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This is a incomplete timeline of events in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. See also Israeli-Palestinian conflict external references for news stories.
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British foreign affairs minister Arthur James Balfour sends a letter to Lord Rothschild, President of the Zionist Federation, declaring his government's intent to establish "a national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine.
British forces occupy Jerusalem.
1919 Arab-Jewish agreement at Paris Peace Conference, 1919.
Jerusalem pogrom of April, 1920 prompts the establishment of Haganah.
Riots in Palestine of May, 1921.
The Churchill White Paper, 1922 clarifies the Britain's position regarding Palestine.
The League of Nations grants Britain a mandate to administer Palestine.
The Great Uprising: the Arab leadership, led by Haj Amin al-Husayni, declares a general strike which rapidly deteriorates into a violent rebellion that lasts for three years. The mainstream Jewish defense organization, the Haganah, maintains a policy of restraint, but the smaller Irgun (also called Etzel) group adopts a policy of retaliation and revenge.
The Peel Commission proposes a partition plan (map (http://history.binghamton.edu/hist275/Map_Peel_Partition_Plan.jpg)), rejected by the Arab leadership, the Jewish opinion remains divided; limits Jewish immigration to Palestine to 12,000 per year.
The Woodhead Commission reverses the Peel Commission's findings, considers two alternative partition plans, known as Plan B (map) and Plan C (map), and reports in November that partition was impracticable. ([1] (http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_woodhead.php))
St. James Conference ends without making any progress as the Arab delegation refuses to recognize or meet with its Jewish counterpart.
The White Paper of 1939 calls for the creation of a unified Palestinian state. Even though the White Paper states its commitment to the Balfour Declaration, it imposed very substantial limits to both Jewish immigration and their ability to purchase land.
The UN General Assembly passes a Partition Plan dividing the British Mandate of Palestine into two states.
Israel declares Independence from British rule.
Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Transjordan and local Arabs attack the new Jewish state. The resulting 1948 Arab-Israeli War lasts for 13 months.
Israel concludes Armistice Agreements with neighbouring countries. The territory of the British Mandate of Palestine is divided between the State of Israel, the Kingdom of the Jordan, changed fromTransjordan, and Egypt.
Israel invades Egypt's Sinai Peninsula in secret alliance with France and Britain.
Israel withdraws its forces from the Sinai Peninsula, ending the Suez Crisis.
The Palestine Liberation Organization is founded in Cairo with Yasser Arafat as its leader. Even though Yasser Arafat is the official leader, the organization is more or less controled by the Egyptian government.
The Six-Day War. Israel launches a pre-emptive strike agaist the Egyptian Air Force on suspicion that Egypt and Syria are planning to invade. Israel defeats the combined forces of Egypt, Syria and Jordan and captures the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria.
Egypt wages the War of Attrition against Israel.
The Yom Kippur War. Syria and Egypt attack Israeli forces in the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula.
Menachem Begin of the Likud Party is elected Prime Minister, ending nearly 30 years of rule by the Labour Party.
Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and sign the Camp David Accord, with Israel agreeing to withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula and to a framework for future negotiation over the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Heavily armed PLO forces move into southern Lebanon, which they use as a base for attacks against Israel. 1982 Israel Invades Lebanon Israel invaded Lebanon on June 6. The immediate cause cited for the invasion was the attempted assassination of Israel's Ambassador in London. Israel's plan was designed first to create a buffer between Lebanon and Northern Israel. The incursion quickly grew to a full-fledged attempt to destroy the P.L.O.
Israeli forces advanced to Beirut. In the course of that advance, a large-scale mini-war broke out with Syria. Over two days, Israel shot down 82 Syrian planes with no losses of its own, and completely destroyed the intricate Soviet-designed anti-aircraft missile system protecting Syria. A cease-fire was reached after Israel surrounded Beirut. Under the terms of the agreement, the P.L.O. was forced to leave Lebanon.
In June 1978, Prime Minister Begin, under intense American pressure, withdrew Israel's Litani River Operation forces from southern Lebanon. They were replaced by UNIFIL, a UN force to restore peace and help the Lebanonese government re-establish its authority, as authorized by UN Resolution 425. The withdrawal of Israeli troops without having removed the PLO from its bases in southern Lebanon became a major embarrassment to the Begin government, maintaining pressure for Israel to return.
UNIFIL was unable to prevent terrorists from reinfiltrating the region and introducing new, more dangerous arms. Cross-border conflict between Israel and the various forces in Southern Lebanon continued at differing levels of intensity after 1978. Civilians on both sides, and UNIFIL peacekeepers, were killed as the fighting ebbed and flowed. Israel increased its support of the Lebanese Christian Militia in the south, under Major Saad Haddad, who regularly fought armed PLO fighters but also caused casualties among non-combatants. The US government during the Carter administration (1976-1980) had several times joined in UN condemnations of Israeli raids and reprisals in South Lebanon, always condemning simultaneously PLO terrorist cross-border activities (generally not condemned by the UN).
