/11, p.A2)(Econ, 6/11/11, p.54)
2011 Jun 13, As the Palestinian Authority prepared for diplomatic talks in Cairo, dissension broke out between the two factions in the government, Hamas and Fatah, over choosing a leader for their unity government. Palestinian Authority president and leader of Fatah Mahmoud Abbas has been unable to persuade Hamas to accept his choice to lead the unity government, Salam Fayyad. While Fayyad, the current prime minister of the PA, is considered a moderate and is acceptable to western countries, Hamas regards him negatively, accusing him of trying to close down Hamas’ institutions and being too co-operative with Israel.
(NYT, 6/13/11)
2011 Jun 16, Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Malki urged Spain and the rest of the EU to recognize a Palestinian state with borders from before the 1967 Six Day War.
(AFP, 6/16/11)
2011 Jun 22, An Algerian court sentenced a 28-year-old Palestinian to four years in jail for possession of a banned substance used to make explosives. The defendant had been arrested by security services last year in possession of 300 grams of mercury fulminate and crystal rocks.
(AFP, 6/22/11)
2011 Jun 22, In Turkey Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal held talks with Turkish officials on efforts to achieve Palestinian unity during a two-day visit to Istanbul.
(AFP, 6/22/11)
2011 Jun 23, Ibrahim Aaraj was arrested by Gaza narcotics squad officers. On June 27 the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights said it feared Ibrahim Aaraj might have been tortured while in custody at the Nusseirat refugee camp and called for an inquiry into his death. Since Hamas wrested control of Gaza in 2007, eight people have died in police custody under questionable circumstances.
(AP, 6/27/11)
2011 Jun 24, Palestinian protesters rammed a bulldozer into a contested barrier near the village of Bilin, days after the Israeli army said it would finally comply with a court order and reposition the fence.
(AP, 6/24/11)
2011 Jun 26, Israel began tearing down a section of its contentious West Bank separation barrier near Bilin village that has come to symbolize Palestinian opposition to the enclosure. Two Palestinians, and five in the nearby village of Naalin, have died and hundreds others have been wounded since the Bilin protests began in 2005.
(AP, 6/26/11)
2011 Jun 27, The Israeli government dropped a threat to issue lengthy deportation orders against journalists aboard a Gaza-bound flotilla. Israel's security cabinet ordered the navy to stop an international aid flotilla from breaching a naval blockade on the Gaza Strip but to avoid clashes with activists on board.
(AP, 6/27/11)(AFP, 6/27/11)
2011 Jun 28, Pro-Palestinian activists, who plan to breach Israel's sea blockade of the Gaza Strip, said that they had increased security around their docked flotilla after an alleged act of sabotage on one of the vessels in a Greek port. Organizers said hostile divers had cut the propeller shaft of one of the flotilla’s 10 ships.
(AP, 6/28/11)(SFC, 6/28/11, p.A2)
2011 Jun 29, The Israeli military razed the West Bank settlement outpost of Ramat Migron, prompting clashes with youths that resulted in two arrests. The makeshift settlement, outpost established without Israeli government permission, has been razed several times since 2009.
(AFP, 6/29/11)
2011 Jun 30, Organizers of a pro-Palestinian flotilla that will try to break Israel's sea blockade of the Gaza Strip accused Israel of sabotaging a second ship.
(AP, 6/30/11)
2011 Jul 1, Greece announced it was banning vessels heading to Gaza from leaving Greek ports and escorted back to shore American protesters on a boat bound for the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 7/1/11)
2011 Jul 5, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak called off the impending transfer of the remains of 84 Palestinian militants from an Israeli grave site to the West Bank — just hours after the military confirmed the planned handover. Israeli aircraft fired at Gaza militants about to launch rockets at Israel, killing two.
(AP, 7/5/11)(SFC, 7/6/11, p.A4)
2011 Jul 7, An Israeli tank hit a roadside bomb that was planted by Palestinian militants along the border with the Hamas-run Gaza Strip. A soldier was slightly injured in the incident.
(AP, 7/7/11)
2011 Jul 8, Scores of pro-Palestinian activists trying to reach Tel Aviv, as part of a coordinated protest, were blocked at European airports. 6 activists who managed to land were deported as Israel moved to defuse the mass arrival envisioned by organizers.
(AP, 7/8/11)
2011 Jul 12, Israeli air raids hit what the military called two "weapons manufacturing sites" in northern Gaza.
(AFP, 7/16/11)
2011 Jul 13, Israeli soldiers killed Ibrahim Sarhan (21), a member of Hamas, during a raid on a northern West Bank refugee camp. He was shot dead as he emerged from a mosque and tried to flee during an Israeli arrest operation in Al-Fara camp. Israeli jets bombed two sites in Gaza, wounding one woman, after Palestinians fired three rockets into southern Israel. Israeli aircraft targeted three tunnels, two used for smuggling in southern Gaza and one "used for terrorist activity" in the north of the Palestinian territory.
(AFP, 7/13/11)(AFP, 7/16/11)
2011 Jul 14, Israeli jets struck three targets in Gaza, moderately wounding four Palestinians.
(AFP, 7/16/11)
2011 Jul 15, Some 1,000 Israelis and Palestinians gathered in east Jerusalem for a protest march to support the Palestinian bid for United Nations recognition.
(AFP, 7/15/11)
2011 Jul 16, Israeli aircraft struck Gaza overnight for the fourth time in as many days, wounding a militant who was about to fire a rocket.
(AFP, 7/16/11)
2011 Jul 17, A spokesman for the Hamas-run medical services in the Gaza Strip, said 4 children and 3 adults suffered moderate injuries in air strikes in the northern Beit Hanun area. Israel denied it had carried out any such raid.
(AFP, 7/17/11)
2011 Jul 18, Israel put out bids to build 336 apartments in Jewish settlements in the West Bank, a new blow to international efforts to get Israelis and Palestinians back to peace talks after months of deadlock over settlement construction.
(AP, 7/18/11)
2011 Jul 19, Israeli naval commandos seized control of a French ship attempting to break Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip, reporting no resistance during the takeover in international waters. 16 people, including pro-Palestinian activists from France, Canada and Sweden, journalists and three crew members, were aboard the Dignity al-Karama, a French-based ship.
(AP, 7/19/11)
2011 Jul 26, Gaza's Hamas government executed two Palestinians convicted of spying for Israel.
(AP, 7/26/11)
2011 Jul 28, Palestinian police raided the West Bank home of a rival of President Mahmoud Abbas. The raid targeted Mohammed Dahlan, a former security chief in the Gaza Strip who was expelled from Fatah in June because of his repeated criticism of the president. Police arrested 23 guards and assistants, and confiscated 16 guns, a computer and two vehicles.
(AP, 7/28/11)
2011 Aug 1, Israeli soldiers shot dead 2 Palestinian stone throwers overnight in the Qalandiya refugee camp in the West Bank. Moatassem Adwan (22) and Ali Khalifa (23) were killed by soldiers as they carried out arrests in the camp.
(AFP, 8/1/11)
2011 Aug 2, The Israeli military said it has slapped restraining orders on 12 Israeli settlers, accused of setting fire to Palestinian mosques, property and vehicles, limiting their movement in the West Bank. Israel’s Supreme Court ordered the government to remove the largest unauthorized settlement outpost in the West Bank.
(AP, 8/2/11)(SFC, 8/3/11, p.A2)
2011 Aug 4, An Israeli a prison services spokeswoman said Israel is to free 770 Israeli and Palestinian prisoners due to overcrowding. They included Hassan Yusef, a founder of the Islamist movement Hamas. Israel's air force carried out 3 night time raids on the Gaza Strip, wounding 3 people. The Israeli army said they had targeted 3 tunnels and an operations base in the central Gaza Strip and a fourth target in the south in response to rocket fire.
(AFP, 8/4/11)
2011 Aug 6, Hamas security forces in the Gaza Strip detained two members of a Salafist organization called Al-Tawfid wal Jihad, an Islamist group suspected of firing rockets at Israel. (AFP, 8/6/11)
2011 Aug 7, Rival Palestinian groups Fatah and Hamas opened talks in Egypt aimed at implementing a reconciliation agreement struck in May.
(AFP, 8/7/11)
2011 Aug 11, Israeli media said Dirar Abu Sisi, a Gazan engineer snatched from Ukraine, has told Israeli interrogators that he headed a Hamas military academy to rebuild Hamas fighting capabilities after a devastating war with Israel. Hamas has denied that Abu Sisi had any connection to the organization.
(AFP, 8/11/11)
2011 Aug 12, The US warned it would cut $100 million in American aid money if Hamas continues its "unwarranted audits" of local American nonprofit organizations in the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 8/13/11)
2011 Aug 13, Ihab Ghussein, a spokesman for Gaza's Hamas rulers, said foreigners must now obtain visas to enter the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 8/13/11)
2011 Aug 15, Israel was reported to have approved the building of 277 apartments in the Jewish settlement in Ariel, the deepest one inside the West Bank, defying international criticism of continued construction on land the Palestinians claim for a state.
(AP, 8/15/11)
2011 Aug 16, Israeli aircraft struck 5 targets in the Gaza Strip, killing 1 militant and wounding 4 other Palestinians in retaliation for rocket fire on southern Israel the previous evening. Another Palestinian was killed as he approached the Gaza border.
(AP, 8/16/11)
2011 Aug 18, In southern Israel assailants armed with heavy weapons, guns and explosives launched three attacks in quick succession near the border with Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, killing 8 people and wounding about a dozen more. Israeli security forces tracked down some of the assailants and are engaged in an ongoing gunbattle with them. 3 Egyptian security personnel died as a result of the gunbattles. 2 more died from wounds the next day. Israel responded hours after the border attack with an airstrike in Gaza that killed five members of the Palestinian group that Israel said was behind it, an organization known as the Popular Resistance Committees. The dead included the group's leader.
(AP, 8/18/11)(AP, 8/19/11)
2011 Aug 19, Gaza militants launched barrages of rockets deep into Israel. Israeli aircraft struck targets in the Palestinian territory in the aftermath of the deadliest attack against Israelis in three years. Hamas said two children, 3 and 13, were killed in the Israeli strikes.
(AP, 8/19/11)
2011 Aug 21, Palestinian militants in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip bombarded southern Israel with rockets and mortars and Israel hit back with an airstrike. Israeli troops also rounded up 50 Hamas activists in the West Bank in a sweeping overnight raid. Gaza militants agreed to a cease-fire with Israel to stop three days of violence.
(AP, 8/21/11)
2011 Aug 22, Palestinian militants in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip fired rockets and mortar shells into southern Israel, despite an unofficial truce meant to defuse days of escalating violence.
(AP, 8/22/11)
2011 Aug 24, Israeli aircraft killed a militant from Gaza's Islamic Jihad faction before dawn. They later targeted two militants who had fired two mortars at Israel shortly before. Israeli air strikes on Gaza killed 4 people Palestinians including 2 Islamic Jihad militants.
(AP, 8/24/11)(AFP, 8/25/11)
2011 Aug 25, Israeli air strikes on Gaza killed 2 Palestinians. Over the last 24 hour period, Gaza militants fired 19 rockets and mortars into southern Israel, lightly injuring an infant.
(AFP, 8/25/11)
2011 Aug 26, Israel said it is allowing Jewish settlers to expand a building in Hebron, one of the West Bank's most volatile cities. Hebron is holy to Muslims and Jews. Today, more than 600 Jews live there in fortified enclaves amid 170,000 Palestinians. Gaza militants called their second truce in less than five days in an attempt to keep more than a week of hostilities with Israel from escalating.
(AP, 8/26/11)
2011 Aug 29, A Palestinian attacker (21) wounded 7 Israelis, one critically, near a Tel Aviv nightclub early in the day, hitting a police checkpoint with a stolen taxi and then stabbing others.
(AP, 8/29/11)
2011 Sep 5, The Israeli military razed three buildings before dawn in Migron, an unauthorized West Bank settlement outpost, and clashed with settlers who reject a Supreme Court ruling ordering the enclave to be dismantled.
(AP, 9/5/11)
2011 Sep 7, Israel’s Shin Bet security service said security forces have arrested Hamas militants accused in a March 23 bombing that killed British woman Mary Jean Gardner and wounded dozens of civilians. A Palestinian militant from the Islamic Jihad faction was killed by an explosion in a car in central Gaza. Another militant in the car was badly wounded. Islamic Jihad said the car was hit by an Israeli airstrike. The Israeli military denied involvement.
(AP, 9/7/11)
2011 Sep 8, Palestinians officially launched their campaign to join the United Nations as a full member state, saying they would stage a series of peaceful events in the run-up to the annual gathering of the UN General Assembly later this month.
(AP, 9/8/11)
2011 Sep 19, Israeli settlers in the West Bank set fire to dozens of acres of farm land and cut down some 500 olive, fig and almond trees near the villages of Einabous and Deir Istiya.
(AP, 9/20/11)
2011 Sep 21, Thousands of flag-waving Palestinians rallied in towns across the West Bank to show support for their president's bid to win UN recognition of a Palestinian state as the US pledged to block the Palestinians, if necessary by a veto in the UN Security Council.
(AP, 9/21/11)
2011 Sep 21, President Barack Obama publicly pushed for the Palestinians to drop a statehood bid as he addressed the UN General Assembly.
(AP, 9/21/11)
2011 Sep 21, French President Nicolas Sarkozy called on the United Nations to admit Palestine as a non-member state, upgrading its status as a simple observer but opposing a Palestinian bid for full membership.
(AFP, 9/21/11)
2011 Sep 23, Palestinians calling for UN recognition of a Palestinian state clashed with Israeli soldiers in the West Bank, just hours before their president, Mahmoud Abbas, was to deliver his widely anticipated request to the world body.
(AP, 9/23/11)
2011 Sep 26, Undercover Israeli police officers arrested Ahmed Abu Atoun, a Hamas lawmaker who had been hiding in the Red Cross' office in east Jerusalem for the past year. Lawmaker Mohammed Abu Teir was taken into custody earlier this month after venturing out of the compound.
(AP, 9/26/11)
2011 Sep 27, Israel's government granted the go-ahead for construction of 1,100 new housing units in occupied east Jerusalem, raising already heightened tensions fueled by last week's Palestinian move to seek UN membership.
(AP, 9/27/11)
2011 Sep 28, Dozens of Palestinian olive trees were destroyed in an attack near the city of Hebron in what local residents called an act of revenge carried out by settlers.
(AFP, 10/1/11)
2011 Oct 1, Israeli settlers from Yitzhar, near Nablus, invaded Palestinian olive groves in the West Bank and uprooted 200 trees around the villages of Hawwara and Ein Nabus.
(AFP, 10/1/11)
2011 Oct 1, Francois Abu Salem (b.1951), a French actor and director and long-time West Bank resident, died in Ramallah. He was the co-founder of the El-Hakawati Theatre Company, which later grew into the Palestinian National Theatre, in east Jerusalem.
(AFP, 10/2/11)
2011 Oct 2, Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Israel "welcomes the Quartet's call for direct negotiations between the parties without preconditions" but said it has unspecified "concerns" about the proposal. The plan by the Quartet of Mideast mediators calls for the resumption of talks and a deal within a year.
(AP, 10/2/11)
2011 Oct 3, Palestinian officials said that the US has suspended two West Bank development projects worth $81 billion after Congress froze finding to dissuade Palestinians from seeking UN recognition of an independent state.
(SFC, 10/4/11, p.A2)
2011 Oct 3, In northern Israel arsonists torched a mosque in an Arab village, setting off protests by residents who clashed with police. Graffiti sprayed at the site suggested Jewish radicals, suspected in other recent mosque fires, were involved.
(AP, 10/3/11)
2011 Oct 5, A one-day Palestinian teachers' strike closed 238 UN-run schools in the Gaza Strip and escalated long-simmering tensions between the territory's Hamas rulers and the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
(AP, 10/5/11)
2011 Oct 8, Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas arrived in El Salvador from the Dominican Republic on the latest stop of a Latin American tour to round up support for UN recognition of a Palestinian state. He was to meet with the local Palestinian community later in the day ahead of a meeting the next day with Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes.
(AFP, 10/9/11)
2011 Oct 10, In the Gaza Strip at least one person has been killed in an explosion along the northern border with Israel. Israeli army officials believed the blast was set off by two militants who were trying to plant a bomb.
(AP, 10/10/11)
2011 Oct 11, Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas, on a Latin American swing to drum up support for his bid to gain UN state recognition, failed to secure support from Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos. Abbas continued on to Venezuela to meet with Pres. Chavez.
(AFP, 10/12/11)
2011 Oct 11, Israel and Hamas announced that Sgt. Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier abducted to Gaza five years ago, would be swapped for about 1,000 Palestinians held by Israel and accused of militant activity. The next morning the Israeli Cabinet endorsed the Egyptian-brokered deal in a 26-3 vote. Shalit was expected to return via Egypt by Oct 19.
(AP, 10/11/11)(AP, 10/12/11)(AFP, 10/13/11)
2011 Oct 13, A Hamas official said that close to 200 of the 450 Palestinians to be freed in the first phase of a swap for a captured Israeli soldier will not be allowed to return to their homes in the West Bank, Gaza or east Jerusalem, suggesting a substantial number may face deportation.
(AP, 10/13/11)
2011 Oct 16, Israel released the names of the first 477 Palestinian prisoners to be exchanged for Staff Sgt. Gilad Schalit.
(SFC, 10/17/11, p.A4)
2011 Oct 18, Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit emerged from more than five years in Hamas captivity, surrounded by Hamas militants with black face masks and green headbands who handed him over to Egyptian mediators in an exchange for 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.
(AP, 10/18/11)
2011 Oct 25, South Africa threw its weight behind Palestine's bid to become a full member of the United Nations and called on the international body to settle the bid quickly.
(AFP, 10/25/11)
2011 Oct 26, Talks between envoys of the international peacemaking Quartet and Israeli and Palestinian officials in Jerusalem ended with a pledge to introduce "comprehensive proposals" but no deal on new peace talks.
(AFP, 10/27/11)
2011 Oct 27, Israeli police said vandals have cut down 20 olive trees belonging to an Palestinian family in Jerusalem, with a note at the scene implying it might have been a Jewish extremist act against Arabs.
(AFP, 10/27/11)
2011 Oct 29, Israeli aircraft killed 5 Palestinian militants from the Islamic Jihad group whom it says were responsible for recent rocket attacks on Israel. Field commander Ahmed Sheikh Khalil was killed as militants were preparing to launch more rockets at Israel. Palestinians fired 10 rockets into Israel in the early hours of the morning, and Israeli aircraft targeted six militant sites in Gaza. 9 militants and an Israeli civilian were killed altogether in some of the worst violence in the area in months.
(AP, 10/29/11)(AP, 10/30/11)
2011 Oct 30, An Israeli aircraft struck a pair of Palestinian militants, killing one man and wounding a second in a new eruption of violence that raised the death toll in a weekend of rocket attacks and airstrikes to 11. The Islamic Jihad militant group said it was ready to halt its attacks if Israel would halt its air strikes.
(AP, 10/30/11)
2011 Oct 31, The Palestinians were admitted to UNESCO as full members in a vote at the UN cultural body's general assembly in Paris. The resolution was adopted by 107 countries, 14 countries voted against and 52 abstained, bringing member states to 195.
(AFP, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 31, Israeli aircraft struck the southern Gaza Strip targeting rocket-launching militants. Palestinian officials reported that two men were found dead in the area. The Israeli military said its aircraft attacked a squad that had just fired a rocket into Israel.
(AP, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 31, Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) submitted complaints to three UN Special Reporters, demanding they launch an investigation into the legality of Israel's policy in the eastern sector of Jerusalem, which it occupied in 1967 and later annexed, a move never recognized by the rest of the world. The group's report "No Home, No Homeland" accuses Israel of making it almost impossible for Palestinians to obtain building permits.
(AFP, 11/1/11)
2011 Nov 1, Israeli troops in Ramallah rearrested Hassan Yusef, a senior Hamas official overnight, along with his son. Yusef was freed on August 4 as part of a mass release of Israeli and Palestinian prisoners due to overcrowding. He had six weeks left of his sentence.
(AFP, 11/1/11)
2011 Nov 1, Hackers from around the world attacked Palestinian servers, cutting Internet service across the West Bank and Gaza, one day after the Palestinians won full membership of UNESCO.
(AFP, 11/6/11)
2011 Nov 3, Palestinians said Israel has carried out its threat to suspend transfer of tax payments totaling some $100 million to the Palestinians Authority to protest this week's admission of Palestine to the United Nations' cultural agency. 2 Palestinian men were reported killed in clashes with Israeli forces.
(AP, 11/3/11)
2011 Nov 4, Israeli naval vessels intercepted two protest boats on their way to Gaza to try to break Israel's blockade. Commandos boarded the Irish-flagged Saoirse (Freedom) and the Canadian ship Tahrir (Arabic for Liberation) in international waters off Gaza before the navy escorted them to the port of Ashdod.
(AP, 11/4/11)(AFP, 11/5/11)
2011 Nov 5, Israel freed six of 27 passengers and crew who were aboard two ships intercepted by its navy while trying to breach the Jewish state's blockade on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip. The six released included an Israeli Arab, two Greek crewmen and three journalists -- from Egypt, Spain and the United States. Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip killed an Islamic Jihad militant and wounded three other Palestinians.
(AFP, 11/5/11)(AFP, 11/6/11)
2011 Nov 7, The Israeli military opened fire at a group of militants planting explosives along Gaza's border with Israel. Gaza health officials said tank shrapnel wounded three Palestinians, one of whom was in critical condition.
(AP, 11/7/11)
2011 Nov 7, Officials said US lawmakers have lifted a hold on nearly $200 million in aid to the Palestinians that had been suspended in response to the Palestinian bid for full UN membership.
(AFP, 11/7/11)
2011 Nov 8, The Palestinian foreign minister admitted for the first time there is not enough support in the UN Security Council for recognition of a Palestinian state.
(AP, 11/9/11)
2011 Nov 9, Israeli warplanes raided the Gaza Strip after a rocket was fired at southern Israel. Three Palestinian cars were set ablaze overnight in the West Bank village of Beit Omar near Hebron and a house sprayed with graffiti. Hardline Jewish settlers have adopted what they call a "price tag" policy under which they have attacked mainly Palestinians and their property in response to Israeli government measures against settlements.
(AFP, 11/9/11)
2011 Nov 14, Israeli Cabinet ministers decided to hold on to some $100 million in taxes owed to the Palestinians, an official said, despite warnings from Israel's Defense Ministry that the measure could threaten the stability of the Palestinian government in the West Bank. A Hamas naval policeman was killed and 7 others wounded in an Israeli airstrike on their building in the northern Gaza Strip.
(AP, 11/14/11)
2011 Nov 15, India and Pakistan agreed to normalize two-way trade, signifying a gradual thaw in relations between the two bitter rivals.
(AP, 11/15/11)
2011 Nov 16, Israel's domestic security agency Shin Bet said in a statement that Israeli forces have arrested four Palestinians accused of attacks against Israelis, including shooting at an army patrol. Israel allowed the first truckloads of a rare shipment of construction materials into Gaza to allow the reconstruction of 10 privately owned factories.
(AFP, 11/16/11)(SFC, 11/17/11, p.A2)
2011 Nov 19, Israeli researcher Dror Etkes said 375 acres from the Palestinian village of Bardaleh have been annexed to the Israeli Kibbutz Meirav.
(AP, 11/19/11)
2011 Nov 21, Jordan's King Abdullah II paid a rare visit to the West Bank to show support for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
(AP, 11/21/11)
2011 Nov 23, The Palestinians signed a document finally giving them a voice within the vast UNESCO system, bringing pride across the Arab world yet hobbling the agency's pro-democracy projects around the globe. Last month's decision by the Paris-based UN education and cultural organization to give Palestine membership triggered an immediate funding cutoff by the US that will force UNESCO to scale down literacy and development programs in countries like Iraq, Afghanistan or the new nation of South Sudan.
(AP, 11/23/11)
2011 Nov 24, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Khaled Mashaal, chief of the Islamic militant Hamas, said they significantly narrowed differences and opened a new page in relations in reconciliation talks in Cairo.
(AP, 11/24/11)
2011 Nov 24, Israeli ministers decided, for the time being, to maintain a freeze on the transfer of tens of millions of dollars in tax monies to the Palestinian Authority. This followed hours after Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas held top-level talks with Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal at which they announced a new era of "partnership."
(AFP, 11/25/11)
2011 Nov 26, Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired a Qassam rocket into the Eshkol region of southern Israel. The attack only damaged a farm outbuilding.
(AFP, 11/26/11)
2011 Nov 27, Palestinian officials said they will not be able to pay the next round of public sector salaries due to Israeli sanctions.
(SFC, 11/28/11, p.A2)
2011 Nov 28, Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now said Israel has approved construction of more 119 homes in the West Bank settlement of Shilo, a move likely to bring fresh international condemnation.
(AFP, 11/28/11)
2011 Nov 30, Israel announced that it would release tens of millions of dollars of tax funds owed to the Palestinians, ending a standoff that the Palestinians say has caused grave damage to their fragile economy.
(AP, 11/30/11)
2011 Dec 7, Israeli warplanes hit targets east of Gaza City, killing one militant and injuring another two, with the military saying they were planning to fire rockets across the border.
(AFP, 12/8/11)
2011 Dec 8, An Israeli strike killed 2 Gaza militants. Israel said one of them, Issam al-Batsh, had planned a deadly bombing in Eilat in 2007. The Israeli military said the two men had also been planning another attack on southern Israel by infiltrating from the Sinai peninsula.
(AFP, 12/8/11)
2011 Dec 9, An Israeli airstrike against a Hamas target in Gaza killed a Palestinian civilian and his son (12). Palestinian Mustafa Abelrazek al-Tamimi (28) was critically wounded when he was hit in the face by a tear gas canister fired by Israeli troops at a rally in the West Bank. Tamimi had been throwing stones and died of his injuries the next day. Gaza militants fired twelve rockets at Israel.
