October 5 2001
Israeli tanks and troops move into Palestinian-controlled areas of Hebron in the West Bank, killing at least five Palestinians and ending a tentative truce between the two sides.October 5 2001
American relations with Israel plunge to their lowest point in a decade, as the White House denounces as "unacceptable" statements by the Israeli prime minister comparing the US coalition-building in the Arab world with British appeasement of the Nazis in the 1930s.
October 7 2001
A suicide bomber blows himself up after being stopped by a suspicious Israeli motorist, killing both men, and overshadowing a first tentative effort by the Palestinians to arrest wanted militants.
October 8 2001
Palestinian police shoot dead two protesters in Gaza during a rally in support of Osama bin Laden. The deaths follow moves by Palestinian leaders to distance themselves from the terror suspect.
October 9 2001
Radical Palestinian groups bow to Yasser Arafat's iron fist yesterday and step back from an open revolt against their leader's support for Washington's war on Afghanistan.
October 11 2001
The Bush administration unveils a dramatic new blueprint for Middle East peace, envisaging Jerusalem as a shared capital for an Israeli and a Palestinian state.
October 13 2001
Tony Blair says that any military action in Afghanistan has to be balanced with progress in the peace process between Israel and Palestine.
October 14 2001
Israel undermines US and British efforts to solidify a Middle East truce by carrying out the first assassination of a Palestinian militant since the attacks on America on September 11.
October 15 2001
Israel withdraws tanks and troops from Palestinian neighbourhoods in the West Bank city of Hebron, following a meeting of Israeli and Palestinian security officials.
The prime minister, Tony Blair, gives his public backing to the creation of a Palestinian state following a meeting at 10 Downing Street with Yasser Arafat.
A Palestinian activist is blown up by a car bomb on his way to work in the West Bank city of Nablus - the second Israeli assassination in two days.
October 16 2001
The Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, struggles to shore up his coalition government after the resignation of two rightwing ministers.
October 17 2001
A rightwing Israeli minister is shot dead in a Jerusalem hotel by a Palestinian gunman, prompting fresh fears for the shaky truce between Palestinians and Israelis that was agreed only three weeks ago. The Syria-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine immediately claimed responsibility for murder of the far-right tourism minister, Rehavam Zeevi.
Israel demands that Yasser Arafat immediately hand over the killers of Zeevi. The ultimatum, delivered by Israel's security cabinet, also calls on Mr Arafat to outlaw militant groups such as the PFLP. If his Palestinian Authority does not, "there will be no choice but to view it as a state that supports terror and to act against it", says Gideon Saar, the cabinet secretary.
October 18 2001
Three Palestinian gunmen are killed in a car explosion blamed on Israel, and Israeli tanks roll into two West Bank towns as a first retribution for the assassination of cabinet minister Rehavam Zeevi.
October 19 2001
Violence intensifies across the West Bank, as Israeli tanks and troops move into Palestinian territory in raids aimed at thwarting revenge attacks for the killing of a local militia leader. After seizing large areas of Bethlehem, Ramallah, Nablus and Jenin, the Israeli army is waiting for an order to move in and conquer all of the Palestinian Authority.
October 20 2001
Israel forces enter two more West Bank towns in what is rapidly emerging as the most far reaching military operation in more than a year of fighting. In the face of growing international condemnation, eight Palestinians are killed by Israeli fire, including two women and a 15-year-old boy.
October 21 2001
Violence in the Middle East escalates as gun battles flare around the biblical town of Bethlehem. Three Palestinians are killed by Israeli gunfire, two at a nearby refugee camp and one near a hospital, Palestinians say.
October 22 2001
The US responds sharply to today's Israeli incursion into Palestinian territory. State department spokesman Philip Reeker criticises both the Israeli military action and subsequent civilian deaths. In an unambiguous statement he says: "Israeli defence forces should be withdrawn immediately from all Palestinian-controlled areas, and no further such incursions should be made."
After tightening its hold on six West Bank cities, Israel moves to stifle Palestinian voices, banning activists and leaders of radical groups from state radio and television. A top Hamas bomb maker on Israel's most-wanted list is blown up in his car in the West Bank city of Nablus, in the fourth Israeli assassination in nine days.
