April 1Tanks are put outside Tulkarem and Bethlehem, Palestinian collaborators are lynched by militants and, in an ominous sign, Iranian-backed Hizbullah guerrillas in Lebanon fired a Katyusha rocket into Israel. Yasser Arafat spends his fourth day under siege, with George Bush calling on him to do more to "denounce" terror.
April 2
Israeli warplanes, armour and infantry launch a huge attack on Bethlehem as Ariel Sharon pushes ahead with the second phase of his five-day long assault on Palestinian targets. Gunships fire missiles into a number of targets around Manger Square and the Church of the Nativity with witnesses describing desperate close quarter fighting in the old part of Bethlehem.
April 3
The attack on Bethlehem and siege of Ramallah continue as diplomatic tensions grow. The Vatican denounces the military operation on the West Bank and Egypt limits its ties with Israel. More rockets are fired into norhern Israel by Hizbollah fighters on the Lebanese border and Syria announces it is to deploy 20,000 troops in the country.
April 4
The US president, George Bush, tells Mr Sharon to end West Bank occupation and blames Mr Arafat for failing to halt a wave of suicide bombings. There are fears of wider conflict as the army pushes on to Nablus, the Bethlehem standoff goes on and troops enter Hebron.
April 5
Against a backdrop of continuing gun battles in major West Bank towns, General Zinni, the US envoy, becomes the first international representative to meet Mr Arafat since he was confined to his Ramallah headquarters last week. West Bank residents are once more forced to stay indoors.
April 6
President Bush calls on Israel to withdraw "without delay" from the West Bank cities. He reinforces the message with a 20-minute phone call to the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon. Meanwhile, bloody fighting rages between Israeli forces and Palestinians and Israel launches artillery attacks and air raids in southern Lebanon.
April 8
Ariel Sharon, says he will complete his military operation against Yasser Arafat's "regime of terror", a move that directly defies US calls to pull troops out of the West Bank immediately. Israeli soldiers open fire on Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity.
The US secretary of state, Colin Powell,is publicly rebuked by the Moroccan leader, King Mohammed VI, for his week-long delay in going to Israel.
April 9
Thirteen soldiers are killed in a West Bank battle, the Israeli army's single biggest loss of life since the fighting began 18 months previously. The men are killed in a booby-trapped building during an assault on Palestinian militants in the Jenin refugee camp.
April 10
A Palestinian suicide bomber kills eight Israelis in an attack on a crowded bus, as Israeli forces hunting Palestinian militants move deeper into two West Bank refugee camps. Meanwhile, an Armenian Orthodox monk is shot and seriously wounded at Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity compound, where more than 200 Palestinian gunmen are besieged by the Israeli army.
In the worst violence in the area since Israel withdrew from south Lebanon two years earlier, Hizbullah guerrillas exchange fire with Israeli troops and war planes along the Lebanese border.
Hundreds of Palestinians surrender in al-Ayn refugee camp after 13 days of intense battles with Israeli troops.
April 11
Israeli forces sweep into two towns and a refugee camp in the West Bank but pull out of 24 other villages, sending mixed signals ahead of the arrival of Colin Powell.
Mr Powell, insists that a negotiated settlement to the Middle East conflict is the only way to secure lasting peace in the region.
April 12
At least six people are killed when a suicide bomber detonates her bomb by a bus stop in central Jerusalem. A further 84 people are wounded by the explosion.
Colin Powell, fails to secure an immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from the West Bank after holding talks with Ariel Sharon.
April 13
Yasser Arafat condemns terrorism in a statement put out by a Palestinian news agency after meeting Colin Powell.
April 14
Ariel Sharon offers Palestinian gunmen trapped in an armed standoff in Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity the choice of surrendering and being tried in an Israeli military court, or going into exile "forever".
April 15
The leader of the Palestinian intifada, Marwan Barghouti, is seized by Israeli special forces from a house not far from Yasser Arafat's compound in Ramallah. Meanwhile journalists enter the Jenin refugee camp, seeing a "silent wasteland".
April 16
Colin Powell says he is making "progress" in securing a ceasefire.
April 17
Colin Powell leaves the Middle East with neither a truce nor any evidence that Israel is ending its siege of Palestinian cities in the West Bank.
April 18
Israel gives its fullest account of its soldiers' conduct in Jenin so far, admitting 10% of the buildings in the city's refugee camp had been levelled during the fighting, but denying in the strongest terms that they had overseen a "massacre".
April 19
George Bush calls for a probe into civilian casualties in the assault on the Jenin refugee camp.
April 20
Israel says it has nothing to hide from a UN investigation into Palestinian accusations of a massacre in the camp.
April 21
Israeli tanks and armour redeploy around the cities of Nablus and Ramallah as Ariel Sharon says the first stage of the offensive has ended.