(AP, 12/9/11)(AFP, 12/9/11)(AP, 12/10/11)(AFP, 12/10/11)
2011 Dec 10, Israeli warplanes attacked Gaza and militants fired four rockets at southern Israel in return.
(AP, 12/10/11)
2011 Dec 11, A Palestinian father and his daughter were wounded in an Israeli air strike on Gaza City.
(AFP, 12/11/11)
2011 Dec 12, The Efrat settlement mayor said Israel's government has approved 40 new houses to replace trailers at the West Bank settlement, drawing criticism from Palestinians. The trailers at the site, known as Givat Hadagan, were put up without authorization.
(AP, 12/12/11)
2011 Dec 12, Dozens of Jewish settlers broke into an army base in the West Bank and lit fires, damaged vehicles and threw stones at a senior officer, just hours after another group took over an abandoned building in a closed military zone on the border with Jordan. The settlers were reportedly protesting the planned evacuations of unauthorized settlement outposts.
(AP, 12/13/11)
2011 Dec 13, The Palestinian flag was raised for the first time above a UN agency, the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, in a diplomatic victory won despite stiff resistance from the US and Israel.
(AFP, 12/13/11)
2011 Dec 15, Iceland formally recognized the Palestinian state at a ceremony in Reykjavik, becoming one of the few Western European countries and NATO members to do so.
(AFP, 12/15/11)
2011 Dec 15, Suspected Israeli vandals set fire to a mosque in the West Bank and defaced it with Hebrew graffiti a day after a similar arson attack on a Jerusalem mosque. Suspicion fell on Jewish extremists widely assumed to be behind stepped-up violence against Palestinians and the Israeli military.
(AP, 12/15/11)
2011 Dec 16, In Gaza a man died from heavy machine gun fire on the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel. An Israeli military spokeswoman said soldiers on patrol in the area heard explosions, and a tank responded with gunfire toward "suspicious locations." Family members identified the victim as Nafez Nabhein (35), a Bedouin civilian from the Bureij refugee camp.
(AP, 12/16/11)
2011 Dec 18, Israel released hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, the second and final phase of a swap with Gaza Hamas militants that brought home an Israeli soldier after five years in captivity.
(AP, 12/18/11)
2011 Dec 20, Palestinian foreign affairs minister Riyad Al Maliki signed a free trade agreement with the Mercosur trade group during the organization's presidential summit in Uruguay.
(AFP, 12/20/11)
2011 Dec 22, The rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas took an important step toward reconciliation, announcing plans for the Islamic militants to join the umbrella group that has overseen two decades of on-and-off peace talks with Israel. Israeli officials reacted with alarm to the emerging agreement.
(AP, 12/22/11)
2011 Dec 27, Israeli strikes overnight killed a Palestinian and wounded 10 others, as the military struck what it described as "global jihad" targets who were planning cross-border attacks on southern Israel from the Egyptian Sinai.
(AFP, 12/29/11)(AFP, 12/30/11)
2011 Dec 28, The US State Dept. said Congress has freed up a little more than 20 percent of $187 million in US assistance to the Palestinians that had been frozen over the Palestinian bid for UN membership.
(AP, 12/29/11)
2011 Dec 29, Palestinian militants fired two rockets at southern Israel, after Israeli warplanes attacked "terror sites" overnight inside the Gaza Strip.
(AFP, 12/29/11)
2011 Dec 30, Israel said its warplanes killed a senior jihadist militant in Gaza thwarting a rocket fire attempt. Palestinians said that Moamen abu-Daff, known locally as a fundamentalist Islamic Salafi militant, was killed in a raid east of Gaza City that also wounded another man.
(AFP, 12/30/11)
2011 James Carroll authored Jerusalem, Jerusalem: How the Ancient Ignited Our Modern World.”
(SSFC, 3/13/11, p.G7)
2011 Ilan Pappe authored “the Forgotten Palestinians: a History of the Palestinians in Israel.”
(Econ, 5/28/11, p.89)
2012 Jan 2, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators headed to Jordan for their first face-to-face meeting in nearly 16 months, although both sides stressed it did not mark a renewal of talks.
(AFP, 1/2/12)
2012 Jan 3, Israel's Yitzhak Molcho and Palestinian Saeb Erekat met in Jordan in the presence of envoys from the US, Russia, the EU and the UN. The Palestinian president threatened to take "new measures" against Israel if a much-anticipated meeting in Jordan fails to bring about a resumption of peace talks. There were no significant breakthroughs but both sides agreed to continue the dialogue.
(AP, 1/3/12)(SFC, 1/4/12, p.A3)
2012 Jan 11, A Hamas official in Gaza said the militant group has sentenced a local Palestinian to death for collaborating with Israel. 3 cars were torched and graffiti was sprayed on a mosque in the northern West Bank, in the latest apparent "price tag" attack.
(AP, 1/11/12)(AFP, 1/11/12)
2012 Jan 11, Israel's Supreme Court upheld a controversial law that bans most Palestinians who marry Israelis from living inside the Jewish state.
(AP, 1/12/12)
2012 Jan 12, Israeli rights groups and parliamentarians criticized a court ruling upholding a law that prevents Palestinians married to Arab Israelis from obtaining Israeli citizenship or residency. Israel troops demolished an unauthorized settler outpost made up of 10 wooden huts in the southern West Bank.
(AFP, 1/12/12)(AFP, 1/12/12)
2012 Jan 14, Masked Hamas police beat and detained members of the Gaza Strip's tiny Shiite community during the religious commemoration of Arbaeen. Gaza's Shiites are believed to number several dozen, a minuscule minority among a population of 1.6 million people who are overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim.
(AP, 1/17/12)
2012 Jan 15, UN chief Ban Ki-moon, speaking in Beirut, called for an end to Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, saying the illegal building of settlements worked against a two-state solution. Ban Ki-moon also demanded that Syria's president stop killing his own people.
(AFP, 1/15/12)(AP, 1/15/12)
2012 Jan 16, A hacker network that claims to be based in Saudi Arabia paralyzed the websites of Israel's stock exchange and national airline. El Al Israel Airlines took down its website after hacker OxOmar, who has been linked to the Saudi group, warned that both sites would be targeted by allied pro-Palestinian hackers.
(AP, 1/16/12)
2012 Jan 16, Britain's deputy prime minister Nick Clegg accused Israel of carrying out "deliberate vandalism" by continuing to build settlements on land the Palestinians hope will form part of a future state.
(AP, 1/16/12)
2012 Jan 18, Israeli forces attacked a group of suspected Palestinian militants believed to have been planting a bomb along Gaza's border with the Jewish state. Palestinian officials said two people were killed and two wounded. Relatives of the dead men said they were setting traps for birds near the buffer zone.
(AP, 1/18/12)
2012 Jan 19, Israeli forces arrested three Palestinians overnight as they tried to enter Israel from the southern Gaza Strip. Israeli forces clashed with angry settlers during the demolition of a settlement outpost on the Jerusalem-Jericho road.
(AFP, 1/19/12)
2012 Jan 19, Thailand said that it has recognized a Palestinian state, in a move hailed by Palestinian leaders eager to boost their international standing amid a stalemate with Israel.
(AFP, 1/20/12)
2012 Jan 21, An Israeli air strike targeted Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip who were laying explosives near the border.
(AFP, 1/21/12)
2012 Jan 23, Israeli police arrested 2 lawmakers from the militant Palestinian party Hamas after hiding for over a year inside a Red Cross compound in Jerusalem. Khaled Abu Arfa and Mohammed Totah had sought refuge in the compound on July 1, 2010, to escape Israeli arrest.
(AP, 1/23/12)
2012 Jan 24, Israel carried out several airstrikes overnight in Gaza that the Israeli military said targeted an arms factory and three tunnels. A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip landed in southern Israel, causing no damage or injuries. The Israeli military arrested MP Abdul Jaber Fuqaha overnight from his home in Ramallah, the fifth Hamas official to be arrested by Israeli forces in the past five days.
(AP, 1/24/12)(AFP, 1/24/12)
2012 Jan 26, Some 300 Palestinians in Tulkarem protested against price hikes and a recent income tax increase imposed by PM Salam Fayyad.
(AP, 1/26/12)
2012 Jan 27, The UN called on Israel to immediately halt the destruction of Palestinian homes in the West Bank after reporting a dramatic rise in demolitions in the past year.
(AFP, 1/28/12)
2012 Jan 29, In Jordan Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal met with King Abdullah II on his first official visit since his 1999 expulsion, calling the trip a "new good start" towards better ties with the kingdom.
(AFP, 1/29/12)
2012 Feb 2, Palestinians tried to block the UN chief from entering the Gaza Strip and flung shoes at his armored convoy, the second day of Ban Ki-moon's mission to the region to keep informal peace talks alive.
(AP, 2/2/12)
2012 Feb 4, Some 1,000 Palestinians, some calling on premier Salam Fayyad to quit, marched in the West Bank city of Hebron in protest at his austerity plans.
(AFP, 2/4/12)
2012 Feb 6, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas took a decisive step toward reconciliation with the Islamic militant Hamas, agreeing to head an interim unity government that would prepare for elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israel’s PM Netanyahu condemned the deal, saying it would be impossible to reach peace with a government that includes Hamas.
(AP, 2/6/12)
2012 Feb 8, The Palestinian Hamas parliamentary bloc in the Gaza Strip came out against the latest reconciliation deal with rival Fatah, headed by Pres. Abbas. The 31 Gaza lawmakers said the deal is illegal. Hamas risked losing jobs and influence in Gaza under the deal, which was signed in Qatar this week by Abbas and the exiled Hamas leader, Khaled Mashaal.
(AP, 2/8/12)
2012 Feb 9, In Israel Khader Adnan (33), an imprisoned member of a Palestinian militant group, has waged a hunger strike for almost two months, trying to draw attention to Israel's military justice system and its treatment of detainees who can be held without charge for lengthy periods.
(AP, 2/9/12)
2012 Feb 12, Israeli airstrikes killed Abdelkareem Abu Zeituneh (71), an orchard security guard in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military said in a statement that aircraft targeted tunnels and a weapons factory in response to rocket fire on southern Israel.
(AP, 2/12/12)
2012 Feb 12, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh that Iran would always stand by the Palestinian resistance against Israel and warned him against compromisers. Pres. Ahmadinejad said it was Iran’s duty to stand by the Palestinians.
(SFC, 2/13/12, p.A3)
2012 Feb 16, Palestinian police said a truck lost control in slick, rainy weather and barreled into a school bus in the West Bank, killing at least seven children and a teacher.
(AP, 2/16/12)
2012 Feb 18, A Palestinian official in Gaza said Egypt has promised to provide diesel fuel for the Gaza Strip's sole power plant, which went down Feb 14 after running out of fuel.
(AFP, 2/18/12)
2012 Feb 19, Israeli police arrested 13 Palestinians in the grounds of Jerusalem's flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque complex after police and tourists visiting the site were stoned.
(AFP, 2/19/12)
2012 Feb 21, Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan (33), a member of the Islamic Jihad militant group, agreed to end his 66-day hunger strike after reaching a deal with Israel that will free him in April.
(AP, 2/21/12)
2012 Feb 22, Israel gave preliminary approval to a plan to build 600 new homes in a settlement deep inside the West Bank, a move that drew rebukes from the United Nations and Palestinians.
(AP, 2/22/12)
2012 Feb 24, Israeli warplanes launched an early morning strike at a Gaza target, hours after Palestinian militants fired two rockets at southern Israel. Palestinian Talat Ramia (25) was shot and killed as he hurled exploding fireworks at Israeli forces in al-Ram.
(AFP, 2/24/12)(AP, 2/25/12)(AP, 2/29/12)
2012 Feb 25, Dozens of Palestinian youths clashed with Israeli forces in a Jerusalem suburb, the second day of violent confrontations in the holy city.
(AP, 2/25/12)
2012 Feb 29, Israeli troops raided two private Palestinian TV stations before dawn, seizing transmitters and other equipment. The military said one of the outlets, al-Watan TV, is a pirate station whose frequencies interfered with legal broadcasters and aircraft communications.
(AP, 2/29/12)
2012 Mar 5, Mohammed Abu-Awad (19), a Palestinian man throwing rocks at solders, had his skull smashed by a tear gas canister fired by an Israeli soldier in the West Bank town of Bir Zeit. Abu-Awad was in critical condition.
(AP, 3/5/12)
2012 Mar 8, A Palestinian was shot dead by Israeli troops after stabbing an Israeli soldier in Yatta village in the southern West Bank. Some 50 Palestinian women demanding the release of Hana Shalabi, a hunger-striking detainee, clashed with Israeli troops in the West Bank. On March 29 Shalabi agreed to end her hunger strike following an agreement with Israeli authorities under which she will be exiled to the Gaza Strip.
(AFP, 3/8/12)(SFC, 3/9/12, p.A2)(AFP, 3/29/12)
2012 Mar 9, An Israeli airstrike struck a vehicle in Gaza. The airstrike tore apart the blue sedan of militant commander Zuhair al-Qaissi and killed his son-in-law, Mahmoud Hanini, himself a top PRC commander. Another low-ranking Gaza militant also died. Al-Qaissi was the commander of the militant group behind the abduction of Gilad Schalit. Hours later Israeli military killed two more militants that it said were about to launch rockets. Gaza militants in response unleashed a barrage of rockets toward Israel's southern border communities. Some three dozen were fired.
(AP, 3/9/12)(AFP, 3/9/12)(AP, 3/10/12)
2012 Mar 10, Israeli aircraft killed 15 militants in 10 airstrikes overnight. So far, militants have fired more than 95 rockets. The Israeli military said its air defense systems intercepted some 25 rockets before they landed.
(AP, 3/10/12)
2012 Mar 11, Israeli war planes carried out four strikes, killing three people, including a school boy and a 60-year-old man who medics said was a civilian. Israeli Defense ministry figures said that militants had fired 124 rockets at Israel since March 9, including 68 Qassams and 44 longer-range Grads. In response the air force carried out 26 air raids, 15 of which targeted militants who were in the act of firing on Israel.
(AFP, 3/11/12)
2012 Mar 12, Israeli airstrikes killed three Palestinian civilians and two militants in the Gaza Strip and Palestinian rocket squads barraged southern Israel in escalating fighting that defied international truce efforts. Masked members of Islamic Jihad's military wing demanded Israel cease fire first and stop targeting militants.
(AP, 3/12/12)
2012 Mar 13, Israel halted its airstrikes against Gaza Strip militants and rocket fire from the Palestinian territory ebbed as an Egyptian-mediated cease-fire ending 4 days of clashes appeared to be taking effect. At least 24 Palestinians, including at least four civilians, died in cross-border fighting since March 9.
(AP, 3/13/12)(SFC, 3/13/12, p.A2)
2012 Mar 14, A Palestinian boy accidentally struck by a bullet when militants fired in the air during a funeral died of his injuries. The boy was marching in the funeral procession for a Gaza militant on March 12 when he was struck in the head by an errant bullet.
(AP, 3/14/12)
2012 Mar 15, Israeli aircraft and Gaza rocket squads traded strikes across the border as the Israeli prime minister blamed Iran for the violence from the Palestinian territory. A female Israeli soldier was stabbed on Jerusalem's light rail, and police apprehended a Palestinian suspect at a Jerusalem crossing into the West Bank.
(AP, 3/15/12)(AFP, 3/15/12)
2012 Mar 18, Israeli troops wounded a six-year-old Palestinian boy when they opened fire east of the town of Rafah.
(AFP, 3/18/12)
2012 Mar 19, A UN report said Israeli settlers have taken over dozens of natural springs in the West Bank, limiting or preventing Palestinian access to much-needed water sources.
(AFP, 3/19/12)
2012 Mar 22, A dispute between Egypt and Gaza's Hamas government has produced the worst energy crisis here in years: Gazans are enduring 18-hour-a-day blackouts, fuel is running low for hospital backup generators, raw sewage pours into the Mediterranean Sea for lack of treatment pumps and gas stations have shut down. The Gaza power plant shut down on Feb. 10 and has been mostly offline since.
(AP, 3/22/12)
2012 Mar 25, The Palestinian Prisoners' Club reported that around 30 Palestinian prisoners have taken up hunger strikes across the Israeli prison system. The club said Israel is holding some 700 members of the Palestinian security services, along with 27 Palestinian lawmakers, 24 of them from Hamas.
(AFP, 3/25/12)
2012 Mar 26, Israel cut working relations with the UN Human Rights Council and said it will bar a UN team from entering Israel or the West Bank for a planned investigation of Jewish settlements.
(AP, 3/26/12)
2012 Mar 27, An Israeli army game caused a melee at a home in the West Bank village of Rammun. 3 brothers including Rashad Shawakha, stood to defend their home. Rashad was wounded by two intruders posing as Arabs ands died of his wounds on April 2.
(AFP, 6/24/12)
2012 Mar 30, Thousands of Palestinian demonstrators clashed with Israeli troops at Qalandia checkpoint in the West Bank as hundreds more gathered by Jerusalem's Old City to mark Land Day. This annual event commemorates the deaths of six Arab Israeli protesters at the hands of Israeli forces during mass demonstrations in 1976 against plans to confiscate Arab land in northern Israel. Protester Mahmoud Zaqout (21) was killed at the border in Gaza.
(AFP, 3/30/12)(SFC, 3/31/12, p.A3)
2012 Apr 1, Three Palestinian children were found dead in a fire in their room caused by a candle being used due to lack of electricity in Gaza.
(AFP, 4/1/12)
2012 Apr 1, The top Palestinian envoy to the US awarded longtime American journalist Helen Thomas for taking a stand against the Israeli occupation. Her May 2010 comments against the Israeli occupation forced her into retirement and were denounced by the White House and her press corps colleagues.
(AP, 4/3/12)
2012 Apr 2, The Israeli military ordered dozens of Jewish settlers to evacuate a three-story building they occupied last week in Hebron, the West Bank's most volatile city, saying they had entered it without receiving approval from defense authorities. Israel's Supreme Court threw out an appeal by a Palestinian family seeking to block construction of Jewish settler homes on a site owned by the family for generations
(AP, 4/2/12)(AFP, 4/3/12)
2012 Apr 3, The Palestinian Authority government in the West Bank agreed to supply Gaza with fuel purchased from Israel for so long as the Hamas-controlled Gaza electricity authority pays for it.
(AFP, 4/4/12)
2012 Apr 3, Dozens of Jewish settlers ignored a deadline to evacuate an illegally occupied West Bank house in Hebron, as the government remained silent on whether they would be allowed to stay.
(AP, 4/3/12)
2012 Apr 4, Fuel began arriving in Gaza under a new deal between the territory's Hamas government and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
(AFP, 4/4/12)
2012 Apr 4, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said he will seek to legalize three settler outposts, Bruchin, Sansana and Rechelim, established illegally in the West Bank. He also said that he would also seek a way to avoid the demolition of a fourth outpost, Ulpana. Israeli security forces evicted dozens of Jewish settlers from a building that they illegally took over in the West Bank city of Hebron.
(AFP, 4/4/12)(AP, 4/4/12)
2012 Apr 6, The Israeli army closed the West Bank border for the first two days of the Passover holiday, which began today at sundown.
(AFP, 4/6/12)
2012 Apr 7, Gaza's Hamas rulers executed three men in dawn hangings. All three were charged with murder and charges against one included spying for Israel.
(AP, 4/7/12)
2012 Apr 8, Militants in Gaza fired two rockets into Israel a day after Israeli airstrikes injured two Palestinians in the coastal territory. The rockets did not cause injuries.
(AFP, 4/8/12)
2012 Apr 15, Israel barred 40 pro-Palestinian activists who had flown in for a "Welcome to Palestine" campaign as hundreds more would-be protesters were stranded at airports across Europe.
(AFP, 4/15/12)
2012 Apr 17, Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel launched a hunger strike, protesting their conditions and demanding an end to detentions without trial. Some 3,500 prisoners refused meals on "Prisoners' Day," and 1,200 of them said they would continue with an open-ended hunger strike. Khader Adnan, who didn't eat for 66 days, was set to be freed today as part of a deal reached with Israel.
(AP, 4/17/12)
2012 Apr 18, Israeli police evicted Palestinian families from two homes in East Jerusalem. They had lost a court case last month to retain their property in Beir Hanina, one of the city’s largest Arab communities.
(SFC, 4/19/12, p.A2)
2012 Apr 21, The EU missions in Jerusalem and Ramallah condemned the recent eviction of a Palestinian family from its east Jerusalem home, ahead of its inhabitation by Jewish settlers.
(AFP, 4/21/12)
2012 Apr 22, The Israeli Prisons Service said at least 1,350 Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails are observing an open-ended hunger strike, after another 150 inmates began refusing food.
(AFP, 4/22/12)
2012 Apr 24, Israel legalized three unsanctioned West Bank settler outposts and was trying to save another, infuriating the Palestinians as the chief American Mideast envoy was in the region laboring to revive peace efforts.
(AP, 4/24/12)
2012 Apr 24, Israel's Supreme Court rejected an appeal by a Palestinian prisoner who has been refusing food for more than seven weeks to protest being held without charge. Hassan Safdi (31) was arrested on June 29, 2011 and has been held without charge under a procedure called administrative detention, which means a prisoner can be held for renewable periods of up to six months.
(AFP, 4/25/12)
2012 Apr 28, US officials said that $147 million in aid programs to Palestinians has been restored. The money had been frozen as a penalty for a Palestinian UN membership bid.
(SSFC, 4/29/12, p.A4)
2012 May 5, Israeli officials said 10 Palestinian prisoners participating in a mass hunger strike in Israeli jails have been placed under medical supervision as their conditions worsened. They were among 1,500 to 2,500 Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike to demand better conditions and an end to detention without trial.
(AP, 5/5/12)
2012 May 9, Palestinian Airlines resumed operations, starting with biweekly flights between El-Arish and Marka Airbase in the Jordanian capital of Amman. The new route means Gazans no longer have to travel to Cairo, some 350 km (215 miles) from their territory, to board planes.
(AFP, 5/27/12)
2012 May 14, Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike agreed with Israel to end their fast in return for improved conditions.
(AFP, 5/14/12)
2012 May 14, Aid groups said in a report that Israel demolished dozens of Palestinian homes, water cisterns and farm buildings built with European funds in 2011, and over 100 such structures are currently at risk.
(AFP, 5/14/12)
2012 May 16, The top Palestinian anti-corruption campaigner said Mohammed Rashid, the shadowy financial adviser of the late Yasser Arafat, is being sought on suspicion he stole millions of dollars in public funds. Rashid became Arafat's top financial adviser when the Palestinian Authority was established, following interim peace deals with Israel.
(AP, 5/16/12)
2012 May 17, Israeli tanks fired into the Gaza Strip, wounding seven Palestinians and leaving two of them in critical condition. The army said tank fire had been directed at "terrorists."
(AFP, 5/17/12)
2012 May 19, Israeli soldiers stood by as settlers shot at Palestinians during stone-throwing clashes between hardline Yitzhar settlers and Palestinian villagers from Asira al-Qibliya near Nablus. Video showed live fire hitting one stone-thrower in the head.
(AFP, 5/21/12)
2012 May 21, Palestinian security forces arrested 10 members of the Islamic Jihad in the Jenin refugee camp.
(AFP, 5/21/12)
2012 May 31, Israel handed over to the Palestinian government the remains of 91 militants who had been killed while carrying out suicide bombings and other attacks in an effort to renew long-stalled peace talks.
(AP, 5/31/12)
2012 May, Israeli Shin Bet agents, backed by the army and police, arrested an armed PFLP cell that was preparing to kidnap Israelis for use as bargaining chips to secure the release of Palestinian prisoners. This was only made public on August 20.
(AFP, 8/20/12)
2012 Jun 1, A Palestinian militant sneaked into Israel at the border separating the Hamas-run Gaza Strip and southern Israel, opening fire on Israeli troops and killing one soldier. The troops fired back, killing the infiltrator.
(AP, 6/1/12)
2012 Jun 4, The Israeli military carried out air strikes on Gaza overnight, injuring one Palestinian, after a rocket was fired at southern Israel. Hundreds of young settlers began marching from a West Bank outpost to Jerusalem to protest over plans to raze five homes built on private Palestinian land in Ulpana.
(AFP, 6/4/12)
2012 Jun 6, Israel's Supreme Court rejected an attempt by hardliners to prevent the demolition of an illegal West Bank outpost. It had already said the Ulpana outpost is illegal because it was built on private Palestinian land and ordered the outpost's five buildings taken down by July 1. Israeli officials announced the government would build 850 apartments in various West Bank settlements. Israeli aircraft struck two targets in the Gaza Strip, wounding at least two men.
(AP, 6/6/12)(AFP, 6/6/12)(AP, 6/7/12)
2012 Jun 7, The Palestinian anti-corruption court convicted Mohammed Rashid, the fugitive moneyman of the late leader Yasser Arafat of siphoning off millions of dollars in public funds, sentencing him in absentia to 15 years in prison.
(AP, 6/7/12)
2012 Jun 14, Forty three international aid groups and 7 UN agencies urged Israel to open Gaza's borders, saying its border blockade violates international law and indiscriminately harms Gaza's 1.6 million people. Today marked the fifth anniversary of the imposition of the blockade.
(AP, 6/14/12)
2012 Jun 15, Envoys from the Middle East Quartet (the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia) met in Brussels amid calls from the Palestinians to step up action to halt continuing Israeli settlement activity.
(AFP, 6/15/12)
2012 Jun 17, Two Palestinians, Anwar Abed Rabbo (35) and Naim al-Najjar (29), were shot dead by an Israeli truck driver after they tried to steal his vehicle in the south Hebron Hills.