October 23 2001
Ariel Sharon provokes the most bruising confrontation with Washington since George Bush came to power, flatly rejecting a demand to end an occupation of Palestinian lands that threatens the survival of Yasser Arafat.
October 24 2001
Israel continues to defy US calls to pull troops out of Palestinian-controlled towns, with Israeli soldiers allegedly killing at least seven Palestinians and arresting four more in an overnight raid on a West Bank village. Since September 12, some 125 lives have been taken, the vast majority Palestinian.
October 25 2001
Israeli troops withdraw from a Palestinian village taken over during the hunt for the assassins of an Israeli cabinet minister. The withdrawal from the West Bank village of Beit Rima comes as the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, announces consultations about a further pullback from the six West Bank towns Israel reoccupied last week, to cries of international condemnation.
October 26 2001
Israel issues tough new conditions for a withdrawal of forces occupying Palestinian-ruled cities, flouting the US demand for a full and immediate retreat.
October 27 2001
Bowing to international pressure, Israel agrees to pull out its troops from Bethlehem, as a test case for other withdrawals from the six West Bank towns that it invaded in search of Palestinian militants. But later, in an unprecedented act of defiance of the United States and international opinion, Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, last night cancelled the withdrawal from Bethlehem, blaming continuing Palestinian violence.
October 28 2001
Palestinian militants open fire on a queue of people waiting at a bus stop in a northern Israeli town, killing four people. Israel begins to withdraw its forces from the Palestinian city of Bethlehem.
October 31 2001
The Israeli army storms into the West Bank, killing two Palestinians and arresting up to eight others suspected of plotting suicide attacks.
November 1 2001
Tony Blair ends his much-vaunted mission to the Middle East with a warning that the world faces disaster unless it stands back from a confrontation between Islam and the west. But after dispiriting face-to-face talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, there was little sign of any breakthrough.
November 2 2001
Downing Street strongly defends Tony Blair's whistle-stop tour of the Middle East which was criticised by the Tories as "unwise" after the prime minister was subjected to a public dressing down by the Syrian president.
November 3 2001
A Palestinian gunman sprays bullets at an Israeli bus, killing two passengers and injuring more than 35 before he is shot dead by armed Israelis.
November 5 2001
Israel withdraws tanks and troops from the West Bank Palestinian town of Qalqilya, in spite of the Palestinian attack in Jerusalem that left two teenagers dead.
November 6 2001
The Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, and his foreign minister, Shimon Peres, hold discussions on a new Middle East peace plan, officials say, raising hopes of a break in the deadlock.
November 7 2001
The Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, threatens to provoke a fresh row with the Palestinians by warning that he has a plan to bring a million more Jews to Israel. Mr Sharon makes controversial remarks in an exclusive interview with the Guardian.
Tony Blair arrives in Washington to urge President George Bush to launch a limited initiative to restart the Middle East peace process, as part of a drive to retain moderate Muslim support for the war against the Taliban.
November 8 2001
A Palestinian suicide bomber blows himself up as an elite Israeli anti-terrorist unit closes in on his hideout in a West Bank village.
November 12 2001
Israeli troops backed by tanks raid a Palestinian village in the West Bank and shoot dead an Islamic militant suspected of killing two Jewish settlers.
November 15 2001
Israeli troops and tanks raided a Gaza Strip refugee camp and a West Bank village early yesterday, killing one Palestinian and wounding at least 14. The incursions came as Shimon Peres, the Israeli foreign minister, told the United Nations that there was widespread consensus on the creation of a Palestinian state.
November 16 2001
Hizbullah says that the US secretly offered to forgive it for attacks on westerners in return for abandoning its struggle against Israel. The offer was rejected.
November 18 2001
The European Union feels the full brunt of Israel's hostility to diplomatic pressure as the prime minister, Ariel Sharon, refuses to countenance any shift in his hardline stance against resuming negotiations with the Palestinians.
