8 January 2001
Bill Clinton's last-ditch formula for a permanent settlement is rejected by the Palestinians. The President will leave the White House in 12 days, his dream of Middle East peace unfulfilled.10 January 2001
The Israeli Peace Now movement accuses the government and security forces of running a policy of selective assassination of Palestinian leaders deemed to be security threats. There have been ten such killings so far.
21 January 2001
A Jewish settler who clubbed an Arab child to death with a rifle butt is sentenced to six months' community service. Human rights organisations are outraged by the sentence.
28 January 2001
Ehud Barak breaks off peace talks with the Palestinians until after the prime ministerial election on February 6. Most opinion polls show his rightwing opponent Ariel Sharon as the clear front runner.
6 February 2001
Prime minister Ehud Barak concedes defeat after exit polls show a landslide victory for Ariel Sharon.
9 February 2001
Israeli tanks pound Palestinian gunmen in the most ferocious clashes for weeks yesterday as the new Bush administration in Washington disowns months of dogged effort by President Bill Clinton to deliver a peace deal in the Middle East.
14 February 2001
Israel reimposes a total blockade on the occupied territories, following the deaths of 14 February 2001 eight soldiers and civilians, killed when a Palestinian bus driver ploughs his vehicle into a waiting queue. President George Bush condemns the attack, but pointedly refuses to take sides.
20 February 2001
Defeated prime minister Ehud Barak executes one of his famous political u-turns, announcing that he will not after all serve as defence minister in Ariel Sharon's incoming coalition government.
27 February 2001
Veteran Labour leader Shimon Peres talks the party into joining Ariel Sharon's rightwing government of national unity. He himself will be foreign minister.
4 March 2001
A Palestinian suicide bomber blows himself up in the coastal town of Netanya, killing himself and three passers-by, and wounding more than 60 others.
7 March 2001
Ariel Sharon formally takes office as Israeli prime minister, heading a fragile seven-party coalition and a government team comprising a third of the 120-member Knesset.
26 March 2001
A Palestinian sniper shoots dead a 10-month-old Jewish baby in her father's arms, in the flashpoint West Bank town of Hebron. The town is home to 120,000 Palestinians, and 400 hardline Jewish settlers.
3 April 2001
Israeli helicopter gunships hunt own and rocket an Islamic Jihad commander in the Gaza Strip, the first such assassination since Ariel Sharon became prime minister.
16 April 2001
Israel launches air, sea and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip, capping a day that sees tensions climb sharply all over the Middle East.
16 April 2001
Israeli rightwingers respond angrily to news that Ariel Sharon has used his businesman son Omri, aged 36, as a secret emissary to Yasser Arafat.
17 April 2001
For the first time since the intifada erupted, Israeli troops seize back land controlled by the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and divide the territory into three parts.
5 May 2001
A draft report by former US senator George Mitchell, who has been investigating the causes of Middle East violence, condemns the expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.
6 May 2001
The Pope, visiting Syria, becomes the first pontiff to enter a mosque. Also, he gets caught up in a row over allegedly anti-semitic remarks by Syrian president, Bashar Assad.
8 May 2001
Iman Hijjo becomes the youngest victim of the intifada, killed by shrapnel from an Israeli tank shell at the age of four months. The shelling, at Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip, was in retaliation for a Palestinian mortar attack.
9 May 2001
Two 14-year-old Israeli boys are found bludgeoned to death in a cave near a Jewish West Bank settlement.
14 May 2001
Israeli troops kill five Palestinian policemen manning a checkpoint in the West Bank and launch a major bombardment of security targets in the Gaza Strip. Thousands of Palestinians gather outside a West Bank hospital chanting for revenge.
16 May 2001
A senior Israeli official admits that the five Palestinian policemen shot dead two days ago, were killed in error "caused by bad information".
18 May 2001
A Palestinian suicide bomber kills himself and five Israelis at a shopping mall in the northern coastal town of Netanya. More than 40 people are wounded. In retaliation Israel bombs the West Bank towns of Nablus and Ramallah with F-16 warplanes - the first such use of airpower against the occupied territories.
21 May 2001
In his long awaited report on the Middle East conflict, former US senator George Mitchell calls for an immediate ceasefire, to be followed by confidence building measures and ultimately by renewed peace negotiations. Mitchell also calls for a freeze on expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.
21 May 2001
The EU accuses Israel of using "disproportionate" force in the occupied territories and calls on it to dismantle illegal Jewish settlements.