(AFP, 6/17/12)
2012 Jun 18, Israel carried out air strikes on northern Gaza, killing four Palestinians in two sorties over Beit Hanun. Three other people were also wounded. Hours earlier a group of militants, who sneaked across the Egyptian border, killed an Israeli civilian sparking a firefight which left at least two gunmen dead.
(AFP, 6/18/12)(AFP, 6/19/12)
2012 Jun 18, In Lebanon 2 Palestinians were killed in clashes with the army at refugee camps that also left several people wounded, including soldiers.
(AFP, 6/18/12)
2012 Jun 19, The bodies of two Palestinian teenagers were recovered by medics after an early morning Israeli air strike in Deir al-Balah. The Israeli military confirmed that 11 rockets had hit southern Israel since midnight. Unknown attackers set fire to a West Bank mosque and sprayed it with Hebrew graffiti, in an incident that bore the hallmarks of an attack by extremist Jewish settlers.
(AFP, 6/19/12)
2012 Jun 20, An Israeli air strike near Gaza City killed Moamen al-Adam (14). His father was also seriously wounded, and two other people were said to be in moderate condition. An earlier air raid killed Hamas militant Ghaleb Ermilat (21), whom Israel said was a "global jihad operative" who was behind a deadly ambush along the Israeli-Egyptian border, which killed one Israeli civilian earlier this week.
(AFP, 6/20/12)
2012 Jun 20, Israel's government said 30 Jewish families have consented to leave the Ulpana enclave, an unauthorized West Bank settler outpost, suggesting their court-ordered evacuation can proceed peacefully.
(AP, 6/20/12)
2012 Jun 21, Palestinian militants fired 12 rockets from Gaza into Israel for a fourth consecutive day, despite an announcement by Hamas it had agreed to a truce with Israel. Another was intercepted by the Iron Dome anti-rocket defense system. Palestinians recovered the bodies of two militants from a tunnel damaged on June 19 by an Israeli air strike on Gaza.
(AFP, 6/21/12)(AFP, 6/22/12)
2012 Jun 22, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip fired two rockets that hit Israel, as a truce declared by the Islamist Hamas ruling the enclave entered its second day.
(AFP, 6/22/12)
2012 Jun 23, Israeli airstrikes killed at least 3 Palestinian men and a boy (6), as Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel wounded one person and damaged a school in Sderot. Gaza militants fired over 30 rockets and mortar shells, bringing the week's rocket tally to more than 150.
(AP, 6/23/12)(SSFC, 6/24/12, p.A8)
2012 Jun 26, Israel began the evacuation of the Ulpana outpost, an illegal West Bank settlement, after persuading dozens of residents to leave the enclave without violence.
(AP, 6/26/12)
2012 Jun 26, Visiting Russian Pres. Putin spoke at the end of a visit to the biblical West Bank town of Bethlehem, with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas by his side. Putin praised his Abbas for what he said was a "responsible" position in negotiations with Israel, frozen for nearly four years, and said Russia has no problem recognizing a Palestinian state.
(AP, 6/26/12)
2012 Jun 28, The Hamas movement ruling the Gaza Strip presented a video documentary in which alleged Palestinian collaborators with Israel confess having aided the killings of senior Hamas and Fatah members.
(AFP, 6/28/12)
2012 Jul 1, An Israeli military court sentenced Ibrahim Hamed, a former military leader of Hamas, to 54 life sentences after convicting him of ordering the killing of dozens of Israelis. The army said he was convicted last week of responsibility for a long list of suicide attacks which brought about the deaths of 46 Israelis and the wounding of more than 400 Israelis.
(AFP, 7/1/12)
2012 Jul 2, A spokesman said the Palestinian self-rule government has detained some 200 people, including security officers, in recent weeks in the biggest crackdown on illegal weapons in the West Bank in five years.
(AP, 7/2/12)
2012 Jul 4, Palestinians sought an international probe into the death of former president Yasser Arafat after an investigation showed he may have been poisoned with polonium.
(AFP, 7/4/12)
2012 Jul 6, Israel's immigration police were granted the power to remove foreigners without permits from the occupied West Bank. Last month, the immigration police began a nationwide crackdown on the estimated 60,000 illegal African migrants living in Israel.
(AFP, 7/13/12)
2012 Jul 6, The UN Human Rights Council set up a 3-person panel to probe Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, a move that further irked Israel which said it will bar its access to the sites of inquiry.
(AFP, 7/7/12)
2012 Jul 7, An explosion injured five Palestinian children in the central Gaza Strip, a hospital said, blaming Israeli tank fire. Witnesses said, however, that there were no Israeli tanks in the area at the time and that the explosion might have been caused by an old bomb.
(AFP, 7/7/12)
2012 Jul 9, Palestinian militants in Gaza fired a rocket which crashed into an uninhabited area of southern Israel without causing casualties or damage. The Israeli air force carried out an air raid on the Gaza Strip overnight, in retaliation for a Palestinian rocket attack.
(AFP, 7/10/12)
2012 Jul 10, Israel released Mahmoud Sarsak (25), a member of the Palestinian national soccer team. He had been held for three years without formal charges and pushed for his freedom with a hunger strike of more than 90 days.
(AP, 7/10/12)
2012 Jul 12, A Palestinian militant, Mahmud al-Hiqi (27), from the ruling Hamas movement was killed and two others wounded in an Israeli air strike on eastern Gaza City.
(AFP, 7/12/12)
2012 Jul 13, Israeli troops killed a Palestinian when they opened fire at him near the border in the northern Gaza Strip. Israeli border police killed a man and wounded another who had tried to cross the Egyptian border into Israel.
(AFP, 7/13/12)
2012 Jul 16, A senior Palestinian official, Osama Mansour, suspected of embezzling public funds fell to his death from the third-floor kitchen window of a West Bank security compound where he was being interrogated.
(AP, 7/16/12)
2012 Jul 23, Egypt's ambassador to the West Bank Yasser Othman said transiting Palestinians can enter Egypt for 72 hours to arrange their own travel. A Palestinian official in Cairo said more easing of restrictions are being negotiated.
(AP, 7/23/12)
2012 Jul 27, Israel's Supreme Court delayed by at least 3 weeks the scheduled evacuation of the unauthorized West Bank Migron outpost that has become a symbol of settler defiance.
(AP, 7/27/12)
2012 Jul 28, Israeli troops arrested Abdallah Harouf (24), a member of the Islamic Jihad militant group, at his home in the West Bank city of Nablus. Local residents said that four other people were also arrested.
(AFP, 7/28/12)
2012 Jul 29, Mit Romney visited Israel and met with PM Benjamin Netanyahu, Pres. Shimon Peres, and Palestinian Authority PM Salam Fayyad.
(SFC, 7/30/12, p.A6)
2012 Jul 30, In the West Bank Nancy Zaboun, a 27-year-old mother of three, had her throat slashed in Bethlehem after seeking a divorce from her abusive husband of 10 years. Zaboun's husband could face life in prison if convicted.
(AP, 8/1/12)
2012 Aug 1, Palestinian sources said Ayman al-Shufra, a militant with the armed wing of Gaza's ruling Hamas movement, died in Gaza City after the car he was travelling in exploded.
(AFP, 8/1/12)
2012 Aug 5, A Palestinian man was killed and another wounded in an Israeli drone strike on Rafah in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli army confirmed the strike, naming the wounded man as Ahmed Said Ismail, who "was among those responsible for the execution of the terror attack adjacent to the Israel-Egypt border, in which an Israeli civilian was killed, on June 18, 2012."
(AFP, 8/5/12)
2012 Aug 5, A key meeting of Non-Aligned Movement ministers which was to have taken place in the West Bank was cancelled after Israel denied five of them entry. Foreign ministers from the 13 countries belonging to NAM's Palestine Committee were to have signed the so-called "Ramallah Declaration" in support of a Palestinian bid to upgrade their UN status from observer to non-member state.
(AFP, 8/5/12)
2012 Aug 8, Egypt's state television reported the military killed 20 militants in unprecedented air strikes. Egypt said the attackers who killed 16 Egyptian soldiers had help from Gaza. In response Egypt closed its border crossing and shut down hundreds of smuggling tunnels. Gazans said the sealing of their territory following a weekend attack by Islamic militants has sent prices soaring and is leaving hundreds of medical patients stranded.
(AFP, 8/8/12)(AP, 8/8/12)
2012 Aug 14, Egypt opened its border with Hamas-ruled Gaza for a 3-day period ahead of a major Muslim holiday this weekend, but imposed tight restrictions on who can travel and did not say whether it would resume normal border operations. From its side, Hamas also temporarily prevented access to the illegal underground tunnels in a show of goodwill toward Egypt.
(AP, 8/14/12)
2012 Aug 16, Unknown assailants firebombed a Palestinian taxi in the West Bank leaving 6 people wounded. Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu later vowed to bring the people responsible for the firebombing to justice. The Israeli military has counted 196 Palestinian firebomb attacks and six shooting incidents in the first half of 2012.
(AP, 8/21/12)
2012 Aug 17, The ruling Palestinian militant group Hamas, said a member of its armed wing, Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, died when a bomb he was guarding exploded accidently.
(AFP, 8/17/12)
2012 Aug 17, In Israel a mob of Jewish teens beat a Palestinian unconscious in downtown Jerusalem. Seven people, aged 13 to 19, were arrested in connection with the assault on Jamal Julani (17).
(AP, 8/21/12)
2012 Aug 23, Israel's foreign ministry summoned South Africa's envoy to formally protest Pretoria's decision to place "Occupied Palestinian Territory" labels on goods from Jewish settlements.
(AFP, 8/23/12)
2012 Aug 25, Egyptian security officials said military engineers have blocked 120 tunnels used for smuggling to and from the Gaza Strip since the start of operations in the neighboring Sinai Peninsula.
(AFP, 8/25/12)
2012 Aug 26, An Egyptian security official says Egypt has reopened its passenger terminal with the Gaza Strip and resumed normal operations there after nearly three weeks of disruption following a deadly attack on Egyptian soldiers by Islamic militants.
(AP, 8/26/12)
2012 Aug 26, Israeli authorities refused entry to about 100 pro-Palestinian activists, including 3 Americans, attempting to cross overland to the West Bank from Jordan.
(AP, 8/26/12)
2012 Aug 28, French sources said prosecutors have opened a murder enquiry into Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's 2004 death near Paris following claims he may have died of polonium poisoning.
(AFP, 8/29/12)
2012 Aug 28, Nine Israeli teenagers, eight of them minors, were charged with taking part in an Aug 17 violent hate attack on Palestinian Jamal Julani (17) from east Jerusalem that left him in critical condition.
(AFP, 8/28/12)
2012 Aug 29, Israeli troops fired warning shots into the air near the border in central Gaza. A 42-year-old Gazan woman was in critical condition after being shot in the area east of the central town of Deir al-Balah.
(AFP, 8/29/12)
2012 Aug 30, Palestinian religious authorities announced sweeping reforms of divorce laws making it easier for a woman to end her marriage. The changes would no apply in Gaza.
(SFC, 9/1/12, p.A3)
2012 Sep 1, Israel launched airstrikes at training camps in the Gaza Strip wounding 2 Palestinians.
(AFP, 9/1/12)
2012 Sep 2, In Gaza Ehab Abu al-Nada (17) died four days after setting himself alight in desperation over financial problems.
(AFP, 9/3/12)
2012 Sep 2, Israel completed evacuation of the large unauthorized West Bank settlement of Migron, culminating years of legal wrangling.
(AP, 9/2/12)
2012 Sep 4, Hundreds of Palestinians demonstrated in West Bank cities against the high cost of living, directing their anger at prime minister Salam Fayyad.
(AFP, 9/4/12)
2012 Sep 5, An Israeli airstrike killed four Palestinian militants as they were preparing to fire rockets at nearby southern cities.
(AP, 9/6/12)
2012 Sep 6, Dozens of Palestinian taxi drivers snarled traffic in several West Bank cities to protest rising fuel prices and the government's refusal to allow them to raise fares.
(AP, 9/6/12)
2012 Sep 6, Israeli soldiers and aircraft hit Palestinian militants planting explosives along the border with Gaza. 3 men were reported killed.
(AP, 9/6/12)
2012 Sep 8, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says that government employees will not receive full salaries this month because donor countries have not delivered promised aid.
(AP, 9/8/12)
2012 Sep 9, Dozens of Palestinian truck drivers blocked the main streets of the West Bank city of Ramallah to protest rising prices.
(AP, 9/9/12)
2012 Sep 10, Palestinian protests against the high cost of living have turned violent in the West Bank city of Hebron. The violence lasted for about an hour before it was brought under control. There were no reports of injuries.
(AP, 9/10/12)
2012 Sep 12, Dozens of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip burned American flags and chanted "Death to America," protesting an American film that mocks the Muslim Prophet Muhammad.
(AFP, 9/12/12)
2012 Sep 24, Palestinian officials said Khaled Mashaal, the supreme leader of the Palestinian Islamic militant group Hamas, has decided to step down, clearing the way for the movement to choose a new head for the first time.
(AP, 9/24/12)
2012 Oct 3, Human Rights Watch said that Hamas security forces in the Gaza Strip commit rampant abuses against Palestinian prisoners. The report titled “Abusive Systems” noted beatings with metal clubs and rubber hoses, mock executions and arbitrary arrests, and urged the Islamic militant group to swiftly reform its criminal justice system.
(AP, 10/3/12)(SFC, 10/4/12, p.A2)
2012 Oct 7, Israel targeted two men in an airstrike into southern Gaza, killing one and wounding the other.
(AP, 10/8/12)
2012 Oct 7, A boat left Naples and aiming to reach Gaza in mid-October in the latest attempt to break Israel's naval blockade. It carried items such as cement, basketballs, musical instruments and theater lighting equipment.
(AP, 10/8/12)
2012 Oct 8, Militants of Hamas and Islamic Jihad fired some 30 rockets toward Israel's southern border following Israel’s airstrike the previous evening. Israel's military launched around 20 tank shells and an airstrike, mostly toward targets around the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.
(AP, 10/9/12)
2012 Oct 13,An Israeli airstrike killed two people in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military says one is Hisham Saidani (43), a member of a faction of the ultraconservative Salafi trend believed to have ties to al-Qaida. Militants on jihadi websites identified the other dead man as Ashraf Sabah (37), leader of another al-Qaida inspired group, Ansar al-Sunnah.
(AP, 10/14/12)
2012 Oct 14, Israeli aircraft struck militants planning a rocket attack in the Gaza Strip. The airstrikes killed three more militants.
(AP, 10/14/12)
2012 Oct 20, Palestinians held local elections. Fatah was expected to win as Hamas boycotted the vote. Voters choosing new local councils in the West Bank rebuffed candidates from Pres. Abbas' Fatah movement in five of the 11 main towns.
(SFC, 10/20/12, p.A2)(AP, 10/21/12)
2012 Oct 21, Israel's PM Netanyahu vowed on to continue building in east Jerusalem, despite objections from Palestinians who claim the territory as capital of their hoped-for state.
(AP, 10/21/12)
2012 Oct 22, Israeli aircraft struck the northern Gaza Strip, killing two Palestinian militants, after mortar attacks targeted Israeli troops earlier in the day.
(AP, 10/22/12)
2012 Oct 23, The emir of Qatar, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, received a hero's welcome in Gaza, becoming the first head of state to visit the Palestinian territory since the Islamist militant Hamas seized control of the coastal strip five years ago.
(AP, 10/23/12)
2012 Oct 24, Gaza militants pummeled southern Israel with over 60 rockets and mortars. Israeli airstrikes in return killed two Palestinians in a sharp escalation of violence following a landmark visit to the coastal territory by the leader of Qatar. Two foreign workers in Israel were critically wounded in the rocket fire, and a number of militants were injured in the Israeli air attacks.
(AP, 10/24/12)(SFC, 10/25/12, p.A5)
2012 Oct 28, An Israeli airstrike strike into the Gaza Strip killed one Palestinian man and wounded another. Five rockets and mortars had struck southern Israel by early morning.
(AP, 10/28/12)
2012 Oct 29, Israeli aircraft struck a Palestinian rocket launching pad and an unidentified militant activity site in the Gaza Strip, in response to persistent rocket and mortar fire from the coastal territory. The Shin Bet said that 30 Hamas members were arrested near Ramallah, the West Bank's administrative center.
(AP, 10/29/12)
2012 Nov 6, A spokesman for Hamas said the Syrian government has sealed its offices in Damascus, finalizing the break between the Islamic militant group and its former patron.
(AP, 11/6/12)
2012 Nov 5, The Israeli government announced that it was accepting bids from contractors to build the homes in two Jewish enclaves in east Jerusalem, Ramot and Pisgat Zeev. It also reopened bidding for 72 homes in Ariel, deep inside the West Bank.
(AP, 11/6/12)
2012 Nov 8, An explosives-packed tunnel under the Gaza-Israel frontier blew up in what the Israeli military called an attempt by Palestinian militants to kill or kidnap soldiers. This set off a cycle of violence including Israeli airstrikes .
(AP, 11/11/12)
2012 Nov 10, Palestinian militants fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli jeep patrolling the border with Gaza and the Israelis fired back into the Palestinian territory, killing four civilians. Later in the day some 25 Palestinian rockets rained on southern Israel, though they caused no injuries or damage. 2 more Palestinians were killed as Israel responded with an airstrike and tank fire.
(AP, 11/11/12)
2012 Nov 11, Israeli aircraft struck the Gaza Strip, killing a Palestinian man, as militants bombarded the Jewish state with rockets and mortars in a fierce second day of fighting.
(AP, 11/11/12)
2012 Nov 12, Palestinian militants in Gaza launched 10 rockets into southern Israel by midday, including one that struck the yard of a house. The barrage ramped up pressure on the Israeli government to stage a large-scale operation aimed at stopping the persistent attacks.
(AP, 11/12/12)
2012 Nov 13, One Israeli airstrike and one Gaza rocket were fired today. A Gaza militant died of wounds sustained in an Israeli airstrike from two days earlier.
(AP, 11/13/12)
2012 Nov 14, An Israeli airstrike killed Ahmed Jabari, commander of the military wing of Gaza's Hamas rulers. More than 65 rockets landed in southern Israel. Israel hit the Gaza Strip with more than 50 airstrikes. Hamas police said airstrikes hit targets in Gaza City, Khan Younis and Rafah. A total of 15 Palestinians, including 7 civilians, were killed and more than 100 people wounded, according to Palestinian officials. Among the dead were 3 children. A March 6, 2013, UN report said Omar al-Masharawi, age 11 months, was killed by an errant Palestinian rocket.
(AP, 11/14/12)(AP, 11/15/12)(AP, 3/11/13)
2012 Nov 15, Militants in the Gaza Strip pounded southern Israel with over 180 rockets, killing three people in Kiryat Malachi as the Israeli military pressed forward with a second day of intense air raids and naval attacks on militant targets.
(AP, 11/15/12)
2012 Nov 16, Gaza militants targeted Tel Aviv for a 2nd day. Israeli aircraft targeted rocket launching operations of Gaza militants, but offered to suspend its offensive in the Gaza Strip during a brief visit by Egypt's premier.
(AP, 11/16/12)
2012 Nov 16, Thousands of Egyptians protested against Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip as Egypt's PM Hesham Kandil visited the Palestinian enclave in a symbolic show of support for the territory's Hamas rulers.
(AP, 11/16/12)
2012 Nov 17, Israel bombarded the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip with nearly 200 airstrikes, widening a blistering assault on Gaza rocket operations to include the prime minister's headquarters, a police compound and a vast network of smuggling tunnels. Ten people, including eight militants, were killed and dozens were wounded in the various attacks.
(AP, 11/17/12)
2012 Nov 18, An Israeli envoy held talks with Egyptian officials on a ceasefire in his country's offensive on Gaza. Militants continued their barrage of rocket fire, firing more than two dozen at Israel. Palestinian medical officials said at least 11 civilians, including women and young children, were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City. The deaths brought to 66 the number of Palestinians killed in Israel's Gaza offensive, including 32 civilians.
(AP, 11/18/12)(Reuters, 11/18/12)
2012 Nov 19, Israeli aircraft struck crowded areas in the Gaza Strip, driving up the Palestinian death toll to 94 and devastating several homes belonging to one clan. Hamas fighters have fired hundreds of rockets into Israel in the current round of fighting, including 75 today. The new airstrikes came as Egypt was trying to broker a cease-fire, with the help of Turkey and Qatar.
(AP, 11/19/12)
2012 Nov 20, Israeli aircraft battered the headquarters of the bank Hamas set up to sidestep international sanctions on its rule. A Palestinian rocket struck the outskirts of Jerusalem. Diplomats from across the world raced across the region to negotiate a cease-fire to end relentless Israeli airstrikes and Palestinian rocket attacks. An Israeli airstrike killed two Al-Aqsa TV journalists in their car. Masked gunmen publicly shot dead six suspected collaborators with Israel at a large Gaza City intersection.
(AP, 11/20/12)(AP, 11/21/12)
2012 Nov 21, A bomb exploded aboard an Israeli bus near the nation's military headquarters in Tel Aviv, wounding 27 people, delivering a major blow to diplomatic efforts to forge a truce to end a week of fighting between Israel and Gaza's militant Hamas rulers. The Tel Aviv bombing came after a night of more than 30 Israeli airstrikes over Gaza. The attacks brought to 144 the number of Palestinians killed since Israel launched its offensive on Nov 14. In Dec, 2013, Mohammed Mafarja (19) pleaded guilty to charges that included attempted murder. On Mar 10, 2014 he was sentenced to 25 years in prison for planting the bomb on behalf of Hamas.
(AP, 11/21/12)(Reuters, 3/10/14)
2012 Nov 21, Egypt’s President Mohammed Morsi mediated a cease-fire between Israelis and Palestinians to end eight days of fierce fighting. The cease-fire deal included agreement to open all border crossings with the Gaza Strip, including with Egypt.
(AP, 11/22/12)
2012 Nov 21, Iran’s semiofficial ISNA news agency reported that Iran has supplied Hamas in Gaza with the technology to "quickly" produce longer-range missiles on their own without needing direct shipments.
(AP, 11/21/12)
2012 Nov 22, Hamas leaders in Gaza declared victory over Israel on Thursday, and thousands of flag-waving supporters rallied in celebration as the battered territory entered its first day of calm under an Egyptian-brokered truce.
(AP, 11/22/12)
2012 Nov 22, The top leader of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood denounced peace efforts with Israel and urged holy war to liberate Palestinian territories.
(AP, 11/22/12)
2012 Nov 22, In Syria a bomb blast in a Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus killed four people and seriously wounded a member of a faction that has backed President Bashar Assad.
(AP, 11/23/12)
2012 Nov 23, Israeli troops fired to push back Gaza crowds surging toward Israel's border fence with the Hamas-ruled territory, killing one Palestinian and wounding 19 in the first violence since a truce between Israel and Hamas took hold a day earlier.
(AP, 11/23/12)
2012 Nov 24, Gaza residents said that Israel has eased some border restrictions as part of its truce with the Palestinian territory's Hamas rulers, allowing farmers to visit land near its security fence and letting fishermen head further out to sea.
(AP, 11/24/12)
2012 Nov 24, Israel's Shin Bet internal security arrested Azzam Mashahara, a Palestinian man of East Jerusalem, for relaying information to Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon about sensitive government sites, including parliament.
(AP, 11/25/12)
2012 Nov 27, Yasser Arafat's political heirs opened his grave in Ramallah and foreign experts took samples of the iconic Palestinian leader's remains as part of a long-shot attempt, eight years after his mysterious death, to determine whether he was poisoned.
(AP, 11/27/12)
2012 Nov 27, France announced that it plans to vote in favor of recognizing a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly this week.
(AP, 11/27/12)
2012 Nov 29, The United Nations endorsed an independent state of Palestine, giving sweeping international backing to their demands for sovereignty over lands Israel occupied in 1967. Only nine, including the US, of 193 General Assembly members voted against it.
(AP, 11/30/12)
2012 Nov 30, Israel responded swiftly to UN recognition of a Palestinian state, revealing it will build 3,000 more homes for Jews on Israeli-occupied lands that the world body overwhelmingly said belong to the Palestinians.
(AP, 12/1/12)
2012 Dec 2, Israel roundly rejected the UN endorsement of an independent state of Palestine, announcing it would withhold more than $100 million collected for the Palestinian government to pay debts to Israeli companies.
(AP, 12/2/12)
2012 Dec 4, Israel said it is moving forward with plans for two major settlement projects in east Jerusalem, even as a senior Palestinian official warned that his government could pursue war crimes charges if Israel doesn't halt such construction.
(AP, 12/4/12)
2012 Dec 7, Khaled Mashaal, the exiled Hamas chief, broke into tears as he arrived in the Gaza Strip for his first-ever visit. Mashaal had left the West Bank as a child. He leads the Islamic militant movement from Qatar.
(AP, 12/7/12)
2012 Dec 12, Israel's paramilitary border police force in Hebron shot and killed Mohammed Suleima (17) after he brandished a gun that later turned out to be fake.
(AP, 12/13/12)
2012 Dec 13, Thousands of Palestinians marched through the streets of Hebron, chanting anti-Israel slogans and waving green Hamas flags during a funeral procession for a teenager killed by Israeli troops a day earlier.
(AP, 12/13/12)
2012 Dec 16, Palestinian PM Salaam Fayyad called for a boycott of Israeli products to protests Israel’s withholding $100 million in taxes owed to the Palestinian Authority.
(SFC, 12/17/12, p.A2)
2012 Dec 19, A Jerusalem municipal official said Israel is pressing forward with construction in a new east Jerusalem settlement, part of a series of new building plans that have drawn worldwide rebuke, including from its closest ally, the United States.
(AP, 12/19/12)
2012 Dec 20, In Syria days of intense fighting in a Palestinian refugee camp subsided and some of the more than 100,000 residents who fled the violence in the capital Damascus began to trickle back.