April 22
The International Committee of the Red Cross accuses Israel of breaching the Geneva conventions by recklessly endangering civilian lives and property during its assault on the Jenin refugee camp
April 23
Three 14-year-old Palestinian classmates are shot dead by Israeli soldiers after they try to mount a suicide attack on a Jewish settlement in Gaza.
Talks begin to end the siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Meanwhile Israel blocks a proposed UN investigation into the fighting in the Jenin refugee camp and three suspected informers are killed by Palestinian militants in Hebron.
April 25
Yasser Arafat moves to end his month-long incarceration within his Ramallah headquarters by putting on trial and sentencing four Palestinian militants wanted by Israel for assassinating a cabinet minister last year. Nine young Palestinians leave the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem.
US-Saudi talks begin in George Bush's Texas ranch.
April 26
Israeli forces raid the West Bank city of Qalqiliya, defying fresh calls from George Bush to complete their pullout from reoccupied Palestinian areas.
April 27
Two Palestinian guerrillas, reportedly dressed in Israeli army uniforms, shoot dead four Israelis, including a child, in a settlement near Hebron.
April 28
Ariel Sharon bows to intense pressure from George Bush to end the stand-off in Ramallah and backs down from his previous position that the six wanted militants in Yasser Arafat's compound must be handed over to Israel. Instead he accepts a plan putting them under US and British guard in a Palestinian prison. But the impasse grows over the proposed UN mission to Jenin.
April 29
British and American experts begin talks with Palestinian officials in Ramallah to arrange the transfer of six prisoners to joint UK and US custody in return for Israel lifting its month-long siege of Yasser Arafat's headquarters. In Hebron nine Palestinians, including six civilians, are killed when Israel attacks a security compound in the city. Israeli snipers kill a Palestinian in the Church of the Nativity.
April 30
Israel again refuses to cooperate with the UN inquiry into the fighting in the Jenin refugee camp. Meanwhile, 27 Palestinians left the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.
May 1
Yasser Arafat's five-month imprisonment in his Ramallah headquarters draws to an end as the Palestinians hand over six high-profile prisoners to Anglo-American custody.
May 2
Mr Arafat emerges from confinement.
May 5
A deal to end the siege of the Church of the Nativity is brokered - the fighters will be released with the allegedly most hardened going into exile in Italy and the others to Gaza.
May 7
The deal stalls as it emerges Italy has not agreed to the exile plan.
A suicide bomber kills 15 people in an attack on a snooker hall near Tel Aviv. Hamas claims responsibility: the group's attack coincides with Ariel Sharon's talks with George Bush.
May 8
Mr Arafat pledges to root out terrorists planning attacks on Israeli citizens. Another suicide bomber detonates his explosives near Haifa but fails to kill anyone, including himself.
Mr Sharon renews his pledge to exile Mr Arafat - the Palestinian leader says he would rather die in the West Bank.
May 9
A new deal to end the Bethlehem siege is drawn up by EU negotiators that would see the fighters exiled in several countries after first flying to Cyprus. Ending the siege is widely seen as a precursor to an Israeli military offensive in Gaza in retaliation for the suicide attack on the snooker hall.
May 10
The siege ends. Thirteen fighters are flown to Cyprus.
May 12
Mr Sharon loses a Likud vote to his rival Binyamin Netanyahu: after hours of debate the prime minister's party rejects forever the setting up of Palestinian state in land currently occupied by Israel.
It is revealed that Israel has thwarted a Jewish extremist plot to blow up a Palestinian hospital and a girls' school in Arab east Jerusalem, arresting the bombers as they attempted to install their high-powered explosives
May 13
Anger flares at the Jenin refugee camp when Mr Arafat snubs a waiting crowd of several thousand Palestinians by cutting them out of his West Bank tour at the last minute. Some tear up posters of the Palestinian leader in disgust.
Mr Arafat later tells CNN that foreign powers are supporting suicide bombers but does not name them. He says his aim is to reign the bombers in.
May 14
A report by an Israeli human rights group says the Jewish state has secretly grabbed 42% of Palestinian land in the West Bank for illegal settlement activity.
May 15
In a speech to the Palestinian assembly Mr Arafat promises reform and elections in an attempt to win over his people and end criticism at home and abroad of his corruption-riddled administration.
May 16
An adviser to Mr Arafat says the Palestinian leader has agreed to fresh presidential elections in six months.
May 17
Israel makes a new raid on the Jenin refugee camp.
May 19
A suicide bomber, dressed as an Israeli soldier, attacks a fruit and vegetable market in Netanya, killing at least three people.
May 20
An Israeli official alleges that the head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, who is under British and US custody in Jericho, was behind the Netanya attack.