22 May 2001
Ariel Sharon rejects the Mitchell report's call for a freeze on Jewish settlement expansion in the occupied territories. He describes the settlements as " a vital national enterprise".
25 May 2001
Three suicide bombers blow themselves up in two separate attacks, in Hadera in Israel and a security outpost in the Gaza Strip. At least 20 Israelis are wounded.
31 May 2001 Faisal Husseini, the most prominent Palestinian leader in Jerusalem, dies suddenly of a heart attack during a visit to Kuwait.
1 June 2001
A suicide bomber kills 19 young Israelis at a popular seafront discotheque at the Dolphinarium in Tel Aviv. As Israeli mobs chant "death to the Arabs", Yasser Arafat orders his forces in the occupied territories to enforce a ceasefire.
10 June 2001
The latest ceasefire is thrown into doubt after an Israeli tank shell kills three Bedouin Arab women in a tent in the Gaza Strip.
13 June 2001
A new and fragile ceasefire takes shape, after talks chaired by CIA director George Tenet. It calls on Yasser Arafat to clamp down on militants, and on Israel to withdraw from territory seized during the intifada.
14 June 2001
Israeli officials furiously attack the BBC for a Panorama programme which concluded that the prime minister, Ariel Sharon, could be tried for war crimes in connection with the massacre of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon in 1982.
26 June 2001
Disagreements over key issues mark the second meeting in three months between the US president, George Bush, and the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon.
28 June 2001
The Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, achieves a stunning diplomatic coup when he wins the support of the United States for a monitoring force to oversee a Middle East ceasefire.
2 July 2001
Two car bombs explode in central Israel, hours after three Palestinian militants are killed in by Israeli helicopter gunships. Israeli ministers say they will continue the policy of "targeted killings".
4 July 2001
The Israeli security cabinet votes after four hours of heated debate to give the army almost complete freedom in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to liquidate anyone it regards as a potential terrorist.
5 July 2001
The Israeli government coalition is in turmoil after a row over the previously unthinkable option of whether to launch a massive military strike to topple the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat. Two rightwing ministers, pushing for the harder line against Mr Arafat, say they will boycott the cabinet indefinitely because of its failure to agree a military strike.
17 July 2001
Israel sends tanks and infantry units into the West Bank after a day that saw the military assassination of four alleged Palestinian militants, mortar attacks and widespread small arms clashes.
19 July 2001
Israel rejects a call from the G8 summit in Genoa for international observers to monitor its somewhat theoretical ceasefire with the Palestinian National Authority.
19 July 2001
Three Palestinians, including a three-month-old baby, are killed by Jewish extremists near Hebron. A shadowy group calling itself the Committee for Safety on the Roads is thought responsible.
25 July 2001
Israeli troops assassinate a Hamas militant with anti-tank missiles near the West Bank city of Nablus.
30 July 2001
Six Palestinian activists in Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement are killed in an explosion at a refugee camp near the West Bank city of Nablus. Palestinians blame the Israeli army, but Israeli officials say the deaths were a "work accident" - the euphemistic jargon for the premature explosion of a bomb.
31 July 2001
Eight Palestinians are killed when an Israeli helicopter rockets an office of the militant Islamic group Hamas in the West Bank town of Nablus. The dead include Jamal Mansour, the leading Hamas figure on the West Bank, and two young children. Hamas vows bloody revenge.
2 August 2001
Six Israeli soldiers are remanded in custody, charged with severely beating nine Palestinian taxi passengers. It is the first time in the 10-month uprising that Israeli military has taken such action, in spite of scores of complaints of alleged excesses.
4 August 2001
Israel's strategy of assassinating Palestinian political and military leaders moves to within one rung of Yasser Arafat, as two missiles narrowly miss a car carrying Marwan Barghouti the man who rules the streets of the West Bank.
5 August 2001
A Palestinian gunman, firing an automatic rifle from a car, shoots 10 people, most of them soldiers, on a busy street outside Israel's defence ministry in central Tel Aviv. The gunman is hit by return fire and fatally wounded. A second gunman opens fire on Jewish settlers in the West Bank, killing a pregnant woman and wounding three others. Hours later, Israeli helicopters fire missiles in the West Bank town of Tulkarem and kill the Hamas activist Amer Mansour Habiri in his car.
6 August 2001
Israeli officials name seven Palestinians on the top of what they call their 'pinpoint prevention' list - targets for assassination. Since the intifada began, some 40 political and paramilitary leaders have been executed without trial.