November 19 2001
The US secretary of state, Colin Powell, embraces Washington's traditional role as mediator in the Middle East, but in a keynote speech he leaves the scope of American ambitions unclear. Meanwhile, the US signals its intention to impose a ceasefire between Israelis and Palestinians by dispatching a retired marine general to supervise peace talks between the two sides.
November 20 2001
Israel razes Palestinian homes in a Gaza refugee camp and fortifies an illegalJewish outpost in Hebron, a day after the US outlined its vision for Middle East peace.
November 21 2001
A judicial inquiry into the killings of 13 Arab citizens of the Jewish state, unarmed protesters who were shot dead by police snipers, enters a decisive phase after gathering evidence from the highest reaches of the Israeli establishment.
November 22 2001
Five Palestinian children are killed while walking to school by a powerful explosion in a refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip.
November 22 2001
The European commission announces action against what it regards as a customs fraud involving £140m-worth of items produced in Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
November 22 2001
Thirty Israelis with relatives killed in Palestinian terror attacks are to bring a case against Yasser Arafat in a Belgian court, taking advantage of a 1993 law which allows Belgium to try foreign nationals for war crimes committed abroad. Survivors of the Sabra and Shatila refugee camp massacres in Beirut 19 years ago have lodged a similar complaint against the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon.
November 23 2001
The majority of Israelis support the creation of a Palestinian state, according to a Gallup opinion in the Maariv newspaper. It suggests that 59% of Israelis support a Palestinian state, with just 36% opposed.
November 23 2001
A US peace mission to the Middle East today is thrown into disarray as Israel assassinates the most senior Hamas militant on its most wanted list.
November 23 2001
Israeli politicians round on their army after senior military sources admit soldiers probably planted the explosive device in a Gaza sand dune that killed five Palestinian schoolchildren.
November 25 2001
Israeli missiles hit Palestinian security posts and political offices in Gaza, inflaming passions ahead of the arrival today of two US peace envoys, and dangerously compromising their mission.
November 26 2001
A Hamas suicide bomber kills himself and injures two Israeli guards at a checkpoint close to a border crossing into the Gaza Strip.
November 26 2001
Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, greets a US peace mission by shunting aside the Jewish state's most seasoned negotiator, and replacing him with a battle-hardened general.
December 3 2001
Israel helicopter gunships fire missiles at targets near Yasser Arafat's headquarters in Gaza City.
December 3 2001
Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, warns Yasser Arafat that he was engaged in a war that could end in his own destruction.
December 3 2001
The Bush administration rejects calls for the US to rein in the government of Ariel Sharon, despite escalating Israeli attacks in the occupied territories, and reiterates its demand that Yasser Arafat do more to crack down on the Palestinian hardliners.
December 3 2001
Yasser Arafat's security forces have so far arrested more than 110 radical Muslims, taking a first step to satisfying Washington's demand for a crackdown on militants, but risking a confrontation with his own people.
December 4 2001
Israeli helicopters and jets hit Palestinian Authority targets in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, as Tel Aviv takes further retaliatory action for the killing of 25 people in three suicide bombings at the weekend.
December 4 2001
Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, puts his personal prestige on the line after bombing raids on Yasser Arafat's Gaza beachfront home opens up a rift with his moderate Labour allies.
December 4 2001
Washington closes down one of the biggest Islamic charities in the United States, and freezes the assets of two Palestinian financial organisations, accusing all three of funding Hamas extremists.
December 5 2001
The Israeli government agrees to a 12-hour pause in the offensive against the Palestinian Authority as its leader, Yasser Arafat, apparently bows to pressure to arrest senior members of the militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
December 5 2001
Israel is rocked by another explosion when a Palestinian suicide bomber blows himself up outside a hotel in central Jerusalem, injuring three bystanders.
December 6 2001
The Israeli foreign minister, Shimon Peres, postpones for a fortnight the decision whether to leave Ariel Sharon's coalition government in protest at his handling of the Palestinian crisis.
December 6 2001
Egypt and America ride to the rescue of Yasser Arafat, embarking on a day of frantic diplomacy to suspend the unrelenting Israeli military and political pressure that many fear could topple the Palestinian leader.