(AP, 12/20/12)
2012 Dec 23, Israeli forces fired at and seriously wounded two men east of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
(AP, 12/23/12)
2012 Dec 29, An Egyptian security official said that thousands of tons of building materials such as cement and steel are crossing into the Palestinian Gaza Strip, which had previously been under a strict blockade.
(AP, 12/29/12)
2012 Dec 30, The Israeli military began allowing shipments of gravel to Gaza's private sector because the Israeli attacks on Hamas' military operations in November cowed the militant group into quiet.
(AP, 12/31/12)
2012 Dec 31, The West Bank Deputy Health Minister said an outbreak of the H1N1 swine flu has killed 9 people.
(SFC, 1/1/13, p.A2)
2013 Jan 1, Clashes began in the northern West Bank after Israeli forces dressed as merchants arrested one man. Regular forces then entered the town of Tamoun, and men began hurling rocks at them to prevent other arrests. At least 10 Palestinians were wounded.
(AP, 1/1/13)
2013 Jan 3, Palestinian officials said Israeli undercover troops broke into a West Bank house in a failed arrest raid near Jenin, igniting a violent protest and signaling that Israeli-Palestinian security coordination may be in trouble.
(AP, 1/3/13)
2013 Jan 4, Leaders of the Palestinian Fatah party led tens of thousands of supporters in a mass rally in the Gaza Strip, the first such gathering for the largely secular party in the territory since the rival Islamist Hamas seized power there in 2007. Hamas condoned the demonstration.
(AP, 1/4/13)
2013 Jan 6, Palestinian Pres. Mahmoud Abbas ordered his government to officially change the name of the Palestinian Authority to "State of Palestine."
(AP, 1/6/13)
2013 Jan 8, Palestinian factions in Syria called for a cease-fire after fighting flared at a refugee camp in the capital, Damascus. 5 people were killed on Yarmouk Street, four of them when a shell exploded and the fifth in sniper fire.
(AP, 1/8/13)
2013 Jan 9, The fiercest winter storm to hit the Mideast in years brought a rare foot of snow to Jordan, caused fatal accidents in Lebanon and the West Bank, and disrupted traffic on the Suez Canal in Egypt. At least eight people died across the region.
(AP, 1/9/13)
2013 Jan 11, The Israeli military shot and killed one Palestinian near the border fence with Gaza. In the West Bank activists pitched tents to protest Israeli plans to build a large Jewish settlement on a key route through the territory.
(SFC, 1/12/13, p.A2)
2013 Jan 13, Palestinian protesters who pitched tents at a strategic West Bank site to protest plans to build a Jewish housing project there were evicted early today. PM Netanyahu pledged to move ahead with construction of a new Jewish settlement in the area.
(AP, 1/13/13)
2013 Jan 15, The Israeli military shot dead a 17-year-old Palestinian near the West Bank separation barrier. The Israeli military said he had breached the barrier, which separated soldiers from protesters.
(AP, 1/15/13)
2013 Jan 24, More than 3,000 Palestinian teenagers graduated from the ruling Hamas militant group's first high school military training program in the Gaza Strip, displaying mock weapons, crawling commando-style on the ground and taking up fighting positions for thousands of cheering supporters.
(AP, 1/24/13)
2013 Jan 29, In Syria Musa Maragha (86), a hard-line Palestinian military commander who rebelled against leader Yasser Arafat to form his own rival party, died in Damascus. Maragha was better known by his nom de guerre, "Abu Musa."
(AP, 1/29/13)
2013 Jan 30, Israel said it is transferring some $100 million in last month’s tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority that were frozen last year.
(AP, 1/30/13)
2013 Jan 31, A UN panel called for Israel to immediately halt all settlement activity in Palestinian territory and withdraw all settlers. The panel said Israel’s settlements have clearly violated the Geneva Conventions.
(SFC, 2/1/13, p.A5)
2013 Feb 2, Israeli troops fired tear gas and stun grenades at rock-throwing Palestinian protesters as soldiers tried to dismantle an encampment near Burin that activists set up in the West Bank to protest Israeli building restrictions.
(AP, 2/2/13)
2013 Feb 4, Israeli forces arrested 20 members of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, including three lawmakers, in a raid in the West Bank.
(AP, 2/4/13)
2013 Feb 9, Israeli troops drove some 100 Palestinian activists out of an illegal tent camp they had set up near the city of Hebron in the southern West Bank. The operation marked the fifth time in the past month Israeli forces broke up a Palestinian encampment.
(AP, 2/9/13)
2013 Feb 10, The Israeli government gave final approval for construction of 90 new homes in a West Bank settlement, a move that could cause tensions with the US ahead of President Obama's visit to the region.
(AP, 2/11/13)
2013 Feb 10, Acclaimed Spanish writer Antonio Munoz Molina said he will accept the prestigious Jerusalem Prize, an Israeli award given to authors, despite calls from pro-Palestinian activists to boycott the Jewish state.
(AP, 2/10/13)
2013 Feb 15, Palestinian demonstrators clashed with Israeli soldiers at a West Bank rally held in support of Samer Issawi (35), who has been on an on-again, off-again hunger strike for several months as he serves time for alleged terror activity.
(AP, 2/15/13)
2013 Feb 15, Swedish photographer Paul Hansen won the 2012 World Press Photo award for newspaper Dagens Nyheter with a Nov 20 picture of two Palestinian children killed in an Israeli missile strike being carried to their funeral.
(AP, 2/15/13)
2013 Feb 18, Palestinians blocked roads and held marches across the West Bank to protest the fate of thousands of their countrymen held in Israeli jails and demand the release of four detainees on hunger strike. Israel is holding some 4,500 Palestinians for charges ranging from throwing stones to undertaking deadly militant attacks.
(AP, 2/18/13)
2013 Feb 19, Palestinian protesters clashed with Israeli soldiers at a rally in support of four imprisoned Palestinians on hunger strike, as hundreds of inmates said they were refusing food for the day in solidarity with the fasting inmates.
(AP, 2/19/13)
2013 Feb 19, Gaza Strip's Hamas government and local smugglers accused Egypt of flooding cross-border tunnels with sewage water in order to halt a thriving smuggling trade. Egyptian engineers began flooding the tunnels in late January.
(AP, 2/19/13)(Econ, 3/9/13, p.41)
2013 Feb 19, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu added his first coalition partner as he works to build a new government. Former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni will serve as justice minister in the next Israeli government, in charge of peace efforts with the Palestinians.
(AP, 2/19/13)
2013 Feb 21, Hundreds of Palestinian protesters clashed with Israeli security forces, hurling rocks and burning tires at a West Bank demonstration to show solidarity with Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
(AP, 2/21/13)
2013 Feb 22, Hundreds of Palestinians in Hebron and elsewhere in the West Bank threw rocks at Israeli soldiers who responded with tear gas. Palestinian emergency services said dozens were treated for tear gas inhalation and rubber bullet wounds. Mohammed Asfour (22) was struck in the head by a rubber-coated bullet in the West Bank and died of his wounds on March 7.
(AP, 2/22/13)(AP, 3/7/13)
2013 Feb 23, Some 150 Palestinian villagers and 25 Jewish settlers clashed in the northern West Bank village of Kusra, wounding one demonstrator who protesters say was shot in the stomach. The clashes began when a group of Jewish settlers chased a Palestinian farmer and his family off land in the village.
(AP, 2/23/13)
2013 Feb 23, Palestinian Arafat Jaradat (30) died while under Israeli custody at Megiddo Prison. His family alleged Jaradat was mistreated by the Shin Bet, saying he was healthy at the time of his arrest last week. Israeli officials said Jaradat died of an apparent heart attack and denied he was beaten or subjected to any treatment that could have led to his death. A Palestinian doctor present at the autopsy said marks on Jaradat’s body indicated torture.
(AP, 2/24/13)(SSFC, 2/3/13, p.A4)
2013 Feb 24, Palestinians called for an international investigation of Israel's treatment of detained Palestinians, after a 30-year-old Palestinian died in custody and a hunger strike by four other inmates sparked a week of West Bank protests.
(AP, 2/24/13)
2013 Feb 26, Gaza militants fired a rocket into Israel for the first time in three months. It landed south of Ashkelon with some damage to a road.
(AP, 2/26/13)
2013 Mar 1, Palestinians clashed with Israeli troops during rallies across the West Bank in support of hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners and against Israel's security barrier.
(AP, 3/1/13)
2013 Mar 1, Ayman Abu-Sufian (40) a Palestinian man, died in Palestinian custody in the West Bank two days after being detained on assault charges. Authorities there launched an investigation.
(AP, 3/2/13)(SSFC, 3/3/13, p.A5)
2013 Mar 3, The West Bank Palestinian finance minister Nabil Qassis announced his resignation in a show of frustration over the government's widening budget deficit. Qassis told reporters that the Palestinian Authority's 2013 budget deficit is expected to reach $1.4 billion.
(AP, 3/3/13)
2013 Mar 4, Israel launched a pair of "Palestinian-only" bus lines in the West Bank. It was presented by the government as a goodwill gesture, assailed by critics as racism and welcomed by Palestinian riders.
(AP, 3/4/13)
2013 Mar 5, A UN aid agency canceled the Gaza marathon after the Palestinian territory's militant Hamas rulers banned women from participating in the annual sporting event.
(AP, 3/5/13)
2013 Mar 8, Israeli police entered a hilltop site in Jerusalem, known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, where the Al-Aqsa Mosque stands, to disperse hundreds of Palestinians who were throwing rocks.
(AP, 3/8/13)
2013 Mar 12, Israeli troops shot to death Mahmoud Titi (25), a Palestinian man, after he and others hurled rocks and firebombs at them near Hebron in the West Bank.
(AP, 3/12/13)
2013 Mar 16, In Jordan a bus carrying Palestinian pilgrims overturned and crashed into a trailer on a highway near the Israeli border, killing 15 people. 32 pilgrims were injured.
(AP, 3/16/13)
2013 Mar 17, Ayman Sharawneh (53), a freed Palestinian prisoner, was given a hero's welcome in the Gaza Strip after ending his hunger strike in an Israeli jail and agreeing to a plea bargain that will confine him to the Hamas-run territory for the next 10 years.
(AP, 3/17/13)
2013 Mar 17, Palestinian lawmaker Mariam Farhat (64), aka “the mother of martyrs,” died in a Gaza hospital of health complications including lung ailments and kidney failure. She had lost three sons in militant activities against Israelis.
(AP, 3/17/13)
2013 Mar 21, Palestinian militants in Gaza launched at least two rockets into southern Israel as US President Barack Obama met with Palestinian officials in the West Bank on the second day of his Mideast tour. The Israeli military closed a Gaza border crossing and restricted Palestinian fishermen in the territory in response to the rocket attacks.
(AP, 3/21/13)(AP, 3/22/13)
2013 Mar 24, A senior Palestinian official rejected the idea of a partial Israeli settlement freeze as a way of restarting peace talks.
(AP, 3/24/13)
2013 Mar 25, Israel's government said it will resume transferring tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority.
(AP, 3/25/13)
2013 Mar 28, A West Bank appeals court upheld a one-year prison term for Mamdouh Hamamreh, a Palestinian journalist who had a photo on his Facebook page that authorities claimed portrayed President Mahmoud Abbas as a traitor.
(AP, 3/28/13)(SFC, 3/29/13, p.A2)
2013 Mar 28, Israel fully reopened its border crossings with the Gaza Strip that were closed following militant rocket fire during President Barack Obama's visit to the region last week.
(AP, 3/28/13)
2013 Mar, Hamas' military wing Izz ad-Din al-Qassam bulldozed part of the ancient Anthedon Harbor, a site designated of historic value by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), in order to make room for the group's terrorist training.
(http://tinyurl.com/cjyqtrt)
2013 Apr 1, Palestinian militant group Hamas re-elected longtime leader Khaled Mashaal (56) in a vote held in Cairo. He ran unopposed in the vote, winning the support of a majority in Hamas' Shura Council which has about 60 members.
(AP, 4/2/13)
2013 Apr 1, Gaza's Hamas-controlled parliament announced a new law requiring separate classes for boys and girls in public and private schools from the fourth grade rather than the current 7th grade. The education law also bars male teachers from teaching in girls' schools. It will go effect at the start of the new school year in September.
(AP, 4/1/13)
2013 Apr 2, Israeli prison guards fired tear gas to quell disturbances in cell blocks after Palestinian prisoners protested following the news of a fellow inmate's death of cancer. Maysara Abu Hamdiyeh (64), who died earlier today, was serving a life sentence for his role in a foiled attempt to bomb a busy cafe in Jerusalem in 2002.
(AP, 4/2/13)
2013 Apr 3, Palestinian militants launched several rockets into southern Israel, as Israeli aircraft struck targets in the Gaza Strip in the heaviest exchange of fire between the sides since they agreed to an internationally brokered cease-fire in November. Israeli forces shot and killed a teenage Palestinian protester during a clash in the West Bank.
(AP, 4/3/13)
2013 Apr 4, Thousands of Palestinians took to the streets in the West Bank in a show of outrage over the deaths of two Palestinian protesters killed in clashes with Israel and a third Palestinian who died of cancer in an Israeli prison. In Gaza, militants fired a rocket that landed in southern Israel, causing no casualties.
(AP, 4/4/13)
2013 Apr 4, The UN says it is shuttering all its food distribution centers in the Gaza Strip after dozens of people stormed one of its compounds to protest the suspension of cash assistance to thousands of families.
(AP, 4/5/13)
2013 Apr 4, Palestinian police began apprehending young men from various parts of Gaza, taking them into custody, then cutting their hair while in detention. Some were mocked and beaten.
(AP, 4/8/13)
2013 Apr 5, Israel forces took Mohammad Khalek (14) into custody. 8 assault-rifle wielding soldiers shackled and blindfolded the boy as his five siblings watched. The military said Mohammad hurled rocks at Israeli vehicles on April 2 and at Israeli forces on several occasions. On April 17 the Palestinian-American teenager was sentenced to two weeks in prison for throwing rocks at Israeli forces.
(AP, 4/11/13)(AP, 4/17/13)
2013 Apr 8, Israel shut a crossing with Gaza after rockets were fired from the Hamas-ruled territory at the Jewish state on the day it commemorated the Holocaust.
(AP, 4/8/13)
2013 Apr 9, The United Nations reopened food distribution centers in Gaza that closed last week following a violent protest at a UN compound.
(AP, 4/9/13)
2013 Apr 11, Palestinians laid the groundstone in the West Bank town of Birzeit of what organizers say will be the world's largest museum devoted to their history.
(AP, 4/11/13)
2013 Apr 11, Human Rights Watch condemned Gaza's Hamas rulers for failing to investigate the public slayings (Nov 20,2012) of seven Palestinian men accused of collaborating with Israel.
(AP, 4/11/13)
2013 Apr 13, Palestinian PM Salaam Fayyad resigned, leaving the Palestinians without one of their most moderate and well-respected voices just as the US began launching a new push for Mideast peace.
(AP, 4/14/13)
2013 Apr 23, Israel and Palestine agreed to renewed involvement by UNESCO in the Old City of Jerusalem.
(SFC, 4/24/13, p.A2)
2013 Apr 23, Palestinian prisoner Samer Issawi (33), who refused food for eight months, ended his hunger strike after a deal was reached with Israeli authorities for his early release. Issawi was sentenced in 2002 to 26 years in prison for his role in a series of shooting attacks targeting police cars and students at Jerusalem's Hebrew University.
(AP, 4/23/13)
2013 Apr 25, Israel shot down a drone as it approached its northern coast from neighboring Lebanon, raising suspicions that the Hezbollah militant group was behind the infiltration attempt.
(AP, 4/25/13)
2013 Apr 27, Israel was hit by rockets fired from the Gaza Strip by Islamic militant group Hamas. They exploded in open areas with no injuries.
(AP, 4/28/13)
2013 Apr 28, Israel said it has responded to rockets fired the previous evening from the Gaza Strip with airstrikes on sites used by Islamic militant group Hamas. Israel also responded to the rocket fire by closing the Kerem Shalom crossing with Gaza.
(AP, 4/28/13)
2013 Apr 29, Arab League delegates in Washington, DC, proposed a revised peace plan based on a 2002 peace initiative that would allow some Jewish settlements on occupied land to remain part of Israel.
(Econ, 5/11/13, p.41)(http://tinyurl.com/p7qtvph)
2013 Apr 30, A Palestinian stabbed a settler to death at a bus stop near Ramallah. Evyatar Borowsky (31), a father of five, was killed by a knife-wielding Palestinian at a hitchhiking post in Samaria.
(AP, 5/1/13)
2013 Apr 30, An Israeli aircraft attacked a motorcycle in Gaza, killing Haitham Mishal, who the military said was a top militant in a shadowy al-Qaida-influenced group who had been involved in the April 17 rocket attack on southern Israel.
(AP, 4/30/13)
2013 May 6, China’s Pres. Xi Jinping met with Palestinian Pres. Mahmoud Abbas in Beijing and urged dialogue in Middle East peace negotiations.
(Econ, 5/11/13, p.52)
2013 May 7, Two prominent Israeli activist groups said PM Netanyahu has stopped approving new construction in West Bank settlements.
(AP, 5/7/13)
2013 May 7, A spokesman for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) said President Assad's regime has given the militant group the go-ahead to set up missiles to attack Israel in the wake of recent Israeli airstrikes on the Syrian capital.
(AP, 5/7/13)
2013 May 8, Israel gave preliminary approval to build nearly 300 housing units in a West Bank settlement, bringing a Palestinian rebuke and possibly complicating US efforts to relaunch Mideast peace talks.
(AP, 5/9/13)
2013 May 14, Palestinian Fatah official Azzam al-Ahmed said Fatah and Hamas have agreed to form a national unity government.
(SFC, 5/15/13, p.A2)
2013 May 15, Violence erupted as the Palestinians held an annual day of mourning and protests over the displacement of Palestinians following Israel's creation in 1948. Police say Jewish worshippers inside the Old City of Jerusalem were attacked during the unrest.
(AP, 5/16/13)
2013 May 16, Israeli police temporarily barred Israeli Jews and tourists from entering the most hotly contested Jerusalem holy site following Palestinian demonstrations.
(AP, 5/16/13)
2013 May 17, In Egypt dozens of disgruntled border policemen forced the closure of the main crossing point into the Gaza Strip to protest the abduction of their colleagues by suspected militants.
(AP, 5/17/13)
2013 May 30, Israel's Housing Ministry said it has given the final go-ahead for the construction of 300 new homes in a Jewish settlement in east Jerusalem.
(AP, 5/30/13)
2013 Jun 2, Palestinian Pres. Mahmoud Abbas appointed Rami Hamdallah to replace Salam Fayyad. Hamdallah was tasked with forming a new government of technocrats, not politicians. Fayyad had frequently clashed with Abbas and was seen as being too independent.
(AP, 6/2/13)
2013 Jun 20, Rami Hamdallah, the new Palestinian prime minister, submitted his resignation to President Mahmoud Abbas, after two weeks on the job, because of a conflict over authority.
(AP, 6/20/13)
2013 Jun 22, The militant Islamic group Hamas that rules Gaza executed two men whom it accused of passing intelligence to Israel. Raed Jundiyeh, an Islamic Jihad militant wanted by Hamas for the kidnapping of a Gaza resident, was shot in the head by Hamas police as he resisted arrest. Jundiyeh died the next day.
(AP, 6/22/13)(SFC, 6/25/13, p.A3)
2013 Jun 24, Israeli aircraft pounded targets in the Gaza Strip after rockets were fired at Israel from the territory. A total of six rockets were fired at Israel overnight. Israeli police said that vandals slashed the tires of 21 cars in an Arab neighborhood of east Jerusalem. The vandals also scribbled slogans on nearby walls.
(AP, 6/24/13)
2013 Jun 30, The family and Israeli layer of a Palestinian from the Gaza Strip, who vanished while visiting Egypt this month, said Wael Abu Rida (35) was under arrest in Israel for alleged security offences. Israel's Public Defender's Office said it had received Abu Rida's case on June 22 and assigned him a lawyer.
(AP, 6/30/13)
2013 Jul 1, Israel announced a crackdown against Jewish ultranationalists who vandalize Palestinian property, saying they were tantamount to terrorists and their attacks could fan sectarian violence.
(AP, 7/1/13)
2013 Jul 2, Israeli soldiers shot dead Moataz Sharawneh (19), a Palestinian, during a confrontation in the occupied West Bank.
(AP, 7/2/13)
2013 Jul 7, Gaza's Hamas authorities said they have broken up a counterfeiting ring that had printed millions of dollars worth of fake Israeli currency. Authorities uncovered the ring last week.
(AP, 7/7/13)
2013 Jul 19, In Israel Wael Abu Rida, a Palestinian secretly held by Israel after he vanished during a visit to Egypt last month, was indicted on terrorism charges. Authorities did not say how and where he was detained.
(Reuters, 7/19/13)
2013 Jul 26, Israel blocked the EU from aiding tens of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank, in retaliation for an EU ban on financial assistance to Israeli organizations in the occupied territories.
(Reuters, 7/26/13)
2013 Jul 28, Israel approved the release of 104 Arab prisoners in a move intended to facilitate the restart of peace talks with the Palestinians and end nearly three years of diplomatic standstill.
(Reuters, 7/28/13)
2013 Jul 29, Israeli and Palestinian teams flew to Washington to end five years of diplomatic stalemate and prepare for a new round of Mideast peace talks, though optimism was in short supply after two decades of failed attempts to reach a deal.
(AP, 7/29/13)
2013 Jul 30, In Washington DC Israeli and Palestinian negotiators wrapped up an initial two days of talks in a US-brokered effort that Sec. of State John Kerry hoped would end their conflict. Negotiators agreed to meet again in two weeks to start substantive negotiations. Talks had been on hold for nearly three years
(Reuters, 7/30/13)(SFC, 7/31/13, p.A2)
2013 Aug 4, The Israeli Cabinet expanded its list of West Bank settlements eligible for government subsidies, a decision that came just days after the resumption of long-frozen peace talks and drew quick Palestinian condemnation.
(AP, 8/4/13)
2013 Aug 7, Israel gave preliminary approval for the construction of more than 800 new homes in Jewish settlements on occupied West Bank land where Palestinians seek statehood.
(Reuters, 8/8/13)
2013 Aug 10, Israeli troops killed a Palestinian who crossed in from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, fearing he was a security threat though he proved to be unarmed.
(Reuters, 8/10/13)
2013 Aug 11, Israel's housing minister gave final approval for building nearly 1,200 new settlement apartments on lands the Palestinians want for their state.
(AP, 8/11/13)
2013 Aug 12, Israel named 26 Palestinian prisoners to be freed this week under a deal enabling US-backed peace talks to resume. Palestinians said these have been undermined by newly announced plans to expand Israeli settlements.
(Reuters, 8/12/13)
2013 Aug 13, Palestine’s PM Rami Hamdallah accepted a request by Pres. Abbas to remain on the job, weeks after announcing his resignation.
(AP, 8/13/13)
2013 Aug 14, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators reconvened for US-brokered peace talks in Jerusalem amid little fanfare and low expectations.
(Reuters, 8/14/13)
2013 Aug 20, Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian and wounded two others during a raid in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. Security forces arrested a suspected militant in Jenin and, after being attacked with live fire, home-made bombs and rocks, shot back. Kareem Abu Sbaih (19) died of his wounds on Aug 31.
(Reuters, 8/20/13)(Reuters, 8/31/13)
2013 Aug 23, An Egyptian official said the country's border crossing with Gaza, which was closed after a deadly attack on policemen this week, has reopened, but will be open only for four hours every day because security concerns remain high in Sinai.
(AP, 8/24/13)
2013 Aug 26, Palestinian negotiators called off a planned round of peace talks after Israeli soldiers killed 3 protesters during clashes following an arrest raid in the West Bank.
(AP, 8/26/13)
2013 Sep 6, Israeli police fired stun grenades at Palestinian protesters after Friday prayers in Jerusalem's Old City, arresting 15 of them after youths threw stones at Israeli security forces.
(AFP, 9/6/13)
2013 Sep 17, Israeli soldiers shot dead a 20-year-old Palestinian militant during a raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. Islam al-Tubas, a member of Islamic Jihad, was shot as he tried to flee arrest and after Palestinians shot and threw firebombs.
(Reuters, 9/17/13)
2013 Sep 18, Egypt partially reopened its border crossing with the Gaza Strip, a week after it was closed in response to a deadly attack on an Egyptian military headquarters near the frontier.
(Reuters, 9/18/13)
2013 Sep 20, A Palestinian lured an Israeli soldier to a village in the West Bank and killed him with the intention of trading the body for his jailed brother. Nidal Amar (42) was arrested the next day and confessed to the killing.
(AP, 9/21/13)
2013 Sep 22, A Palestinian border officials said Israel is now allowing construction materials for private builders into the Gaza Strip for the first time in six years.
(SFC, 9/23/13, p.A2)
2013 Sep 22, Israeli Sergeant Gabriel Koby (20) died in hospital after sustaining gunshot wounds in the southern West Bank city of Hebron.
(AFP, 9/23/13)
2013 Sep 27, Israeli troops clashed with stone-throwing protesters in Hebron as Palestinians marked the 13th anniversary of their 2nd uprising against Israeli occupation.
(SFC, 9/28/13, p.A2)
2013 Sep 30, Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian near the border fence between Israel and the Gaza Strip.
(Reuters, 9/30/13)
2013 Oct 2, Masked executioners in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip hanged a man who was convicted of stabbing to death an acquaintance over money, ignoring protests by human rights activists who say the territory's legal system is flawed.
(AP, 10/2/13)
2013 Oct 3, Palestinian farmers, after a long court battle, reclaimed land they lost to an Israeli settlement in the 1970s. Israel had dismantled Homesh and three other West Bank settlements in 2005, in connection with a wider withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, but refused to let the original Palestinian landowners return.
