The Ultimate Israeli-Palestinian conflict timeline - American History Information Guide and Reference

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.

December 9, 1917

British forces occupy Jerusalem.

June 3, 1922

The Churchill White Paper, 1922 clarifies the Britain's position regarding Palestine.

July 24, 1922

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

1928-1935

The activities of Black Hand (group), led by Shaykh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam

August 23, 1929

Hebron massacre of 1929

May 7, 1936 — March 1939

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.

July 1937

The Peel Commission proposes a partition plan (map), rejected by the Arab leadership, the Jewish opinion remains divided; limits Jewish immigration to Palestine to 12,000 per year.

April — August 1938

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])

February — March 17, 1939

St. James Conference ends without making any progress as the Arab delegation refuses to recognize or meet with its Jewish counterpart.

May 17, 1939

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.

1940-1949

Activities of Lehi (group) led by Avraham Stern, after 1942 - by a triumvirate, including Yitzhak Shamir

UN Resolution

November 29, 1947

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

Creation of Israel

May 14, 1948

Israel declares Independence from British rule.

After Creation

May 15, 1948

Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Transjordan and local Arabs attack the new Jewish state. The resulting 1948 Arab-Israeli War lasts for 13 months.

June 1948

Violent confrontation between the Israeli Defense Forces and the paramilitary Jewish group Etzel known as The Altalena Affair results in dismantlement of all Jewish extremist groups.

April 1949

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

1953

Qibya massacre

October 29, 1956

Israel invades Egypt's Sinai Peninsula in secret alliance with France and Britain. The Kafr Qasim massacre took place on the same day.

March 1957

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

February 3, 1964

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.

Six-Day War

June 1967

The Six-Day War. Israel launches what it describes as a pre-emptive strike against 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.

Post Six-Day War

1968-1970

Egypt wages the War of Attrition against Israel.

May 8, 1970

Avivim school bus massacre

September, 1970

After Black September in Jordan, the PLO was driven out to Lebanon.

September 5, 1972

Munich Massacre of Israeli Olympic team by Black September (group)

Yom Kippur War

October 1973

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

Post Yom Kippur War

April 11, 1974

Kiryat Shmona massacre

May 15, 1974

Ma'alot massacre

May 1977

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

March 14, 1978

Israel launches a limited-scope invasion of Lebanon, called Operation Litani by the IDF.

September 17, 1978

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

Lebanon

June 6, 1982

Israel enters southern Lebanon. Israel claims the invasion was in order to remove PLO forces. See 1982 Invasion of Lebanon.

August 1983

The Israeli Army withdraws from most of Lebanon, maintaining a self-proclaimed "Security Zone" in the south.

First Intifada

October 1987

The First Intifada begins.

November 15, 1988

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

Gulf War

January 1991

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

After Gulf War

June 1992

Yitzhak Rabin of the Labour Party elected Prime Minister.

August 20, 1993

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

1993

August 3: Yaron Chen, a Tsahal soldier, was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists while hitch-hiking back home. His body was later found in the burnt truck. [2]
November 7: Ephraim Ayoubi of Kfar Darom was shot to death by Hamas terrorists near Hevron. [3]
November 9: Salman Id al-Hawashla, 38, an Israeli Bedouin, was killed when his vehicle, marked by Israeli license plates, was rammed by a stolen truck driven by terrorists. [4]

1994

April 9: A Hamas operative drives a car bomb into a bus in Afula. 8 people are killed. This was the first suicide bombing inside Israel.
July 23: Two Palestinian terrorists stabbed an American woman in the Old City of Jerusalem.
July 26: A car bomb exploded at the Israel Embassy in London, wounding 14 people.
October 19: 22 people killed and more than 50 wounded when a Hamas suicide bomber blew himself up Tel Aviv city bus. [5]
November 11: 3 killed and 6 wounded when a suicide bomber from Islamic Jihad detonated near an IDF checkpoint at the Netzarim Junction. [6]

1999

August 3: Baruch Ben-Yaakov and Ephraim Rosenstein were wounded by terrorists near Hevron.
August 7: Edward Berdinchinsky was found burned to death in his car. Police announced on February 29, 2000 that the attack was a terrorist incident and not a criminal homicide.
August 10: Eitan Vaknin, of Dotan, was wounded in an ambush while driving home and hospitalized in Afula. The terrorists escaped into the area controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
August 15: A Hamas bomb attack in an office building in Netanya injured about 20.
August 29: Yehiel Pinpetter and Sharon Steinmetz were murdered in the Megiddo Forest by an Arab.
September 5: One terrorist was the only person killed when his car bomb exploded prematurely in Haifa.
September 5: Two civilians were wounded when a car bomb exploded in Tiberias.
October 30: Five Israelis were wounded by terrorist gunfire directed at a bus three kilometers from the Tarkumiya Checkpoint in the Hevron Hills area. [7]
November 7: 30 Israelis (28 civilians and 2 soldiers) were wounded when three bombs placed in garbage receptacles at the intersection of Herzl and Shar Haggai Streets in Natanya . [8]