9 August 2001
A suicide bomber blows himself up in a crowded pizza restaurant in central Jerusalem, killing 15 people and wounding 90. At least six of the dead are children. Responsibility is later claimed by the militant Islamist group Hamas. Palestinian president Yasser Arafat condemns the bombing and calls on Israel to declare a joint ceasefire after more than 10 months of bloodshed.
10 August 2001
Missiles fired from Israeli warplanes level the headquarters of the Palestinian police in the West Bank city of Ramallah, in retaliation for the Jerusalem suicide bombing. At the same time, special forces seize the offices of the Palestine Liberation Organisation at Orient House in occupied east Jerusalem.
12 August 2001
A Palestinian suicide bomber brings the intifada to Israel's heartland, blowing himself up in a suburban cafe near Haifa and wounding 15 people, one of them seriously.
14 August 2001
Israeli tanks move into the West Bank city of Jenin and open fire on the Palestinian police station, destroying it. It is the biggest incursion into Palestinian-controlled territory since Yasser Arafat's forces started to take over in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1994. The 'invasion' is strongly criticised by Washington, which is coming under increasing pressure to step up its intermediary role in the region.
15 August 2001
Israeli troops kill a Palestinian militia leader, Emad Abu Sneineh, in a roadside ambush as part of the policy of targeted killings of suspected terrorists.
17 August 2001
An opinion poll in an Israeli newspaper suggests that popular support for prime minister Ariel Sharon is plummeting - because he is considered too soft on the Palestinians.
22 August 2001
Israeli commando forces kill at least four Palestinians in the West Bank town of Nablus. The army says its unit foiled a bomb attack by Palestinian militants, while Palestinian officials said that three of the dead were unarmed villagers.
25 August 2001
Guerillas infiltrate an Israeli post in the Gaza Strip, killing three soldiers. The attack is claimed by the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, one of the smaller secular groups. Three Israeli civilians are killed in two shootings in the occupied West Bank.
26 August 2001
Israeli F-16 and F-15 warplanes pulverise security installations in Gaza and the West Bank as a shaken military exacts revenge for the deadliest - and most audacious - Palestinian attack in 11 months.
27 August 2001
A high ranking Palestinian is killed in an Israeli shell attack on his office. Abu Ali Mustafa, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, is the highest-ranking Palestinian official so far targeted for assassination.
28 August 2001
Israeli troops move into the West Bank town of Beit Jala, near the southern outskirts of Jerusalem. The Israeli government says its forces would remain for "as long as it is needed". The incursion caps four days of bloody attacks and reprisals in which eight Israelis and six Palestinians were killed. The US and Britain strongly condemn the Israeli action.
29 August 2001
Israel and the Palestinians reach a tentative ceasefire agreement in the West Bank town of Beit Jala , and Israel says it might withdraw its forces if the truce holds for several hours. The day began with fierce gun battles in the town and the adjacent Palestinian refugee camp of Aida, which left 13 Palestinians wounded, two of them seriously.
1 September 2001
An aide to the Gaza Strip intelligence chief is killed by a bomb under the seat of his car. Palestinian officials accuse Israel of ordering the assassination. Colonel Taiseer Khatab, who was in his early fifties, was driving to his office in north Gaza. Two other people were wounded.
4 September 2001
A suicide bomber kills himself and injured 20 others in an attack near a school in Jerusalem. Witnesses say he was disguised as an observant Jew and spoke to two policemen, who had asked to see his ID, seconds before the blast. The bomber's head rolled into the grounds of the Lycee Francais, a French-language school.
7 September 2001
Israel is poised to rewrite the map of the West Bank by banning Palestinians from a swathe of land next to the green line that divides the occupied territories from the Jewish state. Under the plans, Palestinians will be barred from approaching the Green Line unless they hold a pass from Israeli authorities. Those who disobey - especially at night when a curfew would be in place - could be shot.
9 September 2001
A middle-aged man from Galilee carries out the first suicide attack by an Arab citizen of the Jewish state yesterday, on a day of bombings, drive-by shootings and helicopter gunship strikes. Eight people are killed in three separate attacks within the space of five hours. The intifada death toll now stands at more than 750, in less than a year.
11 September 2001
Israeli-Palestinian peace talks stall as Israel sends tanks into Palestinian territory in the West Bank. Two dozen Israeli tanks take up positions outside the town of Jenin and an adjacent refugee camp, which Israel claims is the source of recent suicide bomb attacks.