(AP, 10/3/13)
2013 Oct 9, In Israel residents of Jaloud, a Palestinian village in the West Bank, said masked Jewish settlers burst into a school, vandalized cars and torched olive trees during a rampage that forced schoolchildren to remain locked in classrooms to keep safe.
(AP, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 11, Suspected Palestinian militants bludgeoned to death retired army colonel Sarya Ofer in the third killing of Israelis in the West Bank within as many weeks. Three suspects were arreted the next day.
(AFP, 10/11/13)(AFP, 10/13/13)
2013 Oct 11, The Egyptian coast guard rescued 72 Palestinians, 40 Syrians and 4 Egyptians when a boat carrying illegal migrants and Syrian refugees sank off Egypt's northern coast. 12 people died.
(Reuters, 10/11/13)
2013 Oct 13, Israel displayed what it called a Palestinian "terror tunnel" running into its territory from the Gaza Strip and said it was subsequently freezing the transfer of building material to the enclave.
(Reuters, 10/13/13)
2013 Oct 13, In a report published by The Lancet Swiss radiation experts confirmed they found traces of polonium on clothing used by Yasser Arafat (d.2004) supporting the possibility the Palestinian leader was poisoned.
(AFP, 10/14/13)
2013 Oct 15, Israel's military destroyed a second tunnel dug from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip into Israel. The military said the tunnel was packed with explosives and stretched dozens of meters (yards) into Israel.
(AP, 10/15/13)
2013 Oct 19, Hamas, its Gaza Strip stronghold cut off by the new military-backed government in Egypt, called upon rival Palestinian Pres. Mahmoud Abbas to end their six-year schism and form a unity government.
(Reuters, 10/19/13)
2013 Oct 22, Israeli troops killed Mohamed Aatzi, an Islamic Jihad militant said to be behind the 2012 bombing of a Tel Aviv bus. The Palestinian radical movement confirmed his death.
(AFP, 10/22/13)(SFC, 10/22/12, p.A2)
2013 Oct 27, Israel agreed to free 26 long-serving Palestinian prisoners as part of a US-brokered deal that led to the resumption of peace talks.
(SFC, 10/28/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 28, Israeli warplanes raided the northern Gaza Strip after militants fired rockets over the border. Israel readied to free a new batch of long-term Palestinian prisoners.
(AFP, 10/28/13)
2013 Oct 30, Israel released 26 long-serving Palestinian prisoners, the second batch of 104 inmates who are to be freed in line with commitments to US-brokered peace talks. Israel announced plans to build 1,500 new homes in east Jerusalem, the part of the city claimed by the Palestinians.
(AFP, 10/30/13)
2013 Oct 31, Palestinian security sources said Israel's army arrested four suspects from the Islamic Jihad movement overnight, in the second such arrest operation this week. A Palestinian rock thrower was killed as Israeli troops entered Qabatiya in northern West Bank.
(AFP, 10/31/13)(SFC, 11/1/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 31, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported the government is planning to move ahead with another 3,360 new settler homes in the West Bank, quoting an MP from the ruling rightwing Likud party.
(AFP, 10/31/13)
2013 Nov 1, Hamas said a shortage of fuel halted the production of electricity across the Gaza Strip.
(AFP, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 1, An Israeli air strike killed 3 militants in the Gaza Strip after an overnight clash that killed a fourth Palestinian gunman and wounded five Israeli soldiers. The Israeli military said its aircraft targeted a tunnel used by militants to facilitate attacks on Israelis.
(Reuters, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 5, Israeli and Palestinian officials said the three-month-old peace talks pressed on them by Washington are going nowhere.
(Reuters, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 7, Israeli forces killed a Palestinian near Jerusalem. Police said Anas al-Atrash (23) was shot dead when he ran at an officer with a knife at a checkpoint between the West Bank.
(AFP, 11/8/13)
2013 Nov 7, Swiss scientists confirmed that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat ingested lethal radioactive polonium before his death in 2004 and had high levels of it in his body that could not have been accidental. Palestinian officials have alleged from the start that Israel poisoned Arafat.
(AP, 11/7/13)
2013 Nov 11, Hamas marine forces in Gaza foiled an attempt by residents to smuggle a car from Egypt, signaling a new area of illicit trade as the Egyptian army cracks down on border tunnels.
(Reuters, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 12, Settlement watchdog Peace Now said Israel plans to build 20,000 new settler homes in the West Bank. PM Netanyahu publicly forced Housing Minister Uri Ariel, who had approved the plans, to back down after drawing US condemnation for a settlement project the Palestinians warned would end a fragile peace process
(AFP, 11/12/13)(AFP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said his peace negotiators had resigned over the lack of progress in US-brokered statehood talks clouded by Israeli settlement building.
(Reuters, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 13, The Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights said Hamas has arrested and tortured dozens of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip over the past few weeks on political grounds. One of the blockaded enclave's largest waste water treatment plants stopped for lack of fuel.
(AFP, 11/13/13)(Reuters, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 13, Israeli soldier Eden Atias (19) died after a Palestinian youth (16) stabbed him on board a bus in the north of the country.
(AP, 11/13/13)
2013 Nov 14, Israeli aircraft bombed two rocket launchers in the Gaza Strip, hours after Palestinian militants had fired mortars into Israel.
(Reuters, 11/14/13)
2013 Nov 25, Israel approved plans to build more than 800 settler homes on occupied land, in a move Palestinians said was aimed at venting Israeli anger toward a historic deal Western powers have struck with Iran over its nuclear program.
(Reuters, 11/25/13)
2013 Nov 30, An Israeli policeman shot dead a Palestinian in the town of Petah Tikva near Tel Aviv after he tried to attack the arresting force. A paramilitary Border Police unit was searching for Palestinians who did not have a permit to stay in Israel when one of them tried to stab a policeman.
(Reuters, 11/30/13)
2013 Dec 1, A senior Palestinian source said security forces have arrested 20 Salafists, after a Gaza-based group affiliated with Al-Qaeda confirmed it was operating in the West Bank for the first time. The source denied that any of those arrested in the northern part of the Israeli-occupied West Bank had ties to the global jihadist group set up by the late Osama Bin-Laden.
(AFP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 3, French experts released findings that ruled out the poisoning theory of Yasser Arafat and went in the sense of a natural death. This differed significantly from those of Swiss scientists, who said last month their research offered some support for the suggestion Arafat was killed by polonium poisoning.
(AFP, 12/4/13)
2013 Dec 7, A Palestinian boy, Wajih Wajdi Al-Ramah (15), died of a gunshot wound in the occupied West Bank. His father and two friends blamed Israeli troops guarding a nearby settlement for the shooting. The father said the boy had left a grocery store when he was shot from the nearby settlement, about 300 meters away.
(Reuters, 12/8/13)
2013 Dec 9, Representatives of Israel, Jordan and the Palestinians signed a "historic" agreement to link the Red Sea with the shrinking Dead Sea. The agreement was signed at the World Bank in Washington, water will be drawn from the Gulf of Aqaba at the northern end of the Red Sea.
(AFP, 12/9/13)
2013 Dec 14, Rescue workers evacuated more than 5,000 Gaza Strip residents from homes flooded by four days of heavy rain, using fishing boats and heavy construction equipment to pluck some of those trapped from upper floors.
(AP, 12/14/13)
2013 Dec 16, European Union foreign ministers pledged "unprecedented" amounts of political, financial and security support for Israel and the Palestinians if they come to a peace agreement.
(AP, 12/16/13)
2013 Dec 17, The European Union said it has warned Israel against any new West Bank settlement construction following an upcoming Palestinian prisoner release, saying it will be held responsible for any resulting failure of the ongoing peace talks.
(AP, 12/17/13)
2013 Dec 18, The Israeli army shot dead a Palestinian man and wounded others in clashes that erupted following military activity in the northern West Bank.
(AFP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 18, Iyad Sarraj (70), an award-winning Palestinian psychiatrist and human rights campaigner who championed peace with Israel, died in an Israeli hospital overnight of cancer.
(AFP, 12/18/13)
2013 Dec 19, The Israeli military killed a Palestinian gunman during an arrest raid in the West Bank.
(AP, 12/19/13)
2013 Dec 21, Israeli soldiers shot and wounded a Palestinian man in the southern Gaza Strip. Witnesses said the shooting happened when several young Palestinians who were hunting birds approached the security fence separating the territory from Israel and came under fire. Israel said terrorists had attempted to conceal an explosive device in order to attack IDF soldiers.
(AFP, 12/21/13)
2013 Dec 24, Israeli air and ground forces launched a series of attacks on targets across the Gaza Strip, killing a young girl and wounding 10 in response to the deadly shooting of an Israeli civilian by a Palestinian sniper. Palestinian officials reported at least 16 Israeli attacks.
(AP, 12/24/13)
2013 Dec 26, A Russian probe into the 2004 death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said it has found no trace of radioactive poisoning.
(AP, 12/26/13)
2013 Dec 27, Lack of fuel from Israel brought Gaza's lone power plant to a halt, days after it was fired back to life following a seven-week shutdown.
(AFP, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 27, An Israeli official said Israel plans to build 1,400 homes in its settlements in the occupied West Bank and will announce the projects next week after releasing a group of Palestinian prisoners.
(Reuters, 12/27/13)
2013 Dec 29, The Gaza Strip's only power plant returned to life after Israel resumed fuel deliveries.
(AFP, 12/29/13)
2013 Dec 31, Israel freed 26 Palestinian prisoners, days before US Secretary of State John Kerry was due back in the Middle East to press the two sides to reach a framework peace deal. This release was the third of four groups to go free.
(Reuters, 12/31/13)
2014 Jan 1, In Prague Jamel al-Jamal (56), the Palestinian ambassador to the Czech Republic, died in a blast that occurred when he opened an old safe that had been left untouched for more than 20 years. An investigation found illegal weapons at the Palestinian embassy complex.
(AP, 1/1/14)(AP, 1/3/14)
2014 Jan 2, A Palestinian man (85) died after inhaling tear gas fired by the Israeli army to disperse local protesters landed in his home in the occupied West Bank.
(Reuters, 1/2/14)
2014 Jan 3, A Palestinian youth, identified as Adnan Abu Khater (16), died of his wounds after he was shot a day earlier by Israeli soldiers near the border fence in the northern Gaza Strip.
(AFP, 1/3/14)
2014 Jan 3, Israeli war planes carried out a series of strikes in the Gaza Strip, shortly after a rocket from the enclave struck the Jewish state.
(AFP, 1/3/14)
2014 Jan 6, Hamas PM Ismail Haniya reached out to West Bank rivals Fatah saying its members would be allowed back into Gaza, in efforts to promote Palestinian reconciliation.
(AFP, 1/6/14)
2014 Jan 6, Israel gave final approval for building 272 new apartments in two isolated West Bank settlements as US Sec. of State John Kerry wrapped up his latest mediating mission in the region.
(SFC, 1/7/14, p.A3)
2014 Jan 8, Gaza's Hamas government freed seven imprisoned Fatah members, as part of efforts to mend relations between the Islamist movement and its West Bank-based Palestinian rival.
(AFP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, An Islamic Jihad militant was killed near Gaza City in what medics and family said was an Israeli drone strike.
(AFP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, Dutch pension asset manager PGGM, one of the largest in the country, said it was divesting from five Israeli banks because they finance Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
(AFP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 9, Palestinians threw rocks at a West Bank hotel, shattering windows and breaking up a meeting of Israeli and Palestinian peace activists. Residents of Palestinian refugee camps burnt tires and closed roads in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in protests stemming from a month-long strike by the UN agency that operates the camps.
(AP, 1/9/14)(Reuters, 1/9/14)
2014 Jan 10, Israel announced plans to build 1,400 new homes in Jewish settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, territory the Palestinians claim for their future state.
(AP, 1/10/14)
2014 Jan 12, In the Israeli occupied West Bank at least 50 people were hurt in a clash between Palestinian police and residents of the Jalazoun refugee camp protesting against a strike in a UN aid agency that has paralyzed services.
(Reuters, 1/12/14)
2014 Jan 15, Suspected Jewish extremists torched the entrance to a mosque in the West Bank, in an apparent revenge attack for Palestinians beating and detaining Israeli settlers last week.
(AFP, 1/15/14)
2014 Jan 16, Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip overnight wounded a woman and four children, with Israel saying it had struck in retaliation for rocket fire.
(AFP, 1/16/14)
2014 Jan 17, The Israeli army fired live rounds and tear gas at protesters near the border fence in the Gaza Strip, wounding two Palestinians. Troops fired at some 300 demonstrators who were protesting against Israel's destruction of farmland for its 300-meter buffer zone.
(AFP, 1/17/14)
2014 Jan 18, In Morocco the Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Committee of Muslim nations ended talks and urged the international community to put pressure on Israel to stop building Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
(AFP, 1/19/14)
2014 Jan 18, In Syria food aid entered the besieged Yarmuk Palestinian refugee camp for the first time in four months. The delivery of food followed reports that dozens of people in the camp in southern Damascus have died of hunger and lack of medical care.
(AFP, 1/18/14)
2014 Jan 19, Two Palestinians were hurt, one critically, in an Israeli air strike on Gaza City. The Israel military said it had targeted Ahmad Saad, a senior Islamic Jihad militant.
(AFP, 1/19/14)
2014 Jan 20, Canada’s PM Stephen Harper said the staunch Israeli ally would provide additional financial support for the West Bank, as he met Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in Ramallah.
(AFP, 1/20/14)
2014 Jan 21, It was reported that Israel's government has approved plans to build 381 new homes in a settlement near annexed east Jerusalem.
(AFP, 1/21/14)
2014 Jan 22, An Israeli air strike killed 2 Palestinians including one militant in northern Gaza. Israel blamed one of them for firing rockets across the border during former Israeli PM Ariel Sharon's funeral last week.
(Reuters, 1/22/14)
2014 Jan 22, Israel moved forward with plans for 261 new homes in two settlements located deep in the occupied West Bank. The plans included 256 housing units in Nofei Prat settlement, between east Jerusalem and Jericho, and another five in the sprawling Ariel settlement in the north.
(AFP, 1/22/14)
2014 Jan 23, Hamas accused Twitter of censorship as an account of its armed wing has been suspended by Twitter administrators.
(AFP, 1/23/14)
2014 Jan 24, Israeli forces shot dead Bilal Samir Oweida (20) and wounded another man in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli army said a group of Palestinians had entered "a prohibited area" in northern Gaza where they damaged the security fence, hurled rocks and rolled burning tires at IDF (Israel Defense Forces).
(AFP, 1/24/14)
2014 Jan 24, A Syrian activist group said 63 people have died since last June in the besieged Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp from a lack of food and medicine.
(AP, 1/24/14)
2014 Jan 26, An Israeli court extended by two days the detention of two Palestinian men it suspects of planning to bomb the US Embassy in Tel Aviv under instructions from al-Qaida.
(AP, 1/26/14)
2014 Jan 26, Israel said it will allow the entry of about 1,000 tons of cement and building materials to the Gaza Strip for storm damage restoration and other projects of UN agencies.
(AFP, 1/26/14)
2014 Jan 27, Israeli troops shot and seriously wounded a Palestinian man (34) close to the Gaza side of the border. Soldiers opened fire after a blast which occurred as a military vehicle passed on the Israeli side of the border fence. Israeli authorities demolished four Palestinian homes in annexed east Jerusalem that had been built without construction permits.
(AFP, 1/27/14)
2014 Jan 29, Israeli soldiers north of Ramalla shot dead Mohammad Mubara (19), a Palestinian from the Jalazun refugee camp. Eye-witnesses said Mubarak was not armed, and had been harassed by soldiers who made him remove his clothes.
(AFP, 1/29/14)
2014 Jan 30, England-based Oxfam confirmed accepting US actress Scarlett Johansson's decision to step down, saying her promotion of Israeli drinks firm SodaStream, which has a factory in a settlement east of Jerusalem, was "incompatible" with her role at the international aid agency.
(AFP, 1/30/14)
2014 Feb 3, A Palestinian official accused Jewish settlers in the West Bank of attacking olive groves belonging to Palestinians and uprooting some 1,700 seedlings.
(AP, 2/3/14)
2014 Feb 5, Israel's Jerusalem municipality approved building plans for 558 new homes in the occupied West Bank, land that the Palestinians want for a future state.
(Reuters, 2/5/14)
2014 Feb 7, Aid agencies working in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem expressed alarm at a spike in Israeli demolitions of Palestinian property coinciding with renewed US-backed peace negotiations.
(Reuters, 2/7/14)
2014 Feb 9, A Palestinian militant was in critical condition after an Israeli air strike on central Gaza that the army said targeted a "key" figure responsible for cross-border rocket fire.
(AFP, 2/9/14)
2014 Feb 9, Israel denied entry permits to some 50 Palestinian medical patients from the Gaza Strip because the words "State of Palestine" was on the letterhead of their application.
(Reuters, 2/12/14)
2014 Feb 12, A municipal planning committee advanced a plan to build a Jewish seminary in the heart of an Arab neighborhood of east Jerusalem, triggering angry Palestinian accusations that Israel was undermining already troubled Mideast peace efforts.
(AP, 2/12/14)
2014 Feb 13, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian and wounded another in the Gaza Strip. Relatives said Ibrahim Mansour (26) was collecting gravel to sell from his donkey cart when he was shot dead. The Israeli military said soldiers fired at Palestinians tampering with Israel's border security fence.
(Reuters, 2/13/14)
2014 Feb 16, A spokesman for Gaza's Hamas rulers said that the Islamic militant group will oppose any international force in a future Palestine, adding a new complication to US-brokered peace efforts.
(AP, 2/16/14)
2014 Feb 24, Hamas authorities said Gaza police have arrested family members over the deaths of two Palestinian teenage girls, one of them the victim of a suspected "honor" killing.”
(AF P, 2/24/14)
2014 Feb 27, Israeli forces opened fire and killed Muataz Washaha (24), a Palestinian they were seeking to arrest in the occupied West Bank, after the man had barricaded himself inside his house.
(Reuters, 2/27/14)
2014 Feb 28, An Israeli aircraft hit a suspected rocket launch site in the north of the Gaza Strip late today.
(AFP, 3/1/14)
2014 Mar 1, Israeli troops close to the border shot dead Amena Atiyyeh Qdeih (57), a mentally ill Gazan woman, near to the southern city of Khan Yunis.
(AFP, 3/1/14)
2014 Mar 1, Japan pledged more than $200 million in aid to help the Palestinian Authority, as representatives in Indonesia from 22 nations reiterated their support of the Palestinians' quest for their own state.
(AP, 3/1/14)
2014 Mar 4, An Egyptian court ruled to ban activities of the Palestinian militant group Hamas in a move likely to fuel tension between Cairo's military-backed government and the Islamic group that rules the neighboring Gaza Strip.
(AP, 3/4/14)
2014 Mar 5, The Israeli navy seized a ship in the Red Sea that was carrying dozens of advanced Iranian-supplied rockets made in Syria and intended for Palestinian guerrillas in the Gaza Strip.
(Reuters, 3/5/14)
2014 Mar 9, The Arab League endorsed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's rejection of Israel's demand for recognition as a Jewish state, as US-backed peace talks approach a deadline next month.
(Reuters, 3/9/14)
2014 Mar 10, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian judge from Jordan in an altercation at a crossing point between Jordan and the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The Israeli military said Raed Alaa el-Deen Za'eiter (Raed Zeiter) had tried to seize a soldier's gun at the Allenby bridge.
(Reuters, 3/10/14)
2014 Mar 11, Israel expressed its regret over the death of Jordanian judge Raed Zeiter (38) while he was making his way to the occupied West Bank. He was shot a day earlier by Israeli soldiers after an altercation at the Allenby Bridge crossing.
(Reuters, 3/11/14)
2014 Mar 11, An Israeli air strike killed 3 militants of the Al-Quds Brigades in the southern Gaza Strip. The air strike came just hours after an unmanned aircraft of the sort Israel uses for surveillance and missile strikes crashed in the same area, just east of Khan Yunis.
(AFP, 3/11/14)
2014 Mar 11, Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu ruled out any deal with the Palestinians unless they recognize Israel as the Jewish state and give up their refugees' right of return.
(AFP, 3/11/14)
2014 Mar 12, Palestinian militants fired at least 25 rockets at Israel, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.
(AFP, 3/12/14)
2014 Mar 13, Israeli warplanes pounded 29 Palestinian targets in the Gaza Strip in response to heavy Palestinian rocket fire into the Jewish state as Gaza militants resumed rocket fire. Israel’s defense ministry shut down the Kerem Shalom goods crossing into southern Gaza following rocket fire over the border.
(AFP, 3/13/14)(AP, 3/13/14)(AFP, 3/16/14)
2014 Mar 13, Egypt brokered a ceasefire aimed at ending a flare-up of rocket attacks from Gaza on Israeli towns and Israeli air strikes in the Palestinian enclave.
(Reuters, 3/13/14)
2014 Mar 14, Gaza militants fired a rocket at Israel after two days of intense exchanges. It exploded in southern Israel but caused no damage or injuries.
(AP, 3/14/14)
2014 Mar 15, The Gaza Strip's only power plant shut down due to a lack of fuel from Israel, which closed a goods crossing after militant rocket attacks.
(AFP, 3/15/14)
2014 Mar 16, Israel allowed the resumption of diesel deliveries into Gaza, a day after the territory's sole power plant stopped working due to a lack of fuel.
(AFP, 3/16/14)
2014 Mar 19, Israel's Jerusalem municipality approved building plans for 184 new homes in two Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
(AP, 3/19/14)
2014 Mar 19, Israeli troops shot dead Palestinian teenager Yussef Sami Shawamreh (15) in the southern West Bank.
(AFP, 3/19/14)
2014 Mar 21, Israeli soldiers shot and wounded two Palestinians in the Gaza Strip near the border as two instigators attempted to climb over the security fence.
(AFP, 3/21/14)
2014 Mar 22, Israeli forces shot and killed Hamza Abu Alhija (24), a wanted Hamas Islamist militant, and two other militants dead in a raid on a home in the West Bank town of Jenin.
(Reuters, 3/22/14)
2014 Mar 23, Tens of thousands of Palestinians rallied in Gaza to show support for their Islamist Hamas government, which has long been at loggerheads with Israel but is now shunned by Egypt as well. The rally was intended to commemorate 3 top Hamas leaders, including founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who was assassinated by Israel a decade ago.
(Reuters, 3/23/14)
2014 Mar 26, Israeli navy ships opened fire on two suspected Palestinian smuggling boats off the Gaza coast. Both vessels sank after an explosion following the shooting.
(AP, 3/26/14)
2014 Mar 27, Israel said it will allow into the Gaza Strip construction materials and electric equipment to help build a Turkish-sponsored hospital, in a possible sign of improving ties with Ankara.
(Reuters, 3/27/14)
2014 Mar 28, A Palestinian official said Israel will not free the final batch of prisoners they had been expecting alongside US-brokered peace talks. Israeli cabinet members had warned they would block the final release, anticipated for the end of March, if the Palestinians refused to extend the talks beyond their April 29 deadline.
(AFP, 3/28/14)
2014 Mar 29, Egypt reopened the Gaza Strip's land border after a 50-day closure, but only for three days and then just for special cases.
(AFP, 3/29/14)
2014 Apr 2, Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Malki said he has delivered requests for membership of several UN agencies, as part of a move that shook a fragile Middle East peace process.
(AFP, 4/2/14)
2014 Apr 4, Israeli military aircraft struck militant targets in the Gaza Strip hours after Palestinians there fired rockets at Israel.
(AP, 4/4/14)
2014 Apr 6, Israeli warplanes attacked several sites in the Gaza Strip, hours after a rocket from the Palestinian enclave hit the Jewish state.
(AFP, 4/6/14)
2014 Apr 10, An Israeli official said Israel would stop the tax money transfers in retaliation for the Palestinians pushing to sign up for more recognition from international agencies and treaties. Israel collects about $100 million a month in taxes for the Palestinians.
(AP, 4/11/14)
2014 Apr 11, The Swiss government said the Palestinians can join the Geneva Conventions governing the rules of war and military occupations, twenty-five years after they made their first bid for membership.
(AP, 4/11/14)
2014 Apr 14, A Palestinian woman died after reportedly inhaling tear gas used by Israeli troops at Ayda refugee camp near the West Bank city of Bethlehem, but the military denied any involvement. An Israeli man was killed and his wife and son wounded as they drove through the West Bank en route to a Passover meal.
(AFP, 4/15/14)(AP, 4/15/14)
2014 Apr 16, Dozens of Palestinians were wounded in clashes with Israeli police that erupted when Jerusalem's flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound was opened to Jewish visitors.
(AFP, 4/16/14)
2014 Apr 20, Israeli police arrested 16 Palestinians at one of Jerusalem's most revered and politically sensitive holy sites as they dispersed protesters opposed to any Jewish attempts to pray there.
(Reuters, 4/20/14)
2014 Apr 21, Seven rockets fired from the Gaza Strip landed in southern Israel during the Jewish Passover holiday, drawing retaliatory air strikes from the Israeli army.
(Reuters, 4/21/14)
2014 Apr 23, The Gaza-based Islamist group Hamas and President Mahmoud Abbas's Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) agreed to implement a unity pact. Hamas had freed 10 Fatah prisoners ahead of the meeting as a goodwill gesture.
(AP, 4/22/14)(Reuters, 4/23/14)
2014 Apr 24, The Israeli government said it was suspending negotiations with the Palestinians, breaking off nine months of talks brokered by US Sec. of State John Kerry. Israel said it would not negotiate with a Palestinian government backed by Hamas.
(SFC, 4/25/14, p.A3)
2014 Apr 26, Palestinian Pres. Mahmoud Abbas signaled that he remains committed to troubled US-backed peace talks, saying that any unity government agreed with the militant group Hamas would recognize Israel.