1998

April 19: Dov Driben, an American-Israeli farmer, 28, was murdered by Arab terrorists near the Israeli town of Maon in the Hevron Hills.
May 6: Haim Kerman, a student at the Atert Cohanim Yeshiva, was stabbed to death in Jerusalem's Old City.
August 5: Harel Bin-Nun, 18, and Shlomo Leibman, 24, were shot dead near Yitzhar while driving along the community's fence.
August 20: Rabbi Shlomo Raanan was stabbed to death in a Hamas terrorist who broke into his home. The terrorist escaped after detonating a fire bomb inside the home.
August 27: Twelve people were wounded by a bomb detonated in front of the Tel Aviv Great Synagogue.
September 24: One Israeli was wounded by bomb explosion at a public bus stop near the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. [9]
September 30: During Yom Kippur, fourteen IDF soldiers and eleven Arabs were wounded by two grenades thrown in Hebron. [10]
October 13: An Israeli was kiled and another wounded in a terrorist attack while the two were swimming in a spring near Moshav Ora. [11]
October 19: 59 people are wounded when a Hamas terrorist hurled two grenades into a crowd at the Central bus station before running from the scene. [12]
November 6: Two terrorists died in suicide bombing attack in Mahane Yehuda marketplace in Jerusalem. There were no other casualties. [13]

1997

April 25: The bodies of two young women, killed by a Bedouin, were found in the Wadi Kelt nature reserve northeast of Jerusalem.
July 20: An Arab attacked two Israelis with an iron rod in Rishon L'Tzion. One of the Israelis later died of his wounds.
July 22: An Israeli Arab tried to run down a group of tourists from England and Canada in Jaffa and then attacked them with a knife. Eleven tourists were wounded.
September 4: Three people were killed and 166 wounded when three suicide bombers detonated at Jerusalem's Ben-Yehuda pedestrian mall.

1996

March 4: A suicide bomber exploded outside the Dizengoff Center, a Tel Aviv shopping mall, murdering 20 and injuring 75 others, including United States citizens.
May 13: David Reuven Boim, 17, was shot to death at the entrance to Bet El in a drive-by terror attack.
June 9: Yaron and Efrat Unger, aged 26 and 25, were murdered in a terrorist drive-by shooting while driving near Beit Shemesh. Their 9-month-old baby son in the back seat escaped injury.

1995

April 9: American citizen and student Alisa Flatow was killed in a terror attack in southern Gush Katif near the community of Kfar Darom. Seven Israelis also perished in the attack and over 30 others were injured. In a second attack nearby, a suicide bomber detonated a car bomb in the midst of a convoy of cars, injuring 12 people. Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attacks.
April 13: A Hamas suicide bomber blew himself up at the Hadera Central Bus Station, killing 5 and injuring 30.
July 25: A Hamas suicide bomber attacked a bus, murdering 6 and wounding 31.
August 21: Four Israelis and one American were killed and over 100 were wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up on a city bus in Jerusalem.

Peace Process

May 18, 1994

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

October 26, 1994

Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty

December 10, 1994

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

September 28, 1995

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

November 4, 1995

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

May 1996

Benjamin Netanyahu of the Likud Party is elected Prime Minister.

October 23, 1998

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

May 17, 1999

Ehud Barak of the Labour Party is elected Prime Minister.

February 2000(death toll: 3)

February 9: Dov and Gabriella Weiss of Givat Ze'ev , a suburb of Jerusalem, were found bludgeoned to death in their home. Police confirmed that the attack was terrorist in nature.
February 27: Gadi Rejwan was shot to death by one of the Arab workers in his factory located in the Atarot Industrial Park in Jerusalem.

May 24, 2000

The Israeli Army withdraws from southern Lebanon, in compliance with U.N. Resolution 425. Syria and Lebanon insist that the withdrawal is incomplete, claiming the Shebaa Farms as Lebanese and still under occupation. The UN certifies full Israeli withdrawal.

July 2000

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

November 22 2000: two Israeli women killed and 60 civilians were wounded in a car bomb attack in Hadera.

Second Intifada begins

September 28, 2000

Right wing 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. The Sharon visit is the reason why the second intifada is also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada, after the Al Aqsa Mosque contained within the Noble Sanctuary (Temple Mount). This event is not considered to be the only cause of the second intifada.

December 10, 2000

Prime Minister Ehud Barak resigns.