December 6 2001
Hundreds of supporters of the militant group Hamas clash with Palestinian riot police, throwing stones, firing in the air and burning a police jeep in a show of resistance to the intensifying crackdown on Islamic militants by the embattled Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat.
December 7 2001
Israel resumes air strikes against Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority, with bombers hitting a Palestinian police compound in Gaza, injuring at least 20 people.
December 9 2001
America explodes in exasperation at Yasser Arafat's failure to rein in Islamist militants and threatens to abandon its attempts to broker a truce.
December 10 2001
The Conservative leader, Iain Duncan Smith, launches an unexpected attack on the media, criticising the BBC and others for "fudging" the issue of Palestinian terrorism.
December 10 2001
A Palestinian three-year-old and a schoolboy are killed in a bungled Israeli assassination attempt, struck down by guided missiles only hours after Yasser Arafat secured a tentative promise from Palestinian militants to halt attacks inside the Jewish state.
December 10 2001
A dangerous fracture between Israel and its one million Arab citizens opens wider as one of the country's few Arab parliamentarians, Azmi Bishara, goes on trial charged with undermining the state.
December 12 2001
Palestinian militants ambush a bus of Jewish settlers, raking the fleeing passengers with gunfire and hand grenades, killing 10 people, and provoking swift Israeli retaliation from F-16 warplanes.
December 13 2001
Israeli helicopters pound Palestinian buildings in the West Bank and Gaza, in a campaign of political and military retaliation for deadly Palestinian attacks.
December 13 2001
Ariel Sharon takes the drastic step of breaking off all ties with Yasser Arafat, an act that brings closer a culmination of the 20-year feud between the two.
December 13 2001
Israeli tanks train their cannon on Yasser Arafat's besieged headquarters, but hold their fire, hesitating to take the fateful step of consigning the Palestinian leader to physical as well as political oblivion.
December 14 2001
The Israeli army drives deeper into Yasser Arafat's shrinking realm, storming four West Bank villages with tanks and helicopter gunships, killing eight Palestinians, and arresting more than 40 others.
December 15 2001
According to Downing Street sources, Tony Blair fears a major split with America over the Middle East peace process as Israel continues to bombard northern and southern parts of Gaza in its search for terrorist suspects.
December 16 2001
The US Middle East envoy, Anthony Zinni, returns to Washington from an aborted ceasefire mission which produced the most spectacular surge in violence in the 15 months of the Palestinian uprising.
December 16 2001
Yasser Arafat calls for an end to suicide bombing attacks against Israelis as he seeks to re-engage with the Jewish state and the international community from his besieged Ramallah headquarters.
December 17 2001
Israel responds to Yasser Arafat's call for an end to armed attacks on Israelis by assassinating a Hamas militant in the West Bank, and detaining a leading Palestinian peace activist in Jerusalem.
December 17 2001
Israel insists that it is not working behind the scenes to promote a successor to the beleaguered Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, whom it has done so much to undermine over the last few weeks.
December 19 2001
The Israeli government steps into the row over the French ambassador to London, Daniel Bernard, who is alleged to have spoken about "that shitty little country Israel".
December 19 2001
Israel and the Palestinian Authority officials hold talks on security arrangements after Yasser Arafat bows to pressure by arresting at least a dozen members of his own security service.
December 21 2001
The Palestinian militant group Hamas orders an end to suicide bombings and mortar attacks in Israel. In what may be regarded as a victory for the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, a senior Hamas official in the West Bank says the decision was made to preserve Palestinian unity.
December 24 2001
Israel bars Yasser Arafat from travelling to Bethlehem for his traditional attendance at midnight mass on Christmas eve, unless he arrests the two men Israel believes responsible for assassinating their travel minister in October.
December 25 2001
Israeli troops cross the border into Jordan in pursuit of gunmen who shot toward Israel, killing one soldier and injuring four.
December 27 2001
Israeli troops arrest at least 17 members of Yasser Arafat's police force and his Fatah movement in a pre-dawn raid on the West Bank village of Azun.