In July of 1981 Lebanese-American Philip Habib was sent by the Reagan Administration to negotiate a more lasting cease-fire between Lebanon and Israel. On July 24 Habib announced agreement that all hostile military action between Lebanese and Israeli territory in either direction would cease. For the next eleven months the cease-fire was in effect as a formality, but the PLO repeatedly violated the agreement. Israel charged that the PLO staged 270 terrorist actions in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, and along the Lebanese and Jordanian borders. Twentynine Israelis died and more than 300 were injured in the attacks. In April 1982, after a landmine killed an Israeli officer, the rocket attacks and air strikes recommenced.
Israeli strikes and commando raids were unable to stem the growth of the PLO army which built camps, trained thousands of fighters, and stockpiled arms in south Lebanon. The situation in the Galilee became intolerable as the frequency of attacks forced thousands of Israeli residents to flee their homes or to spend large amounts of time in bomb shelters. Israel was not prepared to wait for more deadly attacks to be launched against its civilian population before acting against the PLO terrorists.
The final provocation occurred in June 3, 1982 when a Palestinian terrorist group led by Abu Nidal attempted to assassinate Israel's Ambassador to Britain, Shlomo Argov. The IDF subsequently bombed PLO bases and ammunition dumps in Beirut and attacked other targets in Lebanon on June 4-5, 1982. The PLO responded with a massive artillery and mortar attack on the Israeli population of the Galilee. It was the PLO shelling, and not directly the Argov shooting as is sometimes assumed, that triggered the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
On June 6, 1982, under the direction of Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, Israel invaded Lebanon with a massive force, called Operation Peace for the Galilee, driving all the way to Beirut and putting the PLO and residents, as well as the Lebanese civilian population of that city, under siege. Israel justified its breech of the Habib cease-fire by citing the attempted assassination of the Israeli ambassador in London and a build-up of PLO armaments in South Lebanon. Israel was also concerned by increasing Syrian involvement in the Lebanese civil war and wanted to forestall a hostile, Syrian-backed government developing in Lebanon.
Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said of the operation: No sovereign state can tolerate indefinitely the buildup along its borders of a military force dedicated to its destruction and implementing its objectives by periodic shellings and raids. (Washington Post, June 16, 1982)
Israel enters southern Lebanon. Israel claims the invasion was in order to remove PLO forces.
The Israeli Army withdraws from most of Lebanon.
The First Intifada begins.
An independent State of Palestine was proclaimed by the Palestinian National Council meeting in Algiers, by a vote of 253 to 46.
Tel Aviv is hit by 40 Scud missiles lauched by Iraq during the Persian Gulf War.
Yitzhak Rabin of the Labour Party elected Prime Minister.
Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin sign the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government in Oslo.
Israeli forces withdraw from Jericho and Gaza City in compliance with the Oslo accords.
Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty.
Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip signed in Washington, DC.
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated in Tel Aviv by Jewish extremist Yigal Amir. Shimon Peres assumes the position of acting Prime Minister.
Benjamin Netanyahu of the Likud Party is elected Prime Minister.
Benjamin Netanyahu and Yasser Arafat sign the Wye River Memorandum at a summit in Maryland hosted by Bill Clinton.
Ehud Barak of the Labour Party is elected Prime Minister.
The Israeli Army withdraws from southern Lebanon, in compliance with U.N. Resolution 425.
The Camp David Summit between Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat demonstrates both parties' unwillingness to make further compromises.
Israeli Opposition Leader Ariel Sharon visits the Temple Mount which is administered by a Muslim organization. The day after the visit violent confrontations erupt between Muslims and Israeli Police.
Prime Minister Ehud Barak resigns.
Ariel Sharon of the Likud Party is elected Prime Minister.
Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi is assassinated in Jerusalem by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
A charity known as the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development is shut down. Its Richardson, Texas headquarters and its offices in San Diego, California, Bridgeview, Illinois, and Paterson, New Jersey are searched. The charity is accused of funding Hamas.
The U.S. pushes through the passage of U.N. Resolution 1397 by the Security Council, demanding an "immediate cessation of all acts of violence" and "affirming a vision of a region where two states, Israel and Palestine, live side by side within secure and recognized borders".
Israeli forces continue the raid on Ramallah and other West Bank towns. A helicopter attack near Tulkarmkills Mutasen Hammad and two bystanders. A bomb in Gaza destroys an Israeli tank which was escorting settlers, killing 3 soldiers and wounding 2. A taxi in Tulkarm explodes, killing 4 Palestinians. Palestinians execute two accused collaborators in Bethlehem, planning to hang one of the corpses near the Church of the Nativity until Palestinian police stop them.
Israeli forces begin Operation Defensive Shield, an incursion into the West Bank.