Meanwhile Israel claims that the Palestinian Authority has been diverting almost £6.8m a month from money provided by international donors. Papers seized during raids on its buildings purports to show that money received in dollars from the EU and Arab countries was converted by the PA into shekels at an exchange rate that was well adrift of the normal official rate.
May 21
Mr Sharon sacks four ultra-orthodox ministers from his coalition government after they failed to back his austere budget cuts in parliament.
May 22
The 12 Palestinian fighters from the siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem are dispersed across Europe after being flown from their temporary refuge in Cyprus amid tight security.
May 27
A suicide bomber kills an elderly woman and a small girl, injuring 30 others, in an attack on an ice cream parlour. The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claims responsibility.
May 28
Yasser Arafat cheesy puffs are proving a big hit in Egypt.
May 29
Jack Straw demands an explanation from Israel about the use of British equipment in Israeli tanks and attack helicopters, the two main weapons used against Palestinians in the occupied territories.
May 31
Israeli troops enter the West Bank city of Nablus, while the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is reported to have signed a law reform package which is a framework for a Palestinian constitution.
June 3
The Palestinian supreme court releases a Palestinian faction leader, Ahmed Saadat, held under British and American guard at a jail in Jericho.
June 5
A Palestinian suicide bomber detonates a car packed with explosives next to an Israeli bus crammed with soldiers and civilians at Megiddo junction, killing 17. Within hours Israeli helicopter gunships attack Jenin and tank columns move to its outlying areas.
June 6
A six-hour wrecking mission by Israeli tanks flattens Yasser Arafat's Rammallah headquarters. No building in the compound remains intact - not even Mr Arafat's bedroom, which sports a large crater in the wall.
June 7
Tanks return to Jenin and Israeli forces also patrol the southern edge of Bethlehem but do not enter the town.
June 9
Responding to international pressure to reform the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat sacks almost half his cabinet on the eve of Ariel Sharon's meeting in Washington with George Bush.
The Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, calls on Mr Bush to give Mr Arafat "a chance" and set a timetable for the creation of a Palestinian state.
June 10
Israeli tanks and troops make a pre-dawn raid on Ramallah and declare a curfew. In Washington, George Bush backs Israel's demand that the Palestinian leadership be overhauled before meaningful peace talks can begin.
Mr Bush says he will not lay down a timetable for the creation of a Palestinian state.
June 11
A bomb explodes near a road outside the West Bank city of Hebron, injuring three Israeli teenagers, one seriously, who were preparing to board a bus.
June 12
US moves to launch a Middle East peace initiative are thrown into disarray by a split between the president, George Bush, and the secretary of state, Colin Powell.
Lawyers acting for the Palestinian politician credited with being a key organiser of the intifada say he is being "systematically tortured" while in Israeli detention.
Meanwhile, Israeli police investigate reports that an illegal gambling ring is taking bets on the location of the next suicide bombing.
June 14
Israeli bulldozers fence off some Palestinian areas.
June 17
A Palestinian suicide bomber blows himself up near a group of Israeli border police, killing himself but causing no injury to bystanders.
June 17
The Palestinian Authority is condemned by the US national security adviser, Condoleezza, Rice as a "corrupt" body that "cavorts with terror".
June 18
At least 20 people are killed and more than 40 wounded, including several schoolchildren, when a suicide bomber blows himself up on a crowded bus in Jerusalem during the morning rush hour.
Israel says it will reoccupy Palestinian land on the West Bank and hold it indefinitely in reprisal for the bombing.
June 19
Jerusalem is shaken by the second suicide bombing in two days and Israeli helicopter gunships launch immediate strikes on Palestinian refugee camps in retaliation.
George Bush postpones plans for a major foreign policy speech that had been expected to back a timetable and conditions for Palestinian statehood.
June 20
Yasser Arafat orders his people not to attack Israeli civilians. He said recent suicide bombs "have given the Israeli government the excuse to reoccupy our land".
June 21
Four civilians who inadvertently broke a curfew in Jenin are "mistakenly" shot dead by the Israeli army. Hours earlier five Israeli settlers were killed in the West Bank.
The Israeli Ha'aretz newspaper reports that Yasser Arafat is now prepared to accept a peace plan proposed by Bill Clinton at Taba, Egypt, in January 2001 but the deal is no longer on the table.
June 24
Ariel Sharon says he plans "massive activity" against Hamas but by far the most important events are happening on the other side of the Atlantic in the White House as George Bush reveals his plans for an eventual Palestinian state.
Mr Bush says he supports a two-state solution to the conflict but demands the Palestinians reform their institutions, set up a western-style democracy and replace their leader. There is, however, no clear timetable for the creation of a Palestinian state, no call for Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and no move to send international monitors.
June 25
Israeli troops storm the Palestinian Authority headquarters in Hebron. The invasion brings the total of reoccupied cities to seven, leaving only Jericho, isolated in the Jordan valley, under effective Palestinian control.