On September 11, suicide bombers in hijacked airliners attacked the eastern seaboard of the United States, destroying the World Trade Centre and part of the Pentagon. Comprehensive coverage of the atrocities and their aftermath can be found on our range of special reports:
Special report: terrorism in the US
Special report: US terror attacks: Britain's response
Special report: Afghanistan
Special report: Israel and the Middle East
12 September 2001
Israeli tanks enter the desert town of Jericho in the second invasion of a Palestinian-ruled town in 48 hours. The Jericho operation comes hours after fierce gun battles in the northern town of Jenin, where at least seven Palestinians, including a young girl, were killed. It was the worst bloodshed for several weeks. Palestinian officals say the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, is exploiting the fact that the international community is focusing on the aftermath of the carnage in the US to use ever greater military force against the Palestinians.
15 September 2001
Israeli forces make a major incursion into the Gaza Strip. Helicopters fire missiles into a Palestinian security compound in Gaza City, and also hit a security position in the Nisart refugee camp just outside the city. The Israeli forces also fire ground-to-ground missiles into a police station in Rafah, a town at the southern end of Gaza on the border with Egypt. In other violence in Gaza, two Palestinians are killed in a clash between Israeli tanks and Palestinian gunmen at Khan Younis.
16 September 2001
Israel becomes as an early stumbling block to Washington's plans to recruit Arab states to a broad war coalition as the prime minister, Ariel Sharon, rebuffs US calls for ceasefire talks, and orders the third invasion of a Palestinian-ruled city - Ramallah - in less than a week. European countries, including Britain, fear that Israel is using the international focus on events in the US as a cover for punitive actions against the Palestinians that contravene international law.
17 September 2001
Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, defies US pressure to hold ceasefire talks with the Palestinians, saying he will not sacrifice national interests for Washington's desire to forge a broad war coalition. In one of a series of interviews conveying the same message, Mr Sharon told the Jerusalem Post yesterday: "I have made it clear to the administration as well as to a list of countries in Europe, that while stability in the Middle East is important to them, and is very important to Israel, we will not pay the price for that stability. We will simply not pay it."
18 September 2001
The Israeli army says it has been ordered to withdraw from areas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that are supposed to be under full Palestinian control. The order was given after the Palestinian president, Yasser Arafat, reaffirmed his commitment to a ceasefire and announced the unprecedented step of ordering his security forces not to fire on Israeli troops even in self-defence. Both sides are responding enormous pressure from Washington.
September 19 2001
Palestinian gunmen kill an Israeli woman and seriously wounded her husband in a West Bank road ambush that could destroy the fragile, two-day-old truce.
September 23 2001
The ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinians suffers another setback today as Israel cancels a meeting between its foreign minister, Shimon Peres, and the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
September 25 2001
The Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, is to meet the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, following a 15-minute phone call between Mr Sharon and the prime minister, Tony Blair. Mr Sharon had earlier called off the meeting because of remarks Mr Straw made in an article for an Iranian newspaper.
September 26 2001
Israeli and Palestinian negotiators agree on a series of confidence-building measures aimed at ending a year of fighting. The deal comes after the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, finally succumbs to international - particularly US - pressure and allows high level ceasefire talks to proceed. The fragility of the deal is immediately underscored by a bomb attack on an Israeli army outpost and the killing of two Palestinians.
27 September 2001
Israeli tanks thunder into a refugee camp in southern Gaza as five Palestinians are killed by tank shells and gunfire, plunging the newborn truce into jeopardy.
September 28 2001
Thousands of Palestinians mark the first anniversary of their intifada, or uprising, against Israel with marches, prayers and three minutes of silence.
October 2 2001
Palestinian gunmen storm a heavily fortified Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip, killing two settlers and injuring 14, in an audacious attack that threatens to bury a much-violated truce.
October 2 2001
President George Bush announces a dramatic break with America's previous Middle East policy, saying that he is prepared to back the creation of a Palestinian state.
October 3 2001
Israeli troops kill six Palestinians and wounded several others today as the military launches revenge attacks for the previous night's raid on a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip.
October 4 2001
A Palestinian militant disguised as an Israeli soldier opens fire on travellers at a bus station in a central Israeli town, killing three people and wounding eight before being shot dead by police.
October 4 2001
A passenger jet flying from Israel to Siberia explodes in midair today before crashing into the Black sea coast off Russia, killing at least 76 people on board.