Israeli tanks and troops move into Palestinian-controlled areas of Hebron in the West Bank, killing at least five Palestinians and ending a tentative truce between the two sides.October 5 2001
American relations with Israel plunge to their lowest point in a decade, as the White House denounces as "unacceptable" statements by the Israeli prime minister comparing the US coalition-building in the Arab world with British appeasement of the Nazis in the 1930s.
October 7 2001
A suicide bomber blows himself up after being stopped by a suspicious Israeli motorist, killing both men, and overshadowing a first tentative effort by the Palestinians to arrest wanted militants.
October 8 2001
Palestinian police shoot dead two protesters in Gaza during a rally in support of Osama bin Laden. The deaths follow moves by Palestinian leaders to distance themselves from the terror suspect.
October 9 2001
Radical Palestinian groups bow to Yasser Arafat's iron fist yesterday and step back from an open revolt against their leader's support for Washington's war on Afghanistan.
October 11 2001
The Bush administration unveils a dramatic new blueprint for Middle East peace, envisaging Jerusalem as a shared capital for an Israeli and a Palestinian state.
October 13 2001
Tony Blair says that any military action in Afghanistan has to be balanced with progress in the peace process between Israel and Palestine.
October 14 2001
Israel undermines US and British efforts to solidify a Middle East truce by carrying out the first assassination of a Palestinian militant since the attacks on America on September 11.
October 15 2001
Israel withdraws tanks and troops from Palestinian neighbourhoods in the West Bank city of Hebron, following a meeting of Israeli and Palestinian security officials.
The prime minister, Tony Blair, gives his public backing to the creation of a Palestinian state following a meeting at 10 Downing Street with Yasser Arafat.
A Palestinian activist is blown up by a car bomb on his way to work in the West Bank city of Nablus - the second Israeli assassination in two days.
October 16 2001
The Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, struggles to shore up his coalition government after the resignation of two rightwing ministers.
October 17 2001
A rightwing Israeli minister is shot dead in a Jerusalem hotel by a Palestinian gunman, prompting fresh fears for the shaky truce between Palestinians and Israelis that was agreed only three weeks ago. The Syria-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine immediately claimed responsibility for murder of the far-right tourism minister, Rehavam Zeevi.
Israel demands that Yasser Arafat immediately hand over the killers of Zeevi. The ultimatum, delivered by Israel's security cabinet, also calls on Mr Arafat to outlaw militant groups such as the PFLP. If his Palestinian Authority does not, "there will be no choice but to view it as a state that supports terror and to act against it", says Gideon Saar, the cabinet secretary.
October 18 2001
Three Palestinian gunmen are killed in a car explosion blamed on Israel, and Israeli tanks roll into two West Bank towns as a first retribution for the assassination of cabinet minister Rehavam Zeevi.
October 19 2001
Violence intensifies across the West Bank, as Israeli tanks and troops move into Palestinian territory in raids aimed at thwarting revenge attacks for the killing of a local militia leader. After seizing large areas of Bethlehem, Ramallah, Nablus and Jenin, the Israeli army is waiting for an order to move in and conquer all of the Palestinian Authority.
October 20 2001
Israel forces enter two more West Bank towns in what is rapidly emerging as the most far reaching military operation in more than a year of fighting. In the face of growing international condemnation, eight Palestinians are killed by Israeli fire, including two women and a 15-year-old boy.
October 21 2001
Violence in the Middle East escalates as gun battles flare around the biblical town of Bethlehem. Three Palestinians are killed by Israeli gunfire, two at a nearby refugee camp and one near a hospital, Palestinians say.
October 22 2001
The US responds sharply to today's Israeli incursion into Palestinian territory. State department spokesman Philip Reeker criticises both the Israeli military action and subsequent civilian deaths. In an unambiguous statement he says: "Israeli defence forces should be withdrawn immediately from all Palestinian-controlled areas, and no further such incursions should be made."
After tightening its hold on six West Bank cities, Israel moves to stifle Palestinian voices, banning activists and leaders of radical groups from state radio and television. A top Hamas bomb maker on Israel's most-wanted list is blown up in his car in the West Bank city of Nablus, in the fourth Israeli assassination in nine days.