June 26
A Palestinian cabinet minister, Saeb Erekat, announces elections for Yasser Arafat's job in January 2003 and details planned reforms to the Palestinian Authority. Meanwhile, as the G8 summit begins in Canada reports emerge of a US-Europe split on George Bush's demands that Mr Arafat is replaced as Palestinian leader.
June 27
The Israeli army warns Palestinian fighters sheltering in a Hebron compound - a former British military base - to come out or face a raid by its soldiers. The compound is already under attack from machine guns and helicopter gunships.
June 28
Israeli troops attempt to demolish the building with a bulldozer.
June 29
An explosion destroys the building. Israel says that the 15 men it believes to be inside are dead.
The EU is to launch a Middle East peace initiative amid fears that George Bush's policy switch has left a dangerous vacuum in the region, it is reported.
June 30
Israeli security forces begin the removal of two illegal Jewish settler outposts in the West Bank after the leftwing defence minister, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, vows to dismantle the rogue communities.
Colin Powell renounces Yasser Arafat.
April 2
Israeli warplanes, armour and infantry launch a huge attack on Bethlehem as Ariel Sharon pushes ahead with the second phase of his five-day long assault on Palestinian targets. Gunships fire missiles into a number of targets around Manger Square and the Church of the Nativity with witnesses describing desperate close quarter fighting in the old part of Bethlehem.
April 3
The attack on Bethlehem and siege of Ramallah continue as diplomatic tensions grow. The Vatican denounces the military operation on the West Bank and Egypt limits its ties with Israel. More rockets are fired into norhern Israel by Hizbollah fighters on the Lebanese border and Syria announces it is to deploy 20,000 troops in the country.
April 4
The US president, George Bush, tells Mr Sharon to end West Bank occupation and blames Mr Arafat for failing to halt a wave of suicide bombings. There are fears of wider conflict as the army pushes on to Nablus, the Bethlehem standoff goes on and troops enter Hebron.
April 5
Against a backdrop of continuing gun battles in major West Bank towns, General Zinni, the US envoy, becomes the first international representative to meet Mr Arafat since he was confined to his Ramallah headquarters last week. West Bank residents are once more forced to stay indoors.
April 6
President Bush calls on Israel to withdraw "without delay" from the West Bank cities. He reinforces the message with a 20-minute phone call to the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon. Meanwhile, bloody fighting rages between Israeli forces and Palestinians and Israel launches artillery attacks and air raids in southern Lebanon.
April 8
Ariel Sharon, says he will complete his military operation against Yasser Arafat's "regime of terror", a move that directly defies US calls to pull troops out of the West Bank immediately. Israeli soldiers open fire on Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity.
The US secretary of state, Colin Powell,is publicly rebuked by the Moroccan leader, King Mohammed VI, for his week-long delay in going to Israel.
April 9
Thirteen soldiers are killed in a West Bank battle, the Israeli army's single biggest loss of life since the fighting began 18 months previously. The men are killed in a booby-trapped building during an assault on Palestinian militants in the Jenin refugee camp.
April 10
A Palestinian suicide bomber kills eight Israelis in an attack on a crowded bus, as Israeli forces hunting Palestinian militants move deeper into two West Bank refugee camps. Meanwhile, an Armenian Orthodox monk is shot and seriously wounded at Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity compound, where more than 200 Palestinian gunmen are besieged by the Israeli army.
In the worst violence in the area since Israel withdrew from south Lebanon two years earlier, Hizbullah guerrillas exchange fire with Israeli troops and war planes along the Lebanese border.
Hundreds of Palestinians surrender in al-Ayn refugee camp after 13 days of intense battles with Israeli troops.
April 11
Israeli forces sweep into two towns and a refugee camp in the West Bank but pull out of 24 other villages, sending mixed signals ahead of the arrival of Colin Powell.
Mr Powell, insists that a negotiated settlement to the Middle East conflict is the only way to secure lasting peace in the region.
April 12
At least six people are killed when a suicide bomber detonates her bomb by a bus stop in central Jerusalem. A further 84 people are wounded by the explosion.
Colin Powell, fails to secure an immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from the West Bank after holding talks with Ariel Sharon.
April 13
Yasser Arafat condemns terrorism in a statement put out by a Palestinian news agency after meeting Colin Powell.
April 14
Ariel Sharon offers Palestinian gunmen trapped in an armed standoff in Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity the choice of surrendering and being tried in an Israeli military court, or going into exile "forever".
April 15
The leader of the Palestinian intifada, Marwan Barghouti, is seized by Israeli special forces from a house not far from Yasser Arafat's compound in Ramallah. Meanwhile journalists enter the Jenin refugee camp, seeing