Bill Clinton's last-ditch formula for a permanent settlement is rejected by the Palestinians. The President will leave the White House in 12 days, his dream of Middle East peace unfulfilled.10 January 2001
The Israeli Peace Now movement accuses the government and security forces of running a policy of selective assassination of Palestinian leaders deemed to be security threats. There have been ten such killings so far.
21 January 2001
A Jewish settler who clubbed an Arab child to death with a rifle butt is sentenced to six months' community service. Human rights organisations are outraged by the sentence.
28 January 2001
Ehud Barak breaks off peace talks with the Palestinians until after the prime ministerial election on February 6. Most opinion polls show his rightwing opponent Ariel Sharon as the clear front runner.
6 February 2001
Prime minister Ehud Barak concedes defeat after exit polls show a landslide victory for Ariel Sharon.
9 February 2001
Israeli tanks pound Palestinian gunmen in the most ferocious clashes for weeks yesterday as the new Bush administration in Washington disowns months of dogged effort by President Bill Clinton to deliver a peace deal in the Middle East.
14 February 2001
Israel reimposes a total blockade on the occupied territories, following the deaths of 14 February 2001 eight soldiers and civilians, killed when a Palestinian bus driver ploughs his vehicle into a waiting queue. President George Bush condemns the attack, but pointedly refuses to take sides.
20 February 2001
Defeated prime minister Ehud Barak executes one of his famous political u-turns, announcing that he will not after all serve as defence minister in Ariel Sharon's incoming coalition government.
27 February 2001
Veteran Labour leader Shimon Peres talks the party into joining Ariel Sharon's rightwing government of national unity. He himself will be foreign minister.
4 March 2001
A Palestinian suicide bomber blows himself up in the coastal town of Netanya, killing himself and three passers-by, and wounding more than 60 others.
7 March 2001
Ariel Sharon formally takes office as Israeli prime minister, heading a fragile seven-party coalition and a government team comprising a third of the 120-member Knesset.
26 March 2001
A Palestinian sniper shoots dead a 10-month-old Jewish baby in her father's arms, in the flashpoint West Bank town of Hebron. The town is home to 120,000 Palestinians, and 400 hardline Jewish settlers.
3 April 2001
Israeli helicopter gunships hunt own and rocket an Islamic Jihad commander in the Gaza Strip, the first such assassination since Ariel Sharon became prime minister.
16 April 2001
Israel launches air, sea and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip, capping a day that sees tensions climb sharply all over the Middle East.
16 April 2001
Israeli rightwingers respond angrily to news that Ariel Sharon has used his businesman son Omri, aged 36, as a secret emissary to Yasser Arafat.
17 April 2001
For the first time since the intifada erupted, Israeli troops seize back land controlled by the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and divide the territory into three parts.
5 May 2001
A draft report by former US senator George Mitchell, who has been investigating the causes of Middle East violence, condemns the expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.
6 May 2001
The Pope, visiting Syria, becomes the first pontiff to enter a mosque. Also, he gets caught up in a row over allegedly anti-semitic remarks by Syrian president, Bashar Assad.
8 May 2001
Iman Hijjo becomes the youngest victim of the intifada, killed by shrapnel from an Israeli tank shell at the age of four months. The shelling, at Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip, was in retaliation for a Palestinian mortar attack.
9 May 2001
Two 14-year-old Israeli boys are found bludgeoned to death in a cave near a Jewish West Bank settlement.
14 May 2001
Israeli troops kill five Palestinian policemen manning a checkpoint in the West Bank and launch a major bombardment of security targets in the Gaza Strip. Thousands of Palestinians gather outside a West Bank hospital chanting for revenge.
16 May 2001
A senior Israeli official admits that the five Palestinian policemen shot dead two days ago, were killed in error "caused by bad information".
18 May 2001
A Palestinian suicide bomber kills himself and five Israelis at a shopping mall in the northern coastal town of Netanya. More than 40 people are wounded. In retaliation Israel bombs the West Bank towns of Nablus and Ramallah with F-16 warplanes - the first such use of airpower against the occupied territories.
21 May 2001
In his long awaited report on the Middle East conflict, former US senator George Mitchell calls for an immediate ceasefire, to be followed by confidence building measures and ultimately by renewed peace negotiations. Mitchell also calls for a freeze on expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.
21 May 2001
The EU accuses Israel of using "disproportionate" force in the occupied territories and calls on it to dismantle illegal Jewish settlements.