October 23 2001
Ariel Sharon provokes the most bruising confrontation with Washington since George Bush came to power, flatly rejecting a demand to end an occupation of Palestinian lands that threatens the survival of Yasser Arafat.
October 24 2001
Israel continues to defy US calls to pull troops out of Palestinian-controlled towns, with Israeli soldiers allegedly killing at least seven Palestinians and arresting four more in an overnight raid on a West Bank village. Since September 12, some 125 lives have been taken, the vast majority Palestinian.
October 25 2001
Israeli troops withdraw from a Palestinian village taken over during the hunt for the assassins of an Israeli cabinet minister. The withdrawal from the West Bank village of Beit Rima comes as the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, announces consultations about a further pullback from the six West Bank towns Israel reoccupied last week, to cries of international condemnation.
October 26 2001
Israel issues tough new conditions for a withdrawal of forces occupying Palestinian-ruled cities, flouting the US demand for a full and immediate retreat.
October 27 2001
Bowing to international pressure, Israel agrees to pull out its troops from Bethlehem, as a test case for other withdrawals from the six West Bank towns that it invaded in search of Palestinian militants. But later, in an unprecedented act of defiance of the United States and international opinion, Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, last night cancelled the withdrawal from Bethlehem, blaming continuing Palestinian violence.
October 28 2001
Palestinian militants open fire on a queue of people waiting at a bus stop in a northern Israeli town, killing four people. Israel begins to withdraw its forces from the Palestinian city of Bethlehem.
October 31 2001
The Israeli army storms into the West Bank, killing two Palestinians and arresting up to eight others suspected of plotting suicide attacks.
November 1 2001
Tony Blair ends his much-vaunted mission to the Middle East with a warning that the world faces disaster unless it stands back from a confrontation between Islam and the west. But after dispiriting face-to-face talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, there was little sign of any breakthrough.
November 2 2001
Downing Street strongly defends Tony Blair's whistle-stop tour of the Middle East which was criticised by the Tories as "unwise" after the prime minister was subjected to a public dressing down by the Syrian president.
November 3 2001
A Palestinian gunman sprays bullets at an Israeli bus, killing two passengers and injuring more than 35 before he is shot dead by armed Israelis.
November 5 2001
Israel withdraws tanks and troops from the West Bank Palestinian town of Qalqilya, in spite of the Palestinian attack in Jerusalem that left two teenagers dead.
November 6 2001
The Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, and his foreign minister, Shimon Peres, hold discussions on a new Middle East peace plan, officials say, raising hopes of a break in the deadlock.
November 7 2001
The Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, threatens to provoke a fresh row with the Palestinians by warning that he has a plan to bring a million more Jews to Israel. Mr Sharon makes controversial remarks in an exclusive interview with the Guardian.
Tony Blair arrives in Washington to urge President George Bush to launch a limited initiative to restart the Middle East peace process, as part of a drive to retain moderate Muslim support for the war against the Taliban.
November 8 2001
A Palestinian suicide bomber blows himself up as an elite Israeli anti-terrorist unit closes in on his hideout in a West Bank village.
November 12 2001
Israeli troops backed by tanks raid a Palestinian village in the West Bank and shoot dead an Islamic militant suspected of killing two Jewish settlers.
November 15 2001
Israeli troops and tanks raided a Gaza Strip refugee camp and a West Bank village early yesterday, killing one Palestinian and wounding at least 14. The incursions came as Shimon Peres, the Israeli foreign minister, told the United Nations that there was widespread consensus on the creation of a Palestinian state.
November 16 2001
Hizbullah says that the US secretly offered to forgive it for attacks on westerners in return for abandoning its struggle against Israel. The offer was rejected.
November 18 2001
The European Union feels the full brunt of Israel's hostility to diplomatic pressure as the prime minister, Ariel Sharon, refuses to countenance any shift in his hardline stance against resuming negotiations with the Palestinians.