February 6, 2001

Ariel Sharon of the Likud Party is elected Prime Minister.

October 17, 2001

Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi is assassinated in Jerusalem by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

December 4, 2001

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

March 13, 2002

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

March 14, 2002

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

March 29, 2002

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

March 30, 2002

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

March 31, 2002

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

April 2, 2002

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

May 9, 2002

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

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

May 18, 2002

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

June 5: 17 people were killed when a car packed with a large quantity of explosives struck Egged bus No. 830 traveling from Tel-Aviv to Tiberias at the Megiddo junction near Afula. The car exploded near the gasoline tank of the bus, causing it to burst into flames. Most of the casualties were soldiers who were on their way to their bases. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.
June 6: An 18-year-old Israeli student died of gunshot wounds to the chest sustained in a shooting attack near Ofra, north of Ramallah, when Palestinian terrorists opened fire from an ambush.
June 8: Three Israelis, including a pregnant woman, were shot dead when terrorists infiltrated the community of Carmei Tzur south of Bethlehem.
June 11: Hadar Hirschkovitz, a 15 year old girl, was killed and eleven other Israelis wounded when a Palestinian female suicide bomber set off a relatively small pipe bomb at a shwarma restaurant in Herzliya.
June 11: D'vir Musai, an eighth grader, and two other children were wounded when terrorists detonated a bomb against an Israeli schoolbus.
June 18: 19 people were killed and 74 wounded in a suicide bombing at the Patt junction in Egged bus no. 32A traveling from Gilo to the center of Jerusalem. The terrorist boarded the bus at the stop in Beit Safafa , an Arab neighborhood opposite Gilo, and almost immediately detonated the large bomb which he carried in a bag stuffed with ball bearings. The blast destroyed the front half of the bus, packed with people on their way to work and schoolchildren.
June 19: Seven people, including a 5 year old girl and her grandmother, were killed and 20 wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a crowded bus stop and hitchhiking post at the French Hill intersection in northern Jerusalem.
June 19: Avraham Eliyahu Nechmad, 17, from Rishon L'Tzion, died as a result of wounds suffered in the suicide bombing of 2 March 2002, becoming the 12th victim.
June 20: Five people, including a mother and three of her sons of the Shabo family, were murdered and four others wounded when a terrorist entered the community of Itamar and opened fire.

November 4: Two persons were killed when a Palestinian suicide bomber detonated at a Kfar Sava shopping mall.
November 6: Two Israeli farmers were shot to death and one wounded by a Palestinian terrorist posing as a worker near Pe'at Sadeh in the southern Gaza Strip. [14]
November 10: Five people, including a mother and her 4- and 5-year-old children, were shot and killed by a Fatah terrorist who infiltrated Kibbutz Metzer, located east of Hadera near the Green Line. The terrorist shot the mother and children as they hugged one another. [15]
November 15: terrorists open fire with automatic weapons and hand grenades at Jewish worshippers walking homr from prayers at the Cave of the Patriarchs. 12 people are killed and twenty wounded. Among the dead are nine military personnel. [16]
November 21: 11 people were killed and about 50 wounded in a suicide bombing on a No. 20 Egged bus in the Kiryat Menahem neighborhood of Jerusalem. Most of the victims were high-school students on their way to school.
November 28: Kenyan hotel bombing: Three Israelis, including two brothers, and 10 Kenyans killed when a car bomb exploded in the lobby of the Israeli-owned beachfront Paradise Hotel, frequented almost exclusively by Israeli tourists near Mombasa in Kenya. 21 Israelis and 60 Kenyans were wounded in the attack. Six Israelis were killed when two terrorists opened fire and threw grenades at the Likud polling station in Beit She'an, where party members were casting their votes in the Likud primary.

Recent Developments

June 24, 2002

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

July 22, 2002

IDF kills Salah Shehade , the leader of Hamas's "military wing", the Izz ad-Din el-Qasam Brigades

August 14, 2002

Marwan Barghouti, captured April 15, was indicted by a civilian Israeli court for murdering civilians and membership in a terrorist organisation.

March 16, 2003

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

March 19, 2003

Mahmoud Abbas appointed Prime Minister.

March 24, 2003

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

April 30, 2003

The details of the Road map for peace are released.

May 27, 2003

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

June 2, 2003

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

June 29, 2003

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

August 19, 2003

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

September 6, 2003

Mahmoud Abbas resigns from the post of Prime Minister.

October 16, 2004

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.

November 11, 2004

Yasser Arafat dies at the age of 75 in a hospital near Paris, after undergoing urgent medical treatment (since October 29, 2004).

Your American History Reference Guide! - Israeli-Palestinian conflict timeline

Israeli-Palestinian conflict timeline

British Era

November 2, 1917