22 May 2001
Ariel Sharon rejects the Mitchell report's call for a freeze on Jewish settlement expansion in the occupied territories. He describes the settlements as " a vital national enterprise".
25 May 2001
Three suicide bombers blow themselves up in two separate attacks, in Hadera in Israel and a security outpost in the Gaza Strip. At least 20 Israelis are wounded.
31 May 2001 Faisal Husseini, the most prominent Palestinian leader in Jerusalem, dies suddenly of a heart attack during a visit to Kuwait.
1 June 2001
A suicide bomber kills 19 young Israelis at a popular seafront discotheque at the Dolphinarium in Tel Aviv. As Israeli mobs chant "death to the Arabs", Yasser Arafat orders his forces in the occupied territories to enforce a ceasefire.
10 June 2001
The latest ceasefire is thrown into doubt after an Israeli tank shell kills three Bedouin Arab women in a tent in the Gaza Strip.
13 June 2001
A new and fragile ceasefire takes shape, after talks chaired by CIA director George Tenet. It calls on Yasser Arafat to clamp down on militants, and on Israel to withdraw from territory seized during the intifada.
14 June 2001
Israeli officials furiously attack the BBC for a Panorama programme which concluded that the prime minister, Ariel Sharon, could be tried for war crimes in connection with the massacre of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon in 1982.
26 June 2001
Disagreements over key issues mark the second meeting in three months between the US president, George Bush, and the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon.
28 June 2001
The Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, achieves a stunning diplomatic coup when he wins the support of the United States for a monitoring force to oversee a Middle East ceasefire.
2 July 2001
Two car bombs explode in central Israel, hours after three Palestinian militants are killed in by Israeli helicopter gunships. Israeli ministers say they will continue the policy of "targeted killings".
4 July 2001
The Israeli security cabinet votes after four hours of heated debate to give the army almost complete freedom in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to liquidate anyone it regards as a potential terrorist.
5 July 2001
The Israeli government coalition is in turmoil after a row over the previously unthinkable option of whether to launch a massive military strike to topple the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat. Two rightwing ministers, pushing for the harder line against Mr Arafat, say they will boycott the cabinet indefinitely because of its failure to agree a military strike.
17 July 2001
Israel sends tanks and infantry units into the West Bank after a day that saw the military assassination of four alleged Palestinian militants, mortar attacks and widespread small arms clashes.
19 July 2001
Israel rejects a call from the G8 summit in Genoa for international observers to monitor its somewhat theoretical ceasefire with the Palestinian National Authority.
19 July 2001
Three Palestinians, including a three-month-old baby, are killed by Jewish extremists near Hebron. A shadowy group calling itself the Committee for Safety on the Roads is thought responsible.
25 July 2001
Israeli troops assassinate a Hamas militant with anti-tank missiles near the West Bank city of Nablus.
30 July 2001
Six Palestinian activists in Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement are killed in an explosion at a refugee camp near the West Bank city of Nablus. Palestinians blame the Israeli army, but Israeli officials say the deaths were a "work accident" - the euphemistic jargon for the premature explosion of a bomb.
31 July 2001
Eight Palestinians are killed when an Israeli helicopter rockets an office of the militant Islamic group Hamas in the West Bank town of Nablus. The dead include Jamal Mansour, the leading Hamas figure on the West Bank, and two young children. Hamas vows bloody revenge.
2 August 2001
Six Israeli soldiers are remanded in custody, charged with severely beating nine Palestinian taxi passengers. It is the first time in the 10-month uprising that Israeli military has taken such action, in spite of scores of complaints of alleged excesses.
4 August 2001
Israel's strategy of assassinating Palestinian political and military leaders moves to within one rung of Yasser Arafat, as two missiles narrowly miss a car carrying Marwan Barghouti the man who rules the streets of the West Bank.
5 August 2001
A Palestinian gunman, firing an automatic rifle from a car, shoots 10 people, most of them soldiers, on a busy street outside Israel's defence ministry in central Tel Aviv. The gunman is hit by return fire and fatally wounded. A second gunman opens fire on Jewish settlers in the West Bank, killing a pregnant woman and wounding three others. Hours later, Israeli helicopters fire missiles in the West Bank town of Tulkarem and kill the Hamas activist Amer Mansour Habiri in his car.
6 August 2001
Israeli officials name seven Palestinians on the top of what they call their 'pinpoint prevention' list - targets for assassination. Since the intifada began, some 40 political and paramilitary leaders have been executed without trial.