November 19 2001
The US secretary of state, Colin Powell, embraces Washington's traditional role as mediator in the Middle East, but in a keynote speech he leaves the scope of American ambitions unclear. Meanwhile, the US signals its intention to impose a ceasefire between Israelis and Palestinians by dispatching a retired marine general to supervise peace talks between the two sides.
November 20 2001
Israel razes Palestinian homes in a Gaza refugee camp and fortifies an illegalJewish outpost in Hebron, a day after the US outlined its vision for Middle East peace.
November 21 2001
A judicial inquiry into the killings of 13 Arab citizens of the Jewish state, unarmed protesters who were shot dead by police snipers, enters a decisive phase after gathering evidence from the highest reaches of the Israeli establishment.
November 22 2001
Five Palestinian children are killed while walking to school by a powerful explosion in a refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip.
November 22 2001
The European commission announces action against what it regards as a customs fraud involving £140m-worth of items produced in Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
November 22 2001
Thirty Israelis with relatives killed in Palestinian terror attacks are to bring a case against Yasser Arafat in a Belgian court, taking advantage of a 1993 law which allows Belgium to try foreign nationals for war crimes committed abroad. Survivors of the Sabra and Shatila refugee camp massacres in Beirut 19 years ago have lodged a similar complaint against the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon.
November 23 2001
The majority of Israelis support the creation of a Palestinian state, according to a Gallup opinion in the Maariv newspaper. It suggests that 59% of Israelis support a Palestinian state, with just 36% opposed.
November 23 2001
A US peace mission to the Middle East today is thrown into disarray as Israel assassinates the most senior Hamas militant on its most wanted list.
November 23 2001
Israeli politicians round on their army after senior military sources admit soldiers probably planted the explosive device in a Gaza sand dune that killed five Palestinian schoolchildren.
November 25 2001
Israeli missiles hit Palestinian security posts and political offices in Gaza, inflaming passions ahead of the arrival today of two US peace envoys, and dangerously compromising their mission.
November 26 2001
A Hamas suicide bomber kills himself and injures two Israeli guards at a checkpoint close to a border crossing into the Gaza Strip.
November 26 2001
Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, greets a US peace mission by shunting aside the Jewish state's most seasoned negotiator, and replacing him with a battle-hardened general.
December 3 2001
Israel helicopter gunships fire missiles at targets near Yasser Arafat's headquarters in Gaza City.
December 3 2001
Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, warns Yasser Arafat that he was engaged in a war that could end in his own destruction.
December 3 2001
The Bush administration rejects calls for the US to rein in the government of Ariel Sharon, despite escalating Israeli attacks in the occupied territories, and reiterates its demand that Yasser Arafat do more to crack down on the Palestinian hardliners.
December 3 2001
Yasser Arafat's security forces have so far arrested more than 110 radical Muslims, taking a first step to satisfying Washington's demand for a crackdown on militants, but risking a confrontation with his own people.
December 4 2001
Israeli helicopters and jets hit Palestinian Authority targets in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, as Tel Aviv takes further retaliatory action for the killing of 25 people in three suicide bombings at the weekend.
December 4 2001
Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, puts his personal prestige on the line after bombing raids on Yasser Arafat's Gaza beachfront home opens up a rift with his moderate Labour allies.
December 4 2001
Washington closes down one of the biggest Islamic charities in the United States, and freezes the assets of two Palestinian financial organisations, accusing all three of funding Hamas extremists.
December 5 2001
The Israeli government agrees to a 12-hour pause in the offensive against the Palestinian Authority as its leader, Yasser Arafat, apparently bows to pressure to arrest senior members of the militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
December 5 2001
Israel is rocked by another explosion when a Palestinian suicide bomber blows himself up outside a hotel in central Jerusalem, injuring three bystanders.
December 6 2001
The Israeli foreign minister, Shimon Peres, postpones for a fortnight the decision whether to leave Ariel Sharon's coalition government in protest at his handling of the Palestinian crisis.
December 6 2001
Egypt and America ride to the rescue of Yasser Arafat, embarking on a day of frantic diplomacy to suspend the unrelenting Israeli military and political pressure that many fear could topple the Palestinian leader.