(Reuters, 4/26/14)
2014 Apr 27, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called the Holocaust "the most heinous crime" of modern history and expressed his sympathy for the victims, a rare acknowledgment by an Arab leader of Jewish suffering during the Nazi genocide.
(AP, 4/27/14)
2014 Apr 27, The Palestine Liberation Organisation's central council adopted a plan to pursue attempts to join 60 United Nations bodies and international agreements.
(AFP, 4/28/14)
2014 Apr 29, A Palestinian-built protest boat, Gaza's Ark, which was preparing to run Israel's naval blockade of the territory, was badly damaged in an explosion that organizers blamed on Israel.
(AFP, 4/29/14)
2014 Apr 29, Washington's deadline for reaching a peace deal between Israel and Palestine expired today with the sides bitterly divided.
(AFP, 4/29/14)
2014 May 4, Israeli police looking for evidence linked to a recent attack on a mosque were mobbed overnight by around 100 demonstrators at the at Yitzhar West Bank settlement.
(AFP, 5/4/14)
2014 May 5, Palestinian Pres. Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal met in Qatar and agreed to move forward with a reconciliation deal between their rival movements.
(SFC, 5/6/14, p.A2)
2014 May 6, Israel marked its 66th Independence Day. In the north some 10,000 protesters, many waving Palestinian flags, joined a rally to remember 530 villages from which some 760,000 people fled or were expelled following the creation of the Jewish state in 1948.
(AFP, 5/7/14)
2014 May 7, The Hamas-run government of Gaza Strip said it has relaxed a ban on Palestinian newspapers published outside the enclave as a gesture of reconciliation to rival group Fatah after their unity deal last month.
(Reuters, 5/7/14)
2014 May 15, Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinian teens, Nadim Nuwara (17) and Muhammad Abu Thahr (16), in a West Bank clash that erupted after Palestinians marked their uprooting during the Mideast war over Israel's 1948 creation.
(AP, 5/15/14)(Reuters, 6/12/14)
2014 May 25, Pope Francis landed at Israel's international airport, kicking off the final leg of his Holy Land pilgrimage. Pope Francis invited the Israeli and Palestinian presidents to come to the Vatican to pray for peace.
(AP, 5/25/14)(Reuters, 5/25/14)
2014 May 27, Rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas agreed on the make-up of a national unity government in the most significant step yet toward healing their seven-year rift.
(Reuters, 5/27/14)
2014 May 28, Israeli soldiers raided the offices of a Palestinian newspaper in the West Bank city of Ramallah, ordering them to stop printing publications by the Islamist movement Hamas.
(AFP, 5/28/14)
2014 May 29, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas asked PM Rami Hamdallah to head a new national unity government which will bring together the feuding Hamas and Fatah parties.
(Reuters, 5/29/14)
2014 Jun 2, President Mahmoud Abbas swore in a Palestinian unity government, taking a major step toward ending a crippling split with his Hamas rivals, but also setting the stage for new friction with Israel and possibly with the West.
(AP, 6/2/14)
2014 Jun 3, Israeli troops shot dead Alaa Odeh (30), a Palestinian who the military said had opened fire and wounded a soldier at a checkpoint in the occupied West Bank. Odeh's family was quoted as saying in media reports that he was at the checkpoint awaiting a delivery of phones.
(Reuters, 6/3/14)
2014 Jun 5, Israel's housing ministry said it was advancing plans for nearly 1,500 new settlement housing units in the West Bank and east Jerusalem in response to the formation of a Palestinian unity government backed by the Islamic militant group Hamas.
(AP, 6/5/14)
2014 Jun 6, Israeli police raided the east Jerusalem studios of Palestine TV and briefly detained three staff for questioning. Police reportedly suspected Palestine TV of broadcasting "incitements to violence."
(AFP, 6/6/14)
2014 Jun 8, Gaza's Health Ministry said a Palestinian fisherman (51) died from wounds he suffered after his boat was shot at by Israeli forces two weeks ago.
(AP, 6/8/14)
2014 Jun 8, Israeli and Palestinian presidents met in an unprecedented prayer meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican. Francis hoped the gesture will "re-create a desire, a possibility" of eventually relaunching the Middle East's stalled peace process.
(Reuters, 6/8/14)
2014 Jun 12, Israeli teens Eyal Yifrah (19), Gilad Shaar (16), and Naftali Fraenkel, a 16-year-old with dual Israeli-American citizenship, disappeared in the West Bank. Israel blamed Hamas, which has praised the kidnapping, but has not taken responsibility for it.
(AP, 6/25/14)
2014 Jun 13, Israel's military said its soldiers are searching the West Bank after three Israeli teenagers were reported missing.
(AP, 6/13/14)
2014 Jun 15, Israeli troops arrested some 80 Palestinians, including dozens of members of Hamas, in an overnight raid in the West Bank as PM Benjamin Netanyahu accused the Islamic militant group of kidnapping three teenagers who went missing nearly three days ago.
(AP, 6/15/14)
2014 Jun 16, Israeli armed forces swept through half a dozen Palestinian towns and arrested more Hamas officials, expanding a search for three teenagers into a crackdown on the Islamist group accused of abducting them.
(Reuters, 6/16/14)
2014 Jun 17, Israel’s security cabinet agreed to make more arrests, put up roadblocks and turn Palestinian houses into military observation posts to increase pressure on Hamas for the kidnapping of three youths after they left their religious school in a Jewish settlement on June 12.
(Reuters, 6/17/14)
2014 Jun 18, Israel tightened its grip on the West Bank, arresting another 65 people, as Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas lashed out at those behind the disappearance of three Israeli teenagers.
(AFP, 6/18/14)
2014 Jun 19, Israeli forces traded gunfire with Palestinians in the fiercest street battles in the occupied West Bank since a search began for three Israeli teenagers missing for a week. 30 "terror suspects" were detained in the West Bank, bringing to 280 the number of Palestinians taken into custody over the past week.
(Reuters, 6/19/14)
2014 Jun 20, Israeli soldiers killed Mohammed Dudin (15), a Palestinian boy, in clashes during West Bank raids. 3 other Palestinians were seriously wounded by army gunfire during raids in four towns and refugee camps, as a search for three Israeli teens feared abducted in the territory entered its second week.
(Reuters, 6/20/14)(AP, 6/20/14)
2014 Jun 20, The United Nations cultural agency listed the Palestinian village of Battir as a World Heritage site in danger, raising hopes among residents that this will protect their community against Israel's West Bank separation barrier.
(AP, 6/21/14)
2014 Jun 21, The Israeli military arrested 10 Palestinians and said that some 1,350 sites in the West Bank had been searched so far and more than 330 Palestinians detained in response to three missing teenagers.
(Reuters, 6/21/14)
2014 Jun 22, Israeli soldiers in Nablus fired at stone-throwing Palestinians overnight, killing Ahmad Famawi (26). In Ramallah, the Islamic Jihad militant group said one of its members was killed by Israeli gunfire.
(Reuters, 6/22/14)
2014 Jun 23, Israel's army said it has detained another 37 Palestinians overnight as it searched for three missing teenagers and extended a crackdown on the Hamas Islamist group it accuses of kidnapping them.
(Reuters, 6/23/14)
2014 Jun 23, Israeli authorities announced the arrest of an alleged Hamas operative for involvement in the deadly shooting of an Israeli police officer in the West Bank over the Passover holiday in April.
(AP, 6/23/14)
2014 Jun 25, A rocket fired by Palestinian militants toward Israel exploded in the northern Gaza Strip, killing a 3-year-old Palestinian girl and wounding three other people.
(AP, 6/25/14)
2014 Jun 25, In Israel dozens of Palestinian prisoners ended their 63-day-long hunger strike after reaching a deal with Israeli prison authorities.
(AP, 6/25/14)
2014 Jun 25, Israeli troops searching for three teenagers it says were kidnapped a fortnight ago by Hamas militants, arrested 17 Palestinians in the West Bank overnight. The arrests included a Palestinian MP.
(AFP, 6/25/14)
2014 Jun 26, Some 40,000 public servants hired by Hamas went on strike in Gaza in a pay dispute that could test the resilience of the new Palestinian government.
(Reuters, 6/26/14)
2014 Jun 26, Israel’s Shin Beit security services released the names of two Hamas militants it believes were involved in the kidnapping two weeks ago of three Israeli teenagers. Suspects Marwan Qawasmeh and Amar Abu Aisha were known to be missing since the day of the kidnapping.
(SSFC, 6/29/14, p.A4)
2014 Jun 27, An Israeli air strike on a car in the Gaza Strip killed two Palestinians, hours after a bomb exploded near troops manning Israel's security fence.
(AFP, 6/27/14)
2014 Jun 29, Israeli aircraft attacked at least six militant targets in the Gaza Strip, hours after rockets fired from the Palestinian territory set a factory in Israel on fire.
(Reuters, 6/29/14)
2014 Jun 30, Palestinian militants fired at least 14 rockets into southern Israel, damaging two homes but causing no injuries.
(AP, 6/30/14)
2014 Jun 30, Israeli military found the bodies of teenagers Eyal Yifrah (19), Gilad Shaar (16) and Naftali Fraenkel (16), under a pile of rocks north of Hebron. They were abducted on June 12 while hitchhiking home from the Jewish seminaries, where they were studying near the West Bank city of Hebron. Troops set off explosions in the family homes of the alleged abductors in Hebron.
(AP, 7/1/14)(Reuters, 7/1/14)(SFC, 7/1/14, p.A2)
2014 Jul 1, Israeli aircraft struck 34 targets across Gaza overnight after more than 20 rockets were fired into Israel since late Jun 29 from the Palestinian territory. A Palestinian from the militant group Hamas was shot dead when he threw a grenade at forces carrying out an arrest raid in the West Bank.
(AP, 7/1/14)
2014 Jul 2, In East Jerusalem Mohammed Abu Khdeir (16) was approached by a car early today and forced inside before it sped off. His body was later found in a Jerusalem forest. President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israeli extremists of killing him. An autopsy showed that Khdeir was burned to death.
(AP, 7/2/14)(AP, 7/5/14)
2014 Jul 4, Israeli police clashed with Palestinian protesters in Jerusalem as thousands of people converged on a cemetery for the burial of Mohammed Abu Khdeir (16). Palestinians say he was killed by Israeli extremists in a suspected revenge attack. Palestinian militants fired at least six rockets and mortars at Israel, two of which exploded prematurely inside Gaza.
(AP, 7/4/14)
2014 Jul 5, Clashes between Israeli police and Palestinian protesters spread from Jerusalem to Arab towns in northern Israel following the funeral of an Arab teenager who Palestinians say was killed by Israeli extremists in a revenge attack. Militants fired 15 rockets and mortar rounds, two of which targeted the southern city of Beersheva some 40 km (25 miles) from the Palestinian territory.
(AP, 7/5/14)(AP, 7/6/14)
2014 Jul 6, Israeli authorities announced the arrests of six Jewish suspects in the death of Palestinian teenager Muhammed Abu Khdeir, who was abducted and killed last week. Israel aircraft targeted 10 terror sites in the central and southern Gaza Strip, including concealed rocket launchers and a weapon manufacturing facility in response to rocket attacks.
(AP, 7/6/14)(AFP, 7/6/14)(SSFC, 7/13/14, p.A4)
2014 Jul 7, An Israeli official said three suspects (ages 29,17,17) in the July 2 vigilante-style killing of Palestinian teenager Mohammed Abu Khdeir have confessed to the crime.
(AP, 7/7/14)(Reuters, 7/14/14)
2014 Jul 7, Militants in the Gaza Strip unleashed dozens of rockets on southern Israel late today, setting off air raid sirens and forcing hundreds of thousands of Israelis to stay indoors as the military rushed more forces to the border and warned that even heavier fighting looked likely. 8 Palestinian militants were killed in fighting, the highest death toll yet. Among the dead were 6 Hamas militants who Israel said were killed in an accidental blast in a tunnel packed with explosives.
(Reuters, 7/7/14)(AP, 7/8/14)
2014 Jul 8, Israel launched Operation Protective Edge in response to rocket attacks by Hamas. Israeli warplanes pounded Gaza with more than 50 strikes early today after Hamas militants fired scores of rockets over the border. Palestinian officials said at least 10 people, including two children, were killed in the attacks from air and sea.
(AFP, 7/8/14)(AP, 7/8/14)(Econ, 7/11/15, p.45)
2014 Jul 9, Israel stepped up its offensive “Operation Protective Edge” on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, pummeling scores of targets. Militants continued to fire rocket salvos deep into Israeli territory, and Israel mobilized thousands of forces along the Gaza border ahead of a possible ground operation. Palestinian officials said Israel’s offensive has killed at least 38 people over the last two days. By August 1 some 17,000 homes were destroyed.
(AP, 7/9/14)(Reuters, 7/9/14)(SSFC, 7/13/14, p.A4)(Econ, 7/11/15, p.45)
2014 Jul 10, Israel dramatically escalated its aerial assault targeting hundreds of Hamas sites in the Gaza Strip as Palestinians reported the strikes also hit a home and a beachside cafe, raising the total number of people killed in this week's offensive to at least 85 including 25 today.
(AP, 7/10/14)(AFP, 7/10/14)
2014 Jul 10, Egypt opened its Rafah border crossing to Gaza to receive wounded Palestinians as Israel pounded the enclave with air strikes.
(AFP, 7/10/14)
2014 Jul 10, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said it is more urgent than ever to avoid another Israeli-Palestinian war and is urging both leaders to show statesmanship and agree to an immediate cease-fire.
(AP, 7/10/14)
2014 Jul 11, The Palestinian death toll from Israel's massive air campaign in Gaza topped 100 people as rockets fired by militants reached deeper into Israel.
(AP, 7/11/14)
2014 Jul 12, Israel widened its air assault against the Gaza Strip's Hamas rulers. An Israeli warplane flattened the home of Gaza police chief Taysir al-Batsh and damaged a nearby mosque as evening prayers ended, killing at least 18 people. Today’s air strikes killed 22 as the death toll from the five-day offensive rose to 127.
(AP, 7/12/14)(AFP, 7/12/14)(AP, 7/13/14)
2014 Jul 13, Israel briefly deployed ground troops inside the Gaza Strip for the first time as its military warned northern Gaza residents to evacuate their homes, part of a widening offensive that has killed more than 160 Palestinians.
(AP, 7/13/14)
2014 Jul 14, The Israeli military said it downed a drone launched by Gaza militants, the first time it encountered an unmanned aircraft since the start of its offensive last week. New Israeli airstrikes pushed the death toll from Israeli airstrikes to at least 175. Fighting continued as two Israeli airstrikes struck the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, killing 4 Palestinians. A 21-year-old Palestinian was killed during confrontations with Israeli soldiers in the West Bank village of Samoa.
(AP, 7/14/14)
2014 Jul 14, Israel agreed to an Egyptian truce plan, proposed late today. Under it, a 12-hour period of de-escalation was to begin at mid-morning July 15. Once both sides agree to halt hostilities, they would negotiate the terms of a longer-term truce.
(AP, 7/15/14)
2014 Jul 15, An Egyptian truce proposal for the conflict in Gaza quickly unraveled, after the Islamic militant Hamas rejected the plan. Gaza militants fired scores of rockets at Israel and Israel responded with more than a dozen air strikes. Aid agencies warned that hundreds of thousands of Gazans were without water after air strikes wrecked the water and sewage system. The whole strip was threatened with a water crisis. Local officials in Gaza said the death toll had risen to 192.
(AP, 7/15/14)(Reuters, 7/15/14)
2014 Jul 15, An Israeli civilian was killed by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, the first Israeli fatality in more than a week of fighting with Palestinian militants.
(Reuters, 7/16/14)
2014 Jul 16, Hundreds of Palestinian families, fled, as Israel intensified airstrikes on Hamas targets. 4 Palestinian children were killed and one was critically wounded on a Gaza beach by a shell fired by an Israeli naval gunboat. The Palestinian death toll in nine days of fighting rose to 207, with some 1,450 wounded. On the Israeli side, one man was killed and several people wounded since the fighting erupted on July 8.
(AP, 7/16/14)(Reuters, 7/16/14)
2014 Jul 17, Israeli tank fire killed three people in southern Gaza moments before a humanitarian truce began at 0700 GMT. The Israeli army said it had foiled a "major terror attack" by a group of 13 militants who managed to enter southern Israel by tunnel and were seen heading towards Sufa kibbutz near the fence. Palestinian militants fired a rocket at Israel just as a five-hour UN humanitarian cease-fire expired.
(AFP, 7/17/14)(AP, 7/17/14)
2014 Jul 17, A Jerusalem court indicted a 29-year-old and two 16-year-olds in the death of Mohammed Abu Khdeir (16) whose charred body was found after he was reported kidnapped on July 2.
(AP, 7/17/14)
2014 Jul 17, Israel launched a ground operation late today aimed at destroying tunnels and halting rocket fire by the enclave's Hamas rulers.
(AP, 7/18/14)
2014 Jul 18, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas reached out for French help to lobby Hamas's regional allies to influence it into accepting a truce with Israel. France has asked Qatar, which has close links with Hamas, to use its influence with the Palestinian Islamist group to reach a ceasefire in the conflict in Gaza.
(AFP, 7/19/14)(Reuters, 7/18/14)
2014 Jul 18, The Israeli military announced its first casualty since the start of a ground operation in Gaza, where health officials said 19 Palestinians have been killed since the ground operation began a day earlier. The Israeli military said it killed 14 militants in different exchanges of fire. 267 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the fighting.
(AP, 7/18/14)(AFP, 7/18/14)
2014 Jul 19, Israel pounded Hamas rocket launchers, uncovered more than a dozen cross-border tunnels and engaged in gunbattles with Palestinian militants on the second day of its open-ended ground operation in Gaza, as the Palestinian death toll there topped 310.
(AP, 7/19/14)
2014 Jul 19, Egyptian soldiers in north Sinai prevented an aid convoy of activists from reaching the Rafah border crossing with the embattled Palestinian Gaza Strip.
(AFP, 7/19/14)
2014 Jul 19, French police clashed with thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters who defied a ban on a Paris demonstration over the Israeli offensive in Gaza.
(AP, 7/19/14)
2014 Jul 20, Israel widened its ground offensive, sending more troops into Gaza after demolishing more than a dozen Hamas tunnels and intensifying tank fire on border areas. The first major ground battle in two weeks exacted a steep price with 65 Palestinians and 13 Israeli soldiers killed and thousands of terrified Palestinian civilians forced to flee the Shijaiyah neighborhood of Gaza City. In all, at least 432 Palestinians have been killed and more than 3,000 wounded in the past two weeks. The overall death toll on the Israeli side rose to 20, including 18 soldiers. Doctors said a son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter of senior Hamas leader Khalil al-Haya were killed early today when their house was hit by a tank shell in Gaza City.
(AP, 7/20/14)(AFP, 7/20/14)
2014 Jul 20, Israel and Hamas agreed to observe an immediate two-hour humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza's Shejaiya neighborhood, halting a blistering bombing campaign in the area. A building in southern Gaza was reportedly hit by an Israeli airstrike this evening, killing 25 members of the same family.
(AFP, 7/20/14)(AP, 7/21/14)
2014 Jul 20, Palestinian Islamist militant group's armed wing reportedly seized Israeli soldier Shaul Alon in heavy fighting on the Gaza border. The next day Hamas spokesman Abu Ubaida displayed Alon's photo ID and serial number but showed no image of him in captivity.
(Reuters, 7/21/14)
2014 Jul 21, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and US Secretary of State John Kerry headed to Cairo to try to end two weeks of Israel-Hamas fighting that has killed at least 508 Palestinians and 20 Israelis and displaced tens of thousands of Gaza residents.
(AP, 7/21/14)
2014 Jul 21, Six Palestinians with German citizenship were among the people killed when an airstrike caused a Gaza high-rise apartment building to partially collapse. An Israeli shot dead Mahmud Shawamreh (21), a Palestinian who had been throwing stones at his car north of Jerusalem in the West Bank.
(AP, 7/22/14)(AFP, 7/21/14)
2014 Jul 22, Israel bombed five mosques, a sports stadium and the home of the late Hamas military chief in the Gaza Strip. An Israeli soldier was killed in fighting in southern Gaza, raising the number of Israeli troops confirmed dead to 27. Israel’s military said Sgt. Oron Shaul is dead, but that his body is missing. He was among seven soldiers in a vehicle that was hit by an anti-tank missile in Gaza over the weekend. Hamas' claimed earlier this week that it had captured an Israeli soldier. The Gaza Health Ministry said at least 609 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza.
(AP, 7/22/14)(AFP, 7/22/14)
2014 Jul 22, A Hamas rocket exploded near Israel's main airport, prompting a ban on flights from the US and many from Europe and Canada as aviation authorities responded to the shock of seeing a civilian jetliner shot down over Ukraine. The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) banned flights to Tel Aviv for at least 24 hours.
(AP, 7/22/14)
2014 Jul 23, Israeli forces pounded Gaza, meeting stiff resistance from Hamas Islamists and sending thousands of residents fleeing. US Secretary of State John Kerry said on a visit to Israel ceasefire talks had made some progress. Gaza's Health Ministry said 18 Palestinians were killed today, many of them in the southern town of Khan Younis.
(Reuters, 7/23/14)
2014 Jul 24, Fighting in the Gaza Strip pushed the Palestinian death toll to nearly 750 as Israeli tank fire and pre-dawn assaults killed 35 people. Israeli forces shelled a UN-run school sheltering Palestinians killing at least 15 more people. 10,000 demonstrators marched in solidarity with Gaza near the Palestinian administrative capital Ramallah. One was shot dead and 200 wounded when Israeli troops opened fire.
(Reuters, 7/24/14)(Reuters, 7/26/14)
2014 Jul 24, President Francois Hollande announced an 11-million-euro ($14.8 million) aid package to the besieged Gaza Strip.
(AFP, 7/24/14)
2014 Jul 25, Eight Palestinians were killed in incidents near the West Bank cities of Nablus and Hebron. Both sides agreed to a 12-hour humanitarian ceasefire set to begin on Saturday morning.
(AP, 7/25/14)(Reuters, 7/26/14)
2014 Jul 25, Israeli aircraft struck 30 houses in the Gaza Strip early today, killing Salah Hassanein, a leader of the militant Islamic Jihad group, and two of his sons. Gaza officials said Israeli strikes killed 27 people. They put the number of Palestinian deaths in 18 days of conflict at 819, most of them civilians. US Secretary of State John Kerry pressed regional leaders to nail down a Gaza ceasefire. The dead also included 34 Israelis, among them 32 soldiers, and a Thai worker.
(AP, 7/25/14)(Reuters, 7/25/14)
2014 Jul 26, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip poured into the streets on to recover their dead and stock up on food supplies after a 12-hour humanitarian truce agreed by Israel and Hamas took hold on the 19th day of their conflict. Hospital officials said 85 bodies have been found after the guns fell silent at 8 a.m.
(Reuters, 7/26/14)
2014 Jul 26, Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinian teenagers in continuing West Bank protests over Israel's Gaza military campaign.
(AFP, 7/26/14)
2014 Jul 26, In France Pro-Palestinian protesters clashed with police in central Paris when thousands of marchers defied a ban by French authorities to rally against Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip.
(Reuters, 7/26/14)
2014 Jul 27, Israel’s cabinet voted to extend a truce until midnight at the request of the UN, but called it off when Hamas launched rockets into Israel during the morning. Palestinian medics said at least 10 people had died in the wave of subsequent strikes that swept Gaza. Fighting subsided in Gaza after Hamas Islamist militants said they backed a 24-hour humanitarian truce, but there was no sign of any comprehensive deal to end their conflict with Israel.
(Reuters, 7/27/14)
2014 Jul 27, Egypt's army said it has destroyed 13 more tunnels connecting the Sinai Peninsula to the Gaza Strip, taking to 1,639 the overall number it has laid waste to.
(AFP, 7/27/14)
2014 Jul 27, The UN Security Council agreed on a statement calling for "an immediate and unconditional humanitarian cease-fire" in the Gaza war between Israel and Hamas.
(AP, 7/27/14)
2014 Jul 28, Israel eased its offensive in the Gaza Strip and Palestinian rocket fire from the enclave declined sharply in a 24 hour truce to mark the Muslim holiday of Eid. Palestinian cross-border attacks killed 10 Israeli soldiers.
(Reuters, 7/28/14)(Reuters, 7/29/14)
2014 Jul 29, Israel unleashed its heaviest air and artillery assault of the Gaza war, destroying key symbols of Hamas control, shutting down the territory's only power plant and leaving at least 128 Palestinians dead. Israel flattened the home of Hamas Gaza leader Ismail Haniye and pounded dozens of other high-profile targets in the enclave.
(Reuters, 7/29/14)(AP, 7/30/14)
2014 Jul 30, Israeli shelling killed 111 Palestinians including 17 who died in a strike on a crowded market place and another 16 at the UN school in Jabalya refugee camp, Gaza's biggest refugee camp. An Israeli military spokeswoman said militants had fired mortar bombs from the vicinity of the school and troops shot back in response. 3 Israeli soldiers were killed by a booby trap detonated as they uncovered a tunnel shaft.
(Reuters, 7/30/14)(Reuters, 7/31/14)
2014 Jul 31, Israel said it would not pull troops from Gaza until they finish destroying a network of cross-border tunnels, despite sharp United Nations criticism over the Palestinian civilian death toll.
(AFP, 7/31/14)
2014 Jul 31, US Secretary of State John Kerry and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced a 72-hour truce in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the most ambitious attempt so far to end more than 3 weeks of fighting.
(AP, 8/1/14)
2014 Aug 1, Israel declared a Gaza ceasefire over and killed more than 50 Palestinians in renewed shelling, saying militants had breached the truce shortly after it began. Some 150 people were killed and 220 wounded by Israeli shelling after militants attacked soldiers searching for tunnels near the southern town of Rafah killing 3 soldiers including 2nd Lieutenant Hadar Goldin (23), who was initially reported captured. Israeli forces killed 2 Palestinians in clashes in the occupied West Bank.