9 August 2001
A suicide bomber blows himself up in a crowded pizza restaurant in central Jerusalem, killing 15 people and wounding 90. At least six of the dead are children. Responsibility is later claimed by the militant Islamist group Hamas. Palestinian president Yasser Arafat condemns the bombing and calls on Israel to declare a joint ceasefire after more than 10 months of bloodshed.
10 August 2001
Missiles fired from Israeli warplanes level the headquarters of the Palestinian police in the West Bank city of Ramallah, in retaliation for the Jerusalem suicide bombing. At the same time, special forces seize the offices of the Palestine Liberation Organisation at Orient House in occupied east Jerusalem.
12 August 2001
A Palestinian suicide bomber brings the intifada to Israel's heartland, blowing himself up in a suburban cafe near Haifa and wounding 15 people, one of them seriously.
14 August 2001
Israeli tanks move into the West Bank city of Jenin and open fire on the Palestinian police station, destroying it. It is the biggest incursion into Palestinian-controlled territory since Yasser Arafat's forces started to take over in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1994. The 'invasion' is strongly criticised by Washington, which is coming under increasing pressure to step up its intermediary role in the region.
15 August 2001
Israeli troops kill a Palestinian militia leader, Emad Abu Sneineh, in a roadside ambush as part of the policy of targeted killings of suspected terrorists.
17 August 2001
An opinion poll in an Israeli newspaper suggests that popular support for prime minister Ariel Sharon is plummeting - because he is considered too soft on the Palestinians.
22 August 2001
Israeli commando forces kill at least four Palestinians in the West Bank town of Nablus. The army says its unit foiled a bomb attack by Palestinian militants, while Palestinian officials said that three of the dead were unarmed villagers.
25 August 2001
Guerillas infiltrate an Israeli post in the Gaza Strip, killing three soldiers. The attack is claimed by the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, one of the smaller secular groups. Three Israeli civilians are killed in two shootings in the occupied West Bank.
26 August 2001
Israeli F-16 and F-15 warplanes pulverise security installations in Gaza and the West Bank as a shaken military exacts revenge for the deadliest - and most audacious - Palestinian attack in 11 months.
27 August 2001
A high ranking Palestinian is killed in an Israeli shell attack on his office. Abu Ali Mustafa, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, is the highest-ranking Palestinian official so far targeted for assassination.
28 August 2001
Israeli troops move into the West Bank town of Beit Jala, near the southern outskirts of Jerusalem. The Israeli government says its forces would remain for "as long as it is needed". The incursion caps four days of bloody attacks and reprisals in which eight Israelis and six Palestinians were killed. The US and Britain strongly condemn the Israeli action.
29 August 2001
Israel and the Palestinians reach a tentative ceasefire agreement in the West Bank town of Beit Jala , and Israel says it might withdraw its forces if the truce holds for several hours. The day began with fierce gun battles in the town and the adjacent Palestinian refugee camp of Aida, which left 13 Palestinians wounded, two of them seriously.
1 September 2001
An aide to the Gaza Strip intelligence chief is killed by a bomb under the seat of his car. Palestinian officials accuse Israel of ordering the assassination. Colonel Taiseer Khatab, who was in his early fifties, was driving to his office in north Gaza. Two other people were wounded.
4 September 2001
A suicide bomber kills himself and injured 20 others in an attack near a school in Jerusalem. Witnesses say he was disguised as an observant Jew and spoke to two policemen, who had asked to see his ID, seconds before the blast. The bomber's head rolled into the grounds of the Lycee Francais, a French-language school.
7 September 2001
Israel is poised to rewrite the map of the West Bank by banning Palestinians from a swathe of land next to the green line that divides the occupied territories from the Jewish state. Under the plans, Palestinians will be barred from approaching the Green Line unless they hold a pass from Israeli authorities. Those who disobey - especially at night when a curfew would be in place - could be shot.
9 September 2001
A middle-aged man from Galilee carries out the first suicide attack by an Arab citizen of the Jewish state yesterday, on a day of bombings, drive-by shootings and helicopter gunship strikes. Eight people are killed in three separate attacks within the space of five hours. The intifada death toll now stands at more than 750, in less than a year.
11 September 2001
Israeli-Palestinian peace talks stall as Israel sends tanks into Palestinian territory in the West Bank. Two dozen Israeli tanks take up positions outside the town of Jenin and an adjacent refugee camp, which Israel claims is the source of recent suicide bomb attacks.