December 6 2001
Hundreds of supporters of the militant group Hamas clash with Palestinian riot police, throwing stones, firing in the air and burning a police jeep in a show of resistance to the intensifying crackdown on Islamic militants by the embattled Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat.
December 7 2001
Israel resumes air strikes against Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority, with bombers hitting a Palestinian police compound in Gaza, injuring at least 20 people.
December 9 2001
America explodes in exasperation at Yasser Arafat's failure to rein in Islamist militants and threatens to abandon its attempts to broker a truce.
December 10 2001
The Conservative leader, Iain Duncan Smith, launches an unexpected attack on the media, criticising the BBC and others for "fudging" the issue of Palestinian terrorism.
December 10 2001
A Palestinian three-year-old and a schoolboy are killed in a bungled Israeli assassination attempt, struck down by guided missiles only hours after Yasser Arafat secured a tentative promise from Palestinian militants to halt attacks inside the Jewish state.
December 10 2001
A dangerous fracture between Israel and its one million Arab citizens opens wider as one of the country's few Arab parliamentarians, Azmi Bishara, goes on trial charged with undermining the state.
December 12 2001
Palestinian militants ambush a bus of Jewish settlers, raking the fleeing passengers with gunfire and hand grenades, killing 10 people, and provoking swift Israeli retaliation from F-16 warplanes.
December 13 2001
Israeli helicopters pound Palestinian buildings in the West Bank and Gaza, in a campaign of political and military retaliation for deadly Palestinian attacks.
December 13 2001
Ariel Sharon takes the drastic step of breaking off all ties with Yasser Arafat, an act that brings closer a culmination of the 20-year feud between the two.
December 13 2001
Israeli tanks train their cannon on Yasser Arafat's besieged headquarters, but hold their fire, hesitating to take the fateful step of consigning the Palestinian leader to physical as well as political oblivion.
December 14 2001
The Israeli army drives deeper into Yasser Arafat's shrinking realm, storming four West Bank villages with tanks and helicopter gunships, killing eight Palestinians, and arresting more than 40 others.
December 15 2001
According to Downing Street sources, Tony Blair fears a major split with America over the Middle East peace process as Israel continues to bombard northern and southern parts of Gaza in its search for terrorist suspects.
December 16 2001
The US Middle East envoy, Anthony Zinni, returns to Washington from an aborted ceasefire mission which produced the most spectacular surge in violence in the 15 months of the Palestinian uprising.
December 16 2001
Yasser Arafat calls for an end to suicide bombing attacks against Israelis as he seeks to re-engage with the Jewish state and the international community from his besieged Ramallah headquarters.
December 17 2001
Israel responds to Yasser Arafat's call for an end to armed attacks on Israelis by assassinating a Hamas militant in the West Bank, and detaining a leading Palestinian peace activist in Jerusalem.
December 17 2001
Israel insists that it is not working behind the scenes to promote a successor to the beleaguered Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, whom it has done so much to undermine over the last few weeks.
December 19 2001
The Israeli government steps into the row over the French ambassador to London, Daniel Bernard, who is alleged to have spoken about "that shitty little country Israel".
December 19 2001
Israel and the Palestinian Authority officials hold talks on security arrangements after Yasser Arafat bows to pressure by arresting at least a dozen members of his own security service.
December 21 2001
The Palestinian militant group Hamas orders an end to suicide bombings and mortar attacks in Israel. In what may be regarded as a victory for the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, a senior Hamas official in the West Bank says the decision was made to preserve Palestinian unity.
December 24 2001
Israel bars Yasser Arafat from travelling to Bethlehem for his traditional attendance at midnight mass on Christmas eve, unless he arrests the two men Israel believes responsible for assassinating their travel minister in October.
December 25 2001
Israeli troops cross the border into Jordan in pursuit of gunmen who shot toward Israel, killing one soldier and injuring four.
December 27 2001
Israeli troops arrest at least 17 members of Yasser Arafat's police force and his Fatah movement in a pre-dawn raid on the West Bank village of Azun.