(Reuters, 8/1/14)(Reuters, 8/2/14)(AP, 8/3/14)(Reuters, 8/4/14)
2014 Aug 1, Egypt told the Islamic Jihad it is delaying talks on a long-term Gaza ceasefire after Israel revealed one of its soldiers may have been captured.
(AFP, 8/1/14)
2014 Aug 2, Israel signaled it was winding down the 25-day-old Gaza war unilaterally, saying it would not attend Egyptian-hosted negotiations for a new truce and giving Palestinians who had fled fighting in one northern town the all-clear to return. Gaza's mostly civilian death toll rose to 1,669. Israel said its Iron Dome interceptor shot down rockets launched at the cities of Tel Aviv and Beersheba.
(Reuters, 8/2/14)
2014 Aug 2, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said an Egyptian truce plan provides a "real chance" to end the Gaza conflict, stressing the need for its speedy implementation.
(AFP, 8/2/14)
2014 Aug 3, An Israeli air strike killed 10 people and wounded about 30 others in a UN-run school in the southern Gaza Strip. Earlier today Israeli shelling killed at least 30 people in Gaza. The Israeli army said that more than 55 rockets had been fired today from Gaza at Israel. The fighting pushed the Gaza death toll given by Palestinian officials to 1,770, most of them civilians. Israel has confirmed that 64 soldiers have died in combat, while Palestinian rockets have also killed 3 civilians in Israel.
(Reuters, 8/3/14)
2014 Aug 4, In a predawn air strike, Israel killed Danyal Mansour, a senior commander of Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian group fighting alongside Hamas, just hours ahead of a seven-hour truce announced by Israel. 10 Palestinians were reported killed in Israeli strikes throughout the Gaza Strip. Palestinians and Israel accused each other of breaking a seven-hour ceasefire intended to allow humanitarian aid into the battered Gaza Strip soon after it came into force. A Palestinian killed an Israeli and overturned a bus with a construction vehicle and a gunman wounded a soldier in attacks in Jerusalem.
(AP, 8/4/14)(Reuters, 8/4/14)(AFP, 8/4/14)
2014 Aug 4, Palestinian groups including envoys of Hamas and Islamic Jihad held their first formal meeting in Cairo with Egyptian mediators hoping to secure a durable ceasefire with Israel after more than three weeks of fighting. Israel declined to send its envoys.
(Reuters, 8/4/14)
2014 Aug 5, Israel pulled its ground forces out of the Gaza Strip and started a 72-hour ceasefire with Hamas mediated by Egypt as a first step towards negotiations on a more enduring end to the month-old war. Israel sent officials to join talks in Cairo to cement a longer-term deal during the course of the truce. Gaza officials say the war has killed 1,867 Palestinians, most of them civilians. Israel says 64 of its soldiers and three civilians have been killed since fighting. Some 19,000 homes in Gaza were destroyed and by May of 2015 none had been rebuilt.
(Reuters, 8/5/14)(Econ., 4/25/15, p.47)
2014 Aug 6, A Gaza truce was holding as Egyptian mediators pursued talks with Israeli and Palestinian representatives on an enduring end to a war that has devastated the Hamas Islamist- dominated enclave.
(Reuters, 8/6/14)
2014 Aug 8, Israeli warplanes struck targets in retaliation for dozens of Palestinian cross-border rocket attacks. A 10-year-old boy was killed and 11 people wounded in the airstrikes. The Israeli delegation in Cairo returned to Israel. Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian teenager amid widespread protest across the West Bank against the Israeli military campaign in the Gaza Strip.
(AFP, 8/8/14)
2014 Aug 8, In Jordan tens of thousands celebrated the "Gaza victory" in the war against Israel, at a rally organized by the Islamist opposition as hostilities between Israel and Palestinian militants resumed.
(AFP, 8/9/14)
2014 Aug 9, Israeli warplanes kept up a punishing campaign of air strikes over Gaza, killing 5 Palestinians as militants fired rockets into Israel and ceasefire talks in Cairo stalled.
(AFP, 8/9/14)
2014 Aug 9, In NYC a sea of Palestinians and their sympathizers lined Manhattan streets, marching to the UN and shouting that Israel's response to missile attacks was genocide that took children's lives.
(AP, 8/9/14)
2014 Aug 10, Israel said it would not return to Egyptian-mediated ceasefire talks as long as Palestinian militants in Gaza kept up cross-border rocket and mortar fire. Israeli air strikes and shelling killed 3 Palestinians in Gaza, including a boy of 14 and a woman.
(AP, 8/10/14)
2014 Aug 10, Under Egyptian auspices a fresh 72-hour ceasefire, effective as of midnight, was announced between Israel and Hamas.
(AFP, 8/10/14)
2014 Aug 11, Palestinian militant Zacharia Akra (24) was shot dead early today in an exchange of fire with Israeli troops in the northern West Bank.
(AFP, 8/11/14)
2014 Aug 13, Israeli ordnance exploded in Gaza, killing 5 people including Italian journalist Simone Camilli and his Palestinian translator Ali Shehda Abu Afash, as bomb experts tried to disable a missile on the last day of a 72-hour truce. Israel and Hamas agreed to extend a temporary cease-fire for five days.
(AFP, 8/13/14)(SFC, 8/14/14, p.A6)
2014 Aug 14, Israel and militants in Gaza held their fire after a new truce got off to a shaky start, with night-time Palestinian rocket fire followed by Israeli air strikes.
(AFP, 8/14/14)
2014 Aug 18, Israeli troops demolished the homes of Hussam Kawasme and Amar Abu Aysha, suspected of the abduction and killing of three Israeli teenagers in the occupied West Bank in June. Kawasme, a 40-year-old resident of the West Bank city of Hebron, was arrested on July 11, but the other two suspects remained at large.
(Reuters, 8/18/14)
2014 Aug 18, In Cairo Israeli and Palestinian negotiators agreed to a 24-hour ceasefire late today.
(AP, 8/19/14)
2014 Aug 19, A ceasefire in the Gaza Strip collapsed, with Palestinian militants firing dozens of rockets at Israel. Israel launched at least four air strikes across Gaza and ordered its negotiating team back from truce talks in Cairo after three rockets hit the country's south. One of the Israeli air strikes killed the wife, Widad (27), and child, seven-month-old son Ali, of Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif. Rescue workers the next day pulled the bodies of a woman (48) and a boy (14) from the rubble.
(Reuters, 8/19/14)(AFP, 8/20/14)
2014 Aug 20, Israeli warplanes continued to pound Gaza. News bloodshed pushed the Palestinian death toll to more than 2,030 since July 8 with 67 people killed on the Israeli side. Hamas said it fired two rockets at an Israeli gas installation about 30 km (19 miles) off the coast of Gaza.
(AFP, 8/20/14)(Reuters, 8/20/14)
2014 Aug 21, An Israeli air strike in the Gaza Strip killed 3 senior Hamas commanders (Mohammed Abu Shammala, Raed al-Attar and Mohammed Barhoum). Palestinian health officials said 26 Palestinians, including 3 children, the Hamas commanders and at least 2 other militants, were killed in Israeli airstrikes.
(Reuters, 8/21/14)
2014 Aug 22, Hamas executed 18 Palestinian men it had suspected of collaborating with Israel. A four-year-old Israeli boy was killed by a mortar attack from Gaza.
(AP, 8/22/14)(Reuters, 8/23/14)
2014 Aug 23, Egypt called on Israel and the Palestinians to halt fire and resume peace talks, but violence continued unabated with Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip and Hamas militants firing rockets at the Jewish state. The Israeli military said Palestinian gunmen had fired almost 500 rockets at Israel since the talks broke down and Gaza health officials said 65 Palestinians had been killed in Israeli air strikes since then. Israel took the Gaza war to a new level by flattening a 13-storey apartment tower.
(Reuters, 8/23/14)(Reuters, 8/24/14)
2014 Aug 24, Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu warned Palestinian civilians to leave immediately any site where militants are operating. An Israeli strike on a car killed Mohammed al-Ghoul, described by the Israeli military as a Hamas official responsible for "terror fund transactions." In another attack, a mother and her three children were killed when their home was bombed in Jabalya refugee camp.
(Reuters, 8/24/14)
2014 Aug 25, Egypt proposed a new ceasefire that would open key crossings into Gaza where violence reverberated with at least 8 Palestinians killed in Israeli air strikes.
(AFP, 8/25/14)
2014 Aug 26, Palestinian officials said a Gaza ceasefire deal with Israel has been reached under Egyptian mediation and a formal announcement of an agreement was imminent. Israel bombed more of Gaza's tallest structures, bringing down a 13-storey apartment and office tower and destroying most of a 16-floor residential building. 6 Palestinians were killed in other Israeli strikes. Israel's military said 70 rockets were fired from Gaza and that one damaged a house in Ashkelon.
(Reuters, 8/26/14)
2014 Aug 31, Israel announced it will expropriate 400 hectares (988 acres) of Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank, angering the Palestinians and alarming Israeli peace campaigners.
(AFP, 8/31/14)
2014 Sep 4, The Palestinian Authority said rebuilding Gaza will cost $7.8 billion. Fighting between Israel and the Islamist militant group Hamas in Gaza killed over 2,100 Palestinians, most of them civilians, along with 64 Israeli soldiers and 6 civilians.
(Reuters, 9/4/14)(Econ, 8/30/14, p.44)
2014 Sep 7, Scores of Palestinians rioted in East Jerusalem after hearing that a youth from their neighborhood had died of wounds suffered in a clash with Israeli police last week. Mohammed Sinokrot (16) succumbed to a head wound suffered during a protest a week ago but the circumstances of how he sustained the wound were in dispute.
(Reuters, 9/7/14)
2014 Sep 7, Avraham Mengistu, an Israeli of Ethiopian descent in his late 20s, disappeared after he "independently" crossed the border fence into the Gaza Strip. On July 9, 2015, Israeli authorities announced that Mengistu was being held by Hamas. Authorities said another Israeli citizen was also being held in Gaza.
(AP, 7/9/15)
2014 Sep 9, The Israeli navy arrested four Palestinian fishermen and seized their boat. The Israeli military said the two vessels involved were operating outside of their permitted maritime limit.
(AP, 9/9/14)
2014 Sep 14, In Israel scores of veterans of elite intelligence unit 8200 rallied to its defense after 43 comrades said they would no longer take part in its "injustices" against millions of Palestinians.
(AFP, 9/14/14)
2014 Sep 16, Israeli police said they have arrested 22 Palestinians in annexed Arab east Jerusalem overnight on suspicion of throwing stones and petrol bombs, as three months of protests showed no let-up.
(AFP, 9/16/14)
2014 Sep 22, In Egypt rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah began reconciliation talks in Cairo, one day ahead of negotiations with Israel on cementing the Aug. 26 truce that ended a 50-day war in Gaza.
(AP, 9/22/14)
2014 Sep 23, Israeli special forces stormed a West Bank hideout and killed Marwan Qawasmeh (29) and Amer Abu Aisheh (33), the two Palestinians suspected in the June abduction and slaying of three Israeli teenagers.
(AP, 9/23/14)(SFC, 9/24/14, p.A3)
2014 Sep 23, Egyptian-mediated talks resumed in Cairo between Israel and the Palestinians on cementing a ceasefire in Gaza.
(Reuters, 9/23/14)
2014 Sep 24, In Israel clashes broke out at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound as Palestinians protested against Jews visiting the flashpoint holy site on the eve of Jewish New Year.
(AFP, 9/24/14)
2014 Sep 25, Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah, meeting in Cairo, reached an agreement by which the unity government run by President Mahmoud Abbas would take control of the Gaza Strip.
(Reuters, 9/25/14)
2014 Oct 3, Sweden’s PM Stefan Lofven said his new center-left government will recognize the state of Palestine in a move that will make it the first major European country to take the step.
(Reuters, 10/3/14)
2014 Oct 5, Hundreds of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip prayed at Jerusalem's most important mosque, the first time Israel has allowed such visits from the coastal enclave since the Hamas militant group overran the area in 2007.
(AP, 10/5/14)
2014 Oct 9, The Palestinian unity government held its first ever meeting in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip as its rival factions presented a common front ahead of a major donors' conference.
(AFP, 10/9/14)
2014 Oct 12, In Cairo, Egypt, US Sec. of State John Kerry presided over a conference on peace in the Middle East and announced an additional $212 million in US aid to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Qatar said it would provide $1 billion in reconstruction assistance for Gaza, while fellow Gulf Arab states Kuwait and United Arab Emirates promised $200 million each. Germany also announced it would contribute 50 million euros ($63 million) to reconstruction efforts in Gaza.
(Reuters, 10/12/14)
2014 Oct 13, The British House of Commons in a symbolic move voted 274 to 12 in favor of recognizing Palestine as a state.
(SFC, 10/14/14, p.A2)
2014 Oct 13, UN Sec.-Gen. Ban Ki-moon called on Israel to scrap plans to expand settlements in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians want as the capital of a future state, and urged both sides to return to peace talks.
(Reuters, 10/13/14)
2014 Oct 14, Israel opened the border to the first post-war truckloads of rebuilding material for Gaza.
(Reuters, 10/14/14)
2014 Oct 20, In Israel Abdullah Abu Rahma, who spent 15 months behind bars for organizing weekly demonstrations against Israel's separation barrier in the village of Bilin, was convicted at Ofer military court near the West Bank city of Ramallah for "interfering" with the work of a soldier.
(AFP, 10/21/14)
2014 Oct 20, Palestinians hurled Molotov cocktails at an apartment building in a flashpoint east Jerusalem neighborhood just hours after it was taken over by Jewish settlers.
(AFP, 10/21/14)
2014 Oct 22, A Palestinian motorist with a history of anti-Israel violence slammed his car into a crowded train station in Jerusalem, killing a three-month-old baby girl and wounding eight people. The driver got out of the car and tried to flee before he was shot by a police officer.
(AP, 10/23/14)
2014 Oct 24, Israeli troops shot dead Orwa Hammad (17), a Palestinian teenager and US citizen. The army said the youth had been about to hurl a petrol bomb at Israeli motorists near the West Bank city of Ramallah.
(AFP, 10/25/14)
2014 Oct 27, An official said Israel has given the go-ahead for plans to build over 1,000 new Jewish settler homes in annexed east Jerusalem.
(AFP, 10/27/14)
2014 Oct 29, In Israel a gunman on a motorcycle shot and seriously wounded American-born activist Yehuda Glick (48) outside a conference promoting greater Jewish access to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.
(AP, 10/30/14)
2014 Oct 30, Israeli police raid killed Muataz Hijazi (32) in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Abu Tor. Israel said the Palestinian was behind the attempt to gun down hardline activist Yehuda Glick, who has lobbied for Jewish prayer rights at the Al-Aqsa compound.
(AFP, 10/30/14)
2014 Oct 30, Sweden’s PM Stefan Lofven ignored Israeli protests and announced his country’s formal recognition of a Palestinian state, becoming the first EU member in western Europe to do so.
(AFP, 10/30/14)(SFC, 10/31/14, p.A2)
2014 Oct 31, In southern Israel rocket fired from Gaza hit the Eshkol area. Israel soon closed two border crossings with Gaza in response.
(AFP, 11/2/14)
2014 Nov 3, Israel approved plans for some 500 new settler homes in occupied east Jerusalem. Israeli police arrested at least 23 Palestinians in east Jerusalem overnight and today, in the latest crackdown after months of violent clashes in the city.
(AFP, 11/3/14)
2014 Nov 3, Israel's parliament passed a law aimed at limiting the practice employed in the past of releasing Palestinians convicted of killing Israelis to promote peace efforts.
(Reuters, 11/4/14)
2014 Nov 4, About 20,000 civil servants in the Gaza Strip went on strike to protest the Palestinian unity government's refusal to pay military and security employees of the Islamist movement Hamas.
(AFP, 11/4/14)
2014 Nov 4, Israeli forces demolished two Palestinian homes in an East Jerusalem neighborhood saying they had been built without construction permits. The homes were at the heart of clashes between Israeli police and Palestinian protesters.
(Reuters, 11/4/14)
2014 Nov 5, A Palestinian rammed his car into pedestrians in central Jerusalem in the second attack of its kind in two weeks, killing a police officer and seriously wounding 13 others. The driver, shot dead by police, was identified as Ibrahim Akari from East Jerusalem. Hamas claimed responsibility.
(Reuters, 11/5/14)(SSFC, 11/9/14, p.A4)
2014 Nov 5, In Israel Hamam Masalmeh (23) a Palestinian from Beit Awwa in the southern West Bank, hit three soldiers with his vehicle outside Al-Arub camp. Masalmeh turned himself in the next day and claimed he had lost control of his car.
(AFP, 11/6/14)
2014 Nov 6, Israel allowed Palestinian farmers to ship produce from the blockaded Gaza Strip to the occupied West Bank, via Israeli territory, for the first time since 2007.
(Reuters, 11/6/14)
2014 Nov 7, Hamas announced the creation of a "popular army" in the Gaza Strip, saying it was ready for any future conflict with Israel, particularly over the flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound.
(AFP, 11/7/14)
2014 Nov 7, Israeli security forces fought with Palestinian protesters in East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank over access to Jerusalem's holiest site. Around 15 small explosions targeted the homes and vehicles of Fatah officials in Gaza, causing minor damage but no injuries.
(Reuters, 11/7/14)
2014 Nov 10, Two Gaza fishermen were wounded and four missing after the Israeli navy fired on two boats off the coast.
(AFP, 11/10/14)
2014 Nov 10, A young Israeli woman, Dalia Lemkus (26) was killed and two other people were wounded when a Palestinian stabbed them outside a West Bank settlement. Hours earlier a Palestinian fatally stabbed a soldier at a Tel Aviv train station. A suspect was arrested. On March 26 a court sentenced Maher al-Hashlamoun, a member of Islamic Jihad from the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, after previously convicting him of murdering Lemkus.
(Reuters, 11/10/14)(AFP, 11/10/14)(Reuters, 11/11/14)(AP, 3/27/15)
2014 Nov 11, Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian (21) during clashes in the occupied West Bank.
(Reuters, 11/11/14)
2014 Nov 12, Israeli authorities gave preliminary approval for construction of 200 new homes in a Jewish area of east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians claim as their capital.
(AP, 11/12/14)
2014 Nov 17, Palestinian bus driver Youssef al-Ramouni (32) was found hanged in his vehicle in Jerusalem, an incident that led to stone-throwing protests by Palestinians suspecting foul play but which Israeli police, citing autopsy results, termed a suicide.
(Reuters, 11/17/14)
2014 Nov 18, Two Palestinians armed with a meat cleaver and a gun killed 4 worshippers in a Jerusalem synagogue before being shot dead by police. Hours later a police officer died of his wounds. PM Netanyahu ordered authorities to destroy the homes of the attackers.
(Reuters, 11/18/14)(AP, 11/18/14)(SFC, 11/19/14, p.A2)
2014 Nov 18, Spain’s parliament overwhelmingly approved a symbolic resolution that recognizes a Palestinian state.
(SFC, 11/19/14, p.A2)
2014 Nov 19, Israel’s Jerusalem municipality said it approved the construction of 78 new homes for Jewish settlers in two neighborhoods of occupied Arab east Jerusalem. The east Jerusalem home of a Palestinian Abdel-Rahman al-Shalloudi, who carried out a deadly attack On Oct 22, was demolished.
(AFP, 11/19/14)(AP, 11/19/14)(Econ, 11/22/14, p.41)
2014 Nov 23, Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian in the Gaza Strip near the border. Fadel Mohammed Halawa (32) was killed in the incident, east of Jabalya refugee camp. A relative said he had been searching for song birds, which nest in trees near the Israeli border and command high prices in Gaza markets.
(Reuters, 11/23/14)
2014 Nov 26, Egypt opened the Rafah border crossing for the first time in a month to allow thousands of stranded Palestinians to return to the Gaza Strip. The frontier remained closed in the other direction.
(Reuters, 11/26/14)
2014 Nov 28, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman proposed that Arab citizens of Israel be offered financial incentives to leave the country and relocate to a future Palestinian state. An Italian man marching in support of Palestinians in the northern West Bank was shot and seriously wounded by Israeli forces.
(Reuters, 11/28/14)(AP, 11/28/14)
2014 Nov, Israeli forces detained three Islamic State-inspired militants in the occupied West Bank, the first known Palestinian cell linked to the Syria- and Iraq-based insurgent group.
(Reuters, 1/4/15)
2014 Nov, Venezuela greeted the first 119 Palestinian recipients of a medical school scholarship. Eight months later about a third of the students had dropped out, complaining the program lacks academic rigor. The students who dropped out complained that their first year consisted only of Spanish language lessons and indoctrination about Venezuela's 16-year-old socialist revolution.
(AP, 7/16/15)
2014 Dec 2, France’s lower house of Parliament in a non-binding vote (339-151) urged the government to recognize a Palestinian state.
(SFC, 12/3/14, p.A2)
2014 Dec 3, A Palestinian (16) stabbed two Israelis in a supermarket in the West Bank before a private security guard shot him. The guard shot the attacker in the legs and police later arrested him.
(AP, 12/3/14)
2014 Dec 10, Palestinian minister Ziad Abu Ein (55) died shortly after an altercation with Israeli border police in the West Bank during which one of the policeman grabbed him by the neck. The Palestinians were attempting to plant olive trees on land they claimed as theirs. Abu Ein, who was convicted of killing two young Israelis in a bomb attack in 1979 and released as part of a prisoner swap in 1985, was a vocal opponent of Israel's settlement building in the West Bank.
(Reuters, 12/10/14)(Econ, 12/13/14, p.51)
2014 Dec 10, The Irish Parliament adopted a nonbinding resolution supporting an independent Palestine.
(http://tinyurl.com/lkn9ehu)(SFC, 12/12/14, p.A2)
2014 Dec 12, In Israel some 100 Palestinians demonstrated outside the Ofer military prison near Ramallah. Troops shot live bullets at their legs, wounding 10. In Hebron youths clashed with soldiers and were also shot in the legs. A Palestinian described as mentally unstable threw acid at a family of Israelis who gave him a ride in the West Bank before being shot and wounded.
(AFP, 12/12/14)
2014 Dec 16, Israeli soldiers shot and killed Palestinian Mahmoud Abdalla (20) as violence erupted during an arrest operation in the West Bank. Palestinians in the refugee camp of Qalandiya reportedly threw explosive charges and opened fire at soldiers during the operation.
(AP, 12/16/14)
2014 Dec 17, An EU court ruled that the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas should be removed from the EU terrorist list, saying the decision to include it was based on media reports not considered analysis.
(Reuters, 12/17/14)
2014 Dec 19, A rocket fired from Gaza hit southern Israel. It fell on open ground without causing casualties or damage.
(AFP, 12/19/14)
2014 Dec 20, Israel's military struck a Hamas site in the Gaza Strip in its first airstrike on the Palestinian territory since this summer's war. This was in response to a rocket fired from Gaza into southern Israel a day earlier.
(AP, 12/20/14)
2014 Dec 21, Egypt opened the Rafah border crossing for incoming passengers from the Gaza Strip for the first time in almost two months. Rafah would open for two days to allow Gazans with serious illnesses to travel to Egypt and beyond for treatment and to allow foreign nationals and students to travel.
(Reuters, 12/21/14)
2014 Dec 23, An Israeli official says the government is pumping millions of dollars into Jewish settlements in the West Bank for public buildings and roads ahead of national elections.
(AP, 12/23/14)
2014 Dec 24, Israel launched an air strike in southern Gaza and killed a Hamas militant after a sniper attack on a patrol seriously wounded a soldier.
(AFP, 12/24/14)
2014 Dec 24, Israeli authorities gave final approval to the construction of 380 new settler homes in two areas of annexed east Jerusalem.
(AFP, 12/24/14)
2014 Dec 25, Officials said Israel has given preliminary approval for the construction of 243 new homes on West Bank land that Israel annexed to Jerusalem, and advanced plans for another 270 homes in the same area.
(Reuters, 12/25/14)
2014 Dec 26, A Palestinian man stabbed and lightly wounded two Israeli paramilitary border policemen at the entrance to Jerusalem's Old City.
(AP, 12/26/14)
2014 Dec 28, Hamas authorities in the Gaza Strip prevented a group of Palestinian children who lost parents in the July-August war with Israel from making a rare goodwill visit to the Jewish state.
(Reuters, 12/28/14)
2014 Dec 29, Israeli military forces shot and killed a Palestinian who was throwing stones at drivers in the West Bank.
(AP, 12/29/14)
2014 Dec 30, The UN Security Council rejected their motion to end Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and establish a Palestinian state by 2017.
(AFP, 12/31/14)
2014 Dec 31, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas signed on to 20 international agreements, including the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), as a new avenue for action against Israel after the UN Security Council rejected a resolution on ending the occupation.
(AFP, 12/31/14)(Reuters, 1/1/15)
2014 Dec 31, Hamas civil servants went on strike after the Palestinian government said it would rehire thousands of Gaza staff who were laid off when the Islamist movement seized power in 2007.
(AFP, 12/31/14)
2014 Dec 31, Israeli police arrested Palestinian girl Malak al-Khatib (14) on her way home from school. A military court sentenced her in late January to two months as part of a plea bargain in which she admitted to picking up a stone to throw at Israeli cars. On Feb 14 she insisted after serving a 45-day sentence that she had been unjustly imprisoned, saying she was forced to sign a paper in Hebrew, which she does not understand.
(AP, 2/14/15)
2014 Ahron Bregman authored “Cursed Victory: A History of Israel and the Occupied Territories.”
(Econ, 7/12/14, p.74)
2015 Jan 2, Egyptian troops opened fire on six Gazans who had illegally crossed into the Egyptian Sinai, where the army has created a buffer zone to prevent the movement of militants. Ashraf al-Qudra (17) was killed.