On September 11, suicide bombers in hijacked airliners attacked the eastern seaboard of the United States, destroying the World Trade Centre and part of the Pentagon. Comprehensive coverage of the atrocities and their aftermath can be found on our range of special reports:
Special report: terrorism in the US
Special report: US terror attacks: Britain's response
Special report: Afghanistan
Special report: Israel and the Middle East
12 September 2001
Israeli tanks enter the desert town of Jericho in the second invasion of a Palestinian-ruled town in 48 hours. The Jericho operation comes hours after fierce gun battles in the northern town of Jenin, where at least seven Palestinians, including a young girl, were killed. It was the worst bloodshed for several weeks. Palestinian officals say the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, is exploiting the fact that the international community is focusing on the aftermath of the carnage in the US to use ever greater military force against the Palestinians.
15 September 2001
Israeli forces make a major incursion into the Gaza Strip. Helicopters fire missiles into a Palestinian security compound in Gaza City, and also hit a security position in the Nisart refugee camp just outside the city. The Israeli forces also fire ground-to-ground missiles into a police station in Rafah, a town at the southern end of Gaza on the border with Egypt. In other violence in Gaza, two Palestinians are killed in a clash between Israeli tanks and Palestinian gunmen at Khan Younis.
16 September 2001
Israel becomes as an early stumbling block to Washington's plans to recruit Arab states to a broad war coalition as the prime minister, Ariel Sharon, rebuffs US calls for ceasefire talks, and orders the third invasion of a Palestinian-ruled city - Ramallah - in less than a week. European countries, including Britain, fear that Israel is using the international focus on events in the US as a cover for punitive actions against the Palestinians that contravene international law.
17 September 2001
Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, defies US pressure to hold ceasefire talks with the Palestinians, saying he will not sacrifice national interests for Washington's desire to forge a broad war coalition. In one of a series of interviews conveying the same message, Mr Sharon told the Jerusalem Post yesterday: "I have made it clear to the administration as well as to a list of countries in Europe, that while stability in the Middle East is important to them, and is very important to Israel, we will not pay the price for that stability. We will simply not pay it."
18 September 2001
The Israeli army says it has been ordered to withdraw from areas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that are supposed to be under full Palestinian control. The order was given after the Palestinian president, Yasser Arafat, reaffirmed his commitment to a ceasefire and announced the unprecedented step of ordering his security forces not to fire on Israeli troops even in self-defence. Both sides are responding enormous pressure from Washington.
September 19 2001
Palestinian gunmen kill an Israeli woman and seriously wounded her husband in a West Bank road ambush that could destroy the fragile, two-day-old truce.
September 23 2001
The ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinians suffers another setback today as Israel cancels a meeting between its foreign minister, Shimon Peres, and the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
September 25 2001
The Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, is to meet the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, following a 15-minute phone call between Mr Sharon and the prime minister, Tony Blair. Mr Sharon had earlier called off the meeting because of remarks Mr Straw made in an article for an Iranian newspaper.
September 26 2001
Israeli and Palestinian negotiators agree on a series of confidence-building measures aimed at ending a year of fighting. The deal comes after the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, finally succumbs to international - particularly US - pressure and allows high level ceasefire talks to proceed. The fragility of the deal is immediately underscored by a bomb attack on an Israeli army outpost and the killing of two Palestinians.
27 September 2001
Israeli tanks thunder into a refugee camp in southern Gaza as five Palestinians are killed by tank shells and gunfire, plunging the newborn truce into jeopardy.
September 28 2001
Thousands of Palestinians mark the first anniversary of their intifada, or uprising, against Israel with marches, prayers and three minutes of silence.
October 2 2001
Palestinian gunmen storm a heavily fortified Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip, killing two settlers and injuring 14, in an audacious attack that threatens to bury a much-violated truce.
October 2 2001
President George Bush announces a dramatic break with America's previous Middle East policy, saying that he is prepared to back the creation of a Palestinian state.
October 3 2001
Israeli troops kill six Palestinians and wounded several others today as the military launches revenge attacks for the previous night's raid on a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip.
October 4 2001
A Palestinian militant disguised as an Israeli soldier opens fire on travellers at a bus station in a central Israeli town, killing three people and wounding eight before being shot dead by police.
October 4 2001
A passenger jet flying from Israel to Siberia explodes in midair today before crashing into the Black sea coast off Russia, killing at least 76 people on board.