A suicide bomber explodes in My Coffee Shop, a Tel Aviv café at around 9:30 PM local time, wounding 32 people. President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell (USA) call on Yasir Arafat to condemn the wave of suicide bombings in Arabic, to his own people. Israeli spokespeople make similar demands. Arafat goes on television and swears in Arabic that he will "die a martyr, a martyr, a martyr". Members of Arafat's personal Al-Aqsa brigade state that they will refuse any form of cease-fire, and that they will continue suicide bombings of civilians in Israel.
Israeli troops exchange gunfire with guards of Yasir Arafat in Ramallah. In the past 18 months, according to the Associated Press, 1262 people have been killed on the Palestinian side and on 401 on the Israeli side; in March, 259 Palestinians and 130 Israelis were killed.
Israeli troops occupy Bethlehem. Dozens of armed Palestinian gunmen, many of whom Israel has identified as terrorists, occupy the Church of the Nativity and hold the church and its clergy hostage.
Muhammad al-Madani, governor of Bethlehem, leaves the Church of the Nativity.
Israel calls up additional reserve forces and moves tanks into position for an expected incursion into the Gaza Strip in retaliation for the most recent suicide bombing.
Shin Bet officials announces they have arrested six Israelis for conspiring to bomb Palestinian schools in April, including Noam Federman, a leader of the Kach movement of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, and Menashe Levenger, son of Rabbi Moshe Levenger, a founder of the Hebron settlement.
US President George W. Bush calls for an independent Palestinian state living in peace with Israel.
In an interview with the British newspaper the Independent, Yasser Arafat's chief political representative in Jerusalem, Professor Sari Nusseibeh, condemned suicide bombings as "immoral". He said that the Palestinians have a right to resist the Israeli occupation but that violence was not the way. "The use of violence as a means of solving problems is demeaning to us as human beings", he said. "Attacking civilians of any kind anywhere is totally unacceptable". While this is only a minority view, commentators considered it significant that a senior representative of the PLO denounced all violence against civilians, including against Israeli settlers. No other Palestinian leader declared support to a non-violent conclusion of the conflict.
Fifteen Palestinians (including nine children) were killed, by an American-built F-16 Israeli jet which bombed a densely populated residential area of Gaza City. Among the innocent children killed, Mohammed al-Huwaiti was aged 4, his brother Subhi was aged 3, Ayman Mattar was only 1 and little Dunya Rami Mattar only 3 months. The victims included Salah Shehade (the leader of Hamas's military wing, the Izz ad-Din el-Qasam Brigades), and more than 100 others were wounded. The United Nations condemned this as a flagrant violation of international law. Two days later, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, Israel's minister of defense, claimed that Shehade had been "engaged" in planning an act of "mega-terror", involving the blowing-up of a truck loaded with a ton of explosives and capable of leading to hundreds of Israelis dead.
Although Ariel Sharon described Shahade's death, as "one of our biggest successes", some claim that it did not serve Israel's interest so well, as it came a few hours after the spiritual leader of Hamas, Ahmed Yassin, offered to halt all suicide attacks in exchange for full Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, in effect to the 1967 borders. However, shortly after the strike, masked Hamas militants vowed to wreak revenge on Israel, so it seemed unlikely that his offer still stood. It is not clear to what extent Yassin was committed to his offer.
Marwan Barghouti, captured April 15, was indicted by a civilian Israeli court for murdering civilians and membership in a terrorist organisation.
Rachel Corrie, an American member of the International Solidarity Movement is crushed by an Israel Defence Forces bulldozer, becoming the first ISM member to die in the conflict. Eyewitnesses allege murder, while Israel calls it a "regrettable accident".
Hilltop 26, an illegal Israeli settlement near the city of Hebron, is peacefully dismantled by the Israel Defence Force.
The details of the Road map for peace are released.
Ariel Sharon states that the "occupation" of Palestinian territories "can't continue endlessly."
A two-day summit is held in Egypt. Arab leaders announce their support for the road map and promised to work on cutting off funding to terrorist groups.
Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah agree to a three-month cease-fire.
Islamic Jihad and Hamas claim joint responsibility for a suicide bombing that kills twenty Israelis. Mahmoud Abbas pledges a crackdown on militants, but he is prevented from doing so by Yasser Arafat.
Mahmoud Abbas resigns from the post of Prime Minister.
Israel officially ended a 17-day military operation, named Operation Days of Penitence, in the northern Gaza Strip. The operation was launched in response to a Qassam rocket that killed two children in Sderot. About 108-133 Palestinians were killed during the operation, of whom one third were civilians. Among the dead was 13 year old Iman al-Hams who was shot repeatedly by an IDF soldier.
Confined to his Ramallah compound, Yasser Arafat slipped out of the media spotlight somewhat until on 29 October 2004 he emerged to travel abroad for urgent medical treatment. Citing a blood disorder Palestinian officials arranged for their leader to travel to a hospital near the French capital, Paris. His condition deteriorated fast. He fell into a coma, suffered a brain haemorrhage and, on 11 November 2004, died at the age of 75.
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