(AFP, 1/3/15)
2015 Jan 3, Israel said it will withhold critical tax revenue and seek ways to bring war crimes prosecutions against Palestinian leaders in retaliation for Palestinian moves to join the International Criminal Court (ICC).
(Reuters, 1/3/15)
2015 Jan 6, An Israeli military court handed three life sentences to Palestinian militant Hossam Qawasme, convicted of organizing the June 12, 2014, kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers. Qawasme was also ordered to pay 250,000 shekels ($63,000/53,000 euros) in compensation to each of the three families at a hearing near Ramallah.
(AFP, 1/6/15)
2015 Jan 6, The Israeli government said Qatar has expelled to Turkey Khaled Mashal, leader of the Hamas militant group. An aide to Mashal said the claim was wrong.
(SFC, 1/7/15, p.A3)
2015 Jan 6, UN Sec. Gen. Ban Ki-moon said the Palestinians will join the Int’l. Criminal Court (ICC) on April 1.
(SFC, 1/8/15, p.A5)
2015 Jan 8, Egypt’s military said the army is doubling the size of a buffer zone along the border with the Gaza Strip, an operation that will involve the destruction of 1,220 more homes and the eviction of residents.
(AP, 1/8/15)
2015 Jan 18, Dozens of Palestinian protesters hurled eggs and shoes at the convoy of the visiting Canadian foreign minister in a show of defiance toward Canada's perceived pro-Israel stance.
(AP, 1/18/15)
2015 Jan 20, In Israel a knife-wielding Palestinian stabbed 11 morning commuters on and near a bus, striking in the heart of Tel Aviv and reigniting fears of continued violence ahead of Israeli elections in March. Police identified the attacker as Hamza Mohammed Matrouk (23) from the West Bank town of Tulkarem.
(AP, 1/21/15)
2015 Jan 28, Dozens of Palestinians attacked a UN compound in Gaza City following the world body's suspension of an aid program for victims of last year's war due to lack of funds.
(AP, 1/28/15)
2015 Jan 30, Israel published bids for the the building of 450 new housing units in West Bank settlements.
(SFC, 1/31/15, p.A2)
2015 Jan 31, An Egyptian court banned the armed wing of Palestinian group Hamas and listed it as a terrorist organization, a ruling in keeping with a systematic crackdown on Islamists by Pres. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
(Reuters, 1/31/15)
2015 Jan, Israel's internal security service caught 11 alleged Hamas fighters in the occupied West Bank who planned attacks against Israelis. The group, from the city of Hebron, was arrested by Shin Bet agents and troops.
(AP, 2/23/15)
2015 Feb 1, Serbian officials said they have granted citizenship to former Fatah strongman Mohammed Dahlan, a key political rival of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, after he pledged millions of dollars in investments from the Emirates, where he has lived in exile.
(AP, 2/1/15)
2015 Feb 6, Hundreds of Palestinians demonstrated outside Egypt's diplomatic mission in Gaza City, to protest a Cairo court ruling designating Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, as a terrorist group.
(AFP, 2/6/15)
2015 Feb 8, Israel's Supreme Court ordered the government to demolish nine homes in the West Bank Jewish settlement of Ofra, which were built on private Palestinian land. Authorities have until 2017 to carry out the demolitions.
(AFP, 2/9/15)
2015 Feb 24, In Israel Bethlehem Governor Jebren al-Bakri said Jihad al-Jafari (19) was shot and killed on the roof of his house in the Deheisha refugee camp as he was watching an Israeli raid below.
(AP, 2/24/15)
2015 Feb 27, An Egyptian senior army officer was killed and another was injured when a cross-border smuggling tunnel with the Gaza Strip collapsed after troops in Rafah went into it to investigate.
(AP, 2/27/15)
2015 Feb 27, Italian lawmakers backed a non-binding resolution that encourages the government to recognize Palestine as a state.
(Reuters, 2/27/15)
2015 Feb 28, Palestinian Naji Khaled Abu Sabla (21) was killed and his brother, Akram (18), seriously wounded in an explosion of an unidentified device near the Gaza Strip's abandoned airport.
(AFP, 2/28/15)
2015 Feb 28, An Egyptian court listed the Palestinian group Hamas as a terrorist organization. Another court sentenced the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood's top leader Mohamed Badie and 13 others to life in prison while four members received the death penalty. Two of those sentenced to death and three sentenced to life were tried in absentia.
(Reuters, 2/28/15)
2015 Mar 2, Israel said it has busted an Israeli-Palestinian smuggling ring that funneled iron, electronic equipment and other prohibited materials to Gaza, bypassing Israel's stringent border security to help Hamas rebuild its militant infrastructure following last year's war.
(AP, 3/2/15)
2015 Mar 4, Israel said it will double the amount of water provided to the Gaza Strip to relieve excessive use of groundwater.
(SFC, 3/5/15, p.A2)
2015 Mar 5, The Gaza Strip's sole power plant has halted production overnight, following a dispute with the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority over fuel tax. Even with the plant running, Gaza suffers 12 hours of power outages each day, and that is expected to increase to 18 hours after the plant's shutdown.
(AFP, 3/5/15)
2015 Mar 5, Suspected Jewish extremists torched two cars and scrawled graffiti on a nearby wall in a West Bank village before dawn.
(AFP, 3/5/15)
2015 Mar 6, In Israel a Palestinian assailant rammed his car into a group of Israeli pedestrians near a police station in east Jerusalem, injuring four officers and a bystander. He lunged at security guards with a knife before being shot and wounded.
(AP, 3/6/15)
2015 Mar 7, The Israeli navy opened fire on boats off the coast of the Gaza Strip, killing one Palestinian fisherman after four vessels had strayed from a six nautical-mile fishing zone. The Israeli army opened fire after the boats did not heed calls to halt.
(Reuters, 3/7/15)
2015 Mar 9, Palestinian security forces in the West Bank arrested dozens of members of the Islamist movement Hamas.
(AFP, 3/10/15)
2015 Mar 9, Egypt temporarily opened a crossing with the Gaza Strip, allowing students, patients seeking medical care and dual nationals to leave the territory for the first time in nearly two months.
(AP, 3/9/15)
2015 Mar 10, In Israel a statue of a woman by a local artist in the West Bank settlement of Tekoa was smashed by unknown people.
(SSFC, 3/15/15, p.A6)
2015 Mar 12, Palestinian farmers in Gaza exported produce to Israel for the first time since the Jewish state imposed its blockade on the territory in 2006.
(AFP, 3/12/15)
2015 Mar 22, Dozens of Palestinians and foreign supporters protested in east Jerusalem's walled Old City against the threatened eviction of a Palestinian family to make way for Jewish settlers.
(AFP, 3/22/15)
2015 Mar 27, Israel said it will transfer Palestinian tax revenues that were being withheld as punishment for a Palestinian application to join the Int’l. Criminal Court.
(SFC, 3/28/15, p.A2)
2015 Mar 30, An Israeli committee approved controversial plans for eventual construction of 2,200 Palestinian homes in occupied east Jerusalem, in the largest such project since 1967.
(AFP, 4/1/15)
2015 Apr 1, Palestine formally joined the International Criminal Court, a move the Palestinians hope could open the door to the possible prosecution of Israelis for alleged war crimes.
(AFP, 4/1/15)
2015 Apr 4, In Syria civilians trapped in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus fled to safer areas amid intense shelling and clashes between Palestinian armed factions and Islamic militants who took over most of the camp.
(AP, 4/4/15)
2015 Apr 5, Palestinian Pres. Mahmoud Abbas threatened to turn to the International Criminal Court over Israel's refusal to fully release hundreds of millions of dollars in tax monies owed the Palestinian Authority. He rejected an Israeli transfer of millions because of deductions for utility debts owed to Israel.
(AFP, 4/5/15)(SFC, 4/6/15, p.A2)
2015 Apr 5, A Palestinian official said around 2,000 people have been evacuated from the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus after the Islamic State group seized large parts of it.
(AFP, 4/5/15)
2015 Apr 6, In Syria Palestinian fighters clashed with Islamic State militants in the heavily contested Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus as a UN official described the situation in the embattled camp as "beyond inhumane” for some 18,000 residents.
(AP, 4/6/15)
2015 Apr 8, A Palestinian stabbed two Israeli soldiers near the West Bank settlement of Shilo before he was killed by one of the soldiers.
(AP, 4/8/15)
2015 Apr 9, A group of 14 Palestinian factions said they backed a joint military operation with the Syrian government to expel Islamic State group jihadists from the Yarmouk camp in southern Damascus.
(AFP, 4/9/15)
2015 Apr 9, Gaza police seized a work by famed street artist Banksy from a man who bought it for $200 from a family that later said it was duped.
(AFP, 4/10/15)
2015 Apr 10, Israeli troops shot dead Ziad Awad (30), a Palestinian man in the West Bank, when they opened fire to quell protests that erupted in Hebron after the burial of Jaafar Awad (23), a cousin recently released from Israeli jail.
(AFP, 4/10/15)
2015 Apr 13, Human Rights Watch slammed the alleged abuse of Palestinian children working on Israeli settlement farms in the occupied West Bank in a 74-page report.
(AFP, 4/13/15)
2015 Apr 14, Israel began allowing Palestinian medical staff working in the country to enter from the West Bank with their own vehicles, a first in 15 years.
(AFP, 4/14/15)
2015 Apr 15, A Palestinian driver rammed his car into a Jerusalem bus stop. Shalom Yohai Cherki (26) died of his injuries the next morning. On April 27 Khaled Kutina (37) from east Jerusalem was charged with murdering Cherki and the attempted murder of Shira Klein (20).
(AFP, 4/18/15)(AFP, 4/27/15)
2015 Apr 15, The Israeli military arrested 29 Palestinians suspected of links to the militant Hamas group in an overnight raid near Nablus in the West Bank.
(AP, 4/15/15)
2015 Apr 15, In Syria local fighters in a Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus advanced in clashes with Islamic State militants two weeks after the extremist group stormed the area in its deepest foray into the capital.
(AP, 4/15/15)
2015 Apr 17, Protesters clashed with Israeli troops in the northern West Bank during annual demonstrations marking Palestinian Prisoners Day.
(AFP, 4/17/15)
2015 Apr 18, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that he has reached an agreement with Israel in which essential tax revenues it collects for the Palestinians will be transferred following a four-month freeze.
(AP, 4/18/15)
2015 Apr 24, Israeli police shot dead a knife-wielding Palestinian who attempted to stab colleagues at an east Jerusalem checkpoint shortly before midnight. Palestinian activists in Jerusalem named the dead teenager as Ali al-Ghannam (17).
(AFP, 4/25/15)
2015 Apr 25, In Israel a Palestinian in Hebron attacked an Israeli police officer, stabbing him several times in his head and chest. The officer was evacuated to a hospital and was in stable condition. Other officers on the scene opened fire on the assailant and killed him.
(AP, 4/26/15)
2015 Apr 28, Palestinian Mohammed Yehya died at a hospital in the West Bank city of Nablus. He was shot in the abdomen the previous evening after hurling rocks at Israeli troops.
(AP, 4/28/15)
2015 May 4, A bomb blast targeted Hamas's security headquarters in Gaza City, after radical Islamists issued a threatening message calling for the release of prisoners.
(AFP, 5/4/15)
2015 May 4, Israeli security guards shot and wounded a Palestinian after he allegedly tried to stab people waiting at a light railway station in east Jerusalem.
(AFP, 5/4/15)
2015 May 6, Israel approved construction of 900 settler homes in annexed east Jerusalem as PM Benjamin Netanyahu pieced together a 5-party coalition government that will include the far-right Jewish Home, which strongly backs settlement building and opposes a Palestinian state. The coalition will hold a parliamentary majority of just a single seat.
(AFP, 5/7/15)(Reuters, 5/7/15)
2015 May 6, The Egyptian military shot dead 3 Palestinian gunmen who infiltrated through a smuggling tunnel in the Sinai town of Rafah. One policeman was killed and five others wounded in clashes with supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in a Nile Delta city.
(AFP, 5/6/15)
2015 May 8, A jihadist group that recently emerged in the Gaza Strip claimed a mortar attack on a base belonging to the Islamist Hamas movement in charge of the blockaded territory.
(AFP, 5/8/15)
2015 May 13, The Vatican said it has concluded its first treaty that formally recognizes the State of Palestine, with an agreement on Catholic Church activities in areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority. It will be officially signed by the respective authorities in the near future.
(Reuters, 5/13/15)
2015 May 16, Pope Francis praised Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as an "angel of peace" during a meeting at the Vatican that underscored the Holy See's warm relations with the Palestinians as it prepares to canonize Mariam Bawardy and Marie Alphonsine Ghattas, two 19th century nuns from the region.
(AP, 5/16/15)
2015 May 20, Two Israeli policewomen were injured in annexed east Jerusalem when they were hit by a car driven by a Palestinian who was then shot dead.
(AFP, 5/20/15)
2015 May 24, In Israel a Palestinian man (19) stabbed two Israeli teenagers as they walked to a holy site on the Jewish Shavuot holiday. Officers apprehended the suspected attacker and the two boys were hospitalized.
(AP, 5/24/15)
2015 May 26, Egypt reopened its Rafah border crossing with Gaza for two days.
(AFP, 5/26/15)
2015 Jun 2, A local Salafist leader was shot dead in Gaza City during a confrontation with Hamas security forces as tensions mounted between the Strip's Islamist rulers and its extremist opponents.
(AFP, 6/2/15)
2015 Jun 4, Israeli warplanes struck multiple militant targets in the Gaza Strip early today in response to Palestinian rocket fire, but nobody was injured according to Palestinian security sources.
(AFP, 6/4/15)
2015 Jun 5, Hundreds of Israelis and Palestinians marched in support of a Susya, a West Bank village slated for demolition, a plan they said epitomizes the Israeli occupation. Israel's High Court ruled in May that Susya's 340 residents could be relocated and its structures demolished.
(AFP, 6/5/15)
2015 Jun 5, A member of the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas died when a smuggling tunnel collapsed in the Gaza Strip near the Israeli border.
(AFP, 6/5/15)
2015 Jun 6, An Egyptian court quashed a February decision by another tribunal branding the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas a "terrorist" group.
(AFP, 6/6/15)
2015 Jun 7, Israeli warplanes struck Gaza early today for the second time in three days after cross-border rocket fire by an Islamic extremist group which is locked in a power struggle with Hamas.
(AFP, 6/7/15)
2015 Jun 13, Egypt opened the Rafah border crossing to allow Palestinians to travel in and out of the Gaza Strip for the first time in three months.
(Reuters, 6/13/15)
2015 Jun 14, An Israeli army jeep struck and killed a Palestinian in the occupied West Bank, with the military and locals giving conflicting accounts of the circumstances.
(Reuters, 6/14/15)
2015 Jun 14, Israel's cabinet approved a proposed law that would enable authorities to force-feed Palestinian prisoners who are on hunger strike, a practice opposed by the country's medical association.
(Reuters, 6/14/15)
2015 Jun 17, The Palestinian unity government resigned in a deepening rift with Gaza as the territory's de facto rulers Hamas held separate, indirect talks with Israel.
(AFP, 6/17/15)
2015 Jun 19, A Palestinian opened fire on two Israeli men near a West Bank settlement, killing Danny Gonen (25) and wounding his friend. On July 15 Shin Bet said five Palestinians have been arrested in relation to the shooting and that the alleged shooter, Mohammed Abu Shaheen, belonged to an armed group linked to Fatah.
(AFP, 6/19/15)(AP, 7/15/15)
2015 Jun 21, A Palestinian stabbed and seriously wounded an Israeli border policeman outside Jerusalem's Old City, with the officer managing to shoot his attacker, leaving him in a very serious condition.
(AFP, 6/21/15)
2015 Jun 22, An independent UN commission released its report on Operation Protective Edge, finding evidence that both Israel and Hamas committed war crimes during the 2014 summer war in the Gaza Strip.
(SSFC, 6/28/15, p.A4)
2015 Jun 24, The Israeli military carried out an airstrike on a rocket launching device in the Gaza Strip after it was used by militants to fire on Israel.
(AP, 6/24/15)
2015 Jun 26, Hamas authorities ordered the closure of the offices of Jawwal, the only mobile phone company operating in the Gaza Strip, accusing it of tax dodging.
(AFP, 6/26/15)
2015 Jun 26, Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian man after he opened fire at soldiers at a military checkpoint in the West Bank.
(AP, 6/26/15)
2015 Jun 26, The Vatican signed a treaty with the "State of Palestine," saying it hoped its legal recognition of the state would help stimulate peace with Israel. Israel expressed disappointment.
(AP, 6/26/15)
2015 Jun 29, Israel and the Palestinians promised to investigate alleged war crimes committed by their forces during the 2014 Gaza war. A Palestinian woman stabbed a female Israeli soldier in the neck at a checkpoint between Jerusalem and Bethlehem.
(Reuters, 6/29/15)(AFP, 6/29/15)
2015 Jun 30, The Hamas-appointed attorney general in the Gaza Strip shut down the offices of the territory's only mobile-phone provider, saying the company, Jawwal, had not paid its taxes.
(Reuters, 6/30/15)
2015 Jun 30, A shooting near a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank wounded four Israelis, sparking a manhunt.
(AFP, 6/30/15)
2015 Jul 1, Israel's internal security service said it has arrested 40 Hamas operatives working to expand the militant Islamic group's reach in the West Bank.
(AP, 7/1/15)
2015 Jul 3, Palestinian forces arrested overnight around 100 Hamas members in the West Bank. An official said they had intended to carry out attacks against the Palestinian Authority (PA).
(AP, 7/3/15)
2015 Jul 3, Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian teenager in the occupied West Bank as he and others hurled rocks and stones at an army vehicle.
(SFC, 7/4/15, p.A4)
2015 Jul 8, A Palestinian appeals court ruled in favor of maintaining parliamentary immunity for Mohammed Dahlan (53), a rival to President Mahmoud Abbas. Dahlan fell out of favor in 2011 and has been charged with corruption.
(Reuters, 7/8/15)
2015 Jul 10, In Iran and Iraq tens of thousands marched in Tehran and Baghdad in annual Quds (Jerusalem) Day demonstrations in support of Palestinians. Saudi Arabia this year joined arch-foe Israel as the target for protesters.
(AFP, 7/10/15)
2015 Jul 12, Israel released Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan (37). He had staged a 56-day hunger strike which brought him near death in a protest against the controversial procedure allowing detainees to be held indefinitely without charge.
(AFP, 7/12/15)
2015 Jul 19, Five near-simultaneous explosions in Gaza targeted members of the armed branches of Hamas and Islamic Jihad amid growing tensions between the Palestinian territory's rulers and extremist opponents.
(AFP, 7/19/15)
2015 Jul 21, Khalil Hizran, a Swede of Palestinian descent, was arrested after flying into Tel Aviv, and confessed under interrogation to working for Hezbollah. On August 9 Hizran was indicted on three criminal counts.
(Reuters, 8/9/15)
2015 Jul 22, In Israel Mohammed Ahmed Alauna (21), a Palestinian man, died after he was shot by Israeli troops during a clash near the town of Jenin.
(AP, 7/22/15)
2015 Jul 23, A Palestinian man, Falah Abu Maria, (53) was killed during a clash between Palestinians and Israeli troops in the West Bank.
(AP, 7/23/15)
2015 Jul 23, Reconstruction began on the first homes in Gaza since the war with Israel last summer destroyed some 11,900 homes and damaged some 140,000 dwellings.
(SFC, 7/24/15, p.A2)
2015 Jul 25, The military wing of Hamas opened its Gaza summer camp, aimed at providing basic combat training for 25,000 Palestinians in the embattled strip.
(AFP, 7/25/15)
2015 Jul 25, In southern Lebanon Talal al-Urduni, a senior security official with the mainstream Palestinian Fatah movement, died in a hail of gunfire along with his bodyguard after they were intercepted by gunmen near the Nidaa hospital in a neighborhood of the camp.
(AP, 7/25/15)
2015 Jul 27, Israeli police said Palestinian Mohammed Abu Latifa (19), wanted on suspicion of planning a militant attack, fell to his death from a rooftop as he fled from police in the occupied West Bank. A witness said Latifa was shot dead and had not fallen off the roof.
(Reuters, 7/27/15)
2015 Jul 29, Israel gave final approval for plans to build 300 new homes in a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, announcing the move as it carried out a court demolition order against two vacant apartment blocks at the site.
(Reuters, 7/29/15)
2015 Jul 31, A Palestinian baby of 18 months died and its parents were injured in a fire started by Israeli settlers in the West Bank village of Doma. Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon labelled the attack an act of terrorism. The father of the toddler died August 8 from injuries he suffered in the attack. The mother was buried on Sep 7 after she died of her wounds overnight.
(AFP, 7/31/15)(AFP, 8/8/15)(AFP, 9/7/15)
2015 Jul 31, Israeli forces shot Laith Khaldi (14) of the Jalazon refugee camp in the chest during clashes near the Atara checkpoint. Khaldi died hours later in hospital. A Palestinian man was killed and another wounded by Israeli fire when they approached a security fence separating the Gaza Strip from Israel.
(AFP, 7/31/15)
2015 Aug 1, In Israel Laith al-Khaldi (18) died of wounds after being shot by Israeli troops a day earlier during a demonstration over the burning death of a toddler in a fire set by suspected Jewish extremists. Al-Khaldi had allegedly hurled a fire bomb at police.
(SSFC, 8/2/15, p.A3)
2015 Aug 6, An explosion ripped through a house in the southern Gaza Strip killing 4 people and wounded dozens, but the cause of the blast was unclear.
(AFP, 8/6/15)
2015 Aug 9, Israel arrested several suspects in raids linked to the deadly firebombing of a Palestinian home and placed alleged Jewish extremists Meir Ettinger and Eviatar Slonim in a controversial form of detention without trial.
(AFP, 8/9/15)(SFC, 8/10/15, p.A3)
2015 Aug 13, A tent was torched and Hebrew-language graffiti was sprayed at a Palestinian Bedouin village in the occupied West Bank in what residents and an NGO said was a suspected attack by Jewish extremists.
(AFP, 8/13/15)
2015 Aug 14, In Israel Palestinian detainee Mohammed Allan (30) was 60 days into his hunger strike, launched in protest of his detention without charge in an Israeli jail, when he slipped into unconsciousness. Allan was arrested in November 2014 and was being held for his activities in Islamic Jihad.
(AP, 8/14/15)(AP, 8/15/15)
2015 Aug 15, Palestinian Rafiq Taj (21) from Nablus was shot dead by Israeli forces after stabbing a border policeman in the northern West Bank.
(AFP, 8/15/15)
2015 Aug 17, Israel offered to free Palestinian detainee Mohammed Allan (31), whose two-month hunger strike has left him in a coma, but only if he goes abroad. Allan’s lawyer immediately dismissed the offer. Doctors were using artificial breathing equipment, fluids and vitamins to keep Allan alive. On August 19 Israel’s Supreme Court suspended the detention order against Allan. On August 20 Allan ended his hunger strike.
(AFP, 8/17/15)(SFC, 8/20/15, p.A2)(SFC, 8/21/15, p.A3)
2015 Aug 17, A Palestinian man was shot dead by Israeli police troopers after he stabbed and lightly wounded one of them at a military checkpoint outside Nablus.
(Reuters, 8/17/15)
2015 Aug 19, The UN said typhoid has broken out among residents of the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Syria.
(Reuters, 8/19/15)
2015 Aug 24, A strike by Palestinian teachers and personnel in Gaza kept more than 200,000 children from returning to school for the new term, as the UN agency that employs them struggled financially.
(AFP, 8/24/15)
2015 Aug, Egypt began digging 18 fisheries along the 9-mile border with Gaza to grow mullet fish and shrimp and to make digging underground tunnels impossible.
(SFC, 9/1/15, p.A3)
2015 Sep 3, The Israeli military said its air force had attacked a Hamas military position in the Gaza Strip overnight from which gunfire had hit homes in southern Israel.
(AFP, 9/3/15)
2015 Sep 8, The US State Department announced that Hezbollah spokesman Samir Kuntar along with Hamas military leaders Yahya Sinwar, Rawhi Mushtaha, and Muhammed Deif had been added to the specially designated global terrorists list.
(AP, 9/8/15)
2015 Sep 9, Israel outlawed "Mourabitoon" and "Mourabitaat," two grassroots Palestinian Islamist groups involved in vocal protests at the flashpoint al Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem against stepped-up visits by religious Jews.
(Reuters, 9/9/15)
2015 Sep 10, The US Treasury Department sanctioned four Hamas officials and financiers and a Saudi Arabia-based company controlled by one of them for providing financial support to the Palestinian militant group.
(Reuters, 9/10/15)
2015 Sep 14, Israeli police and Muslims clashed at Jerusalem's flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound for a second straight day as Jews celebrated their new year and protesters vowed to protect Islam's third-holiest site.
(AFP, 9/14/15)
2015 Sep 15, Israeli forces stormed Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound as they clashed with Palestinians for the third day straight at the flashpoint site.
(AP, 9/15/15)
2015 Sep 18, Palestinians clashed with Israeli security forces in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank after the Islamist movement Hamas called for a "day of rage" over tensions at the Al-Aqsa mosque site.
(AFP, 9/18/15)
2015 Sep 19, Israel carried out air strikes in the Gaza Strip after Palestinian militants there fired rockets into southern Israel.
(Reuters, 9/19/15)
2015 Sep 22, A Palestinian militant (23) died overnight when a bomb he was trying to throw at Israeli forces blew up near the West Bank city of Hebron. The Islamic Jihad militant group named him as Diyaa Abdul Halim Talahmeh, claimed him as one of its members and said he had been shot dead by the soldiers. Hours later Israeli troops shot and wounded a Palestinian woman as she tried to stab a soldier.
(Reuters, 9/22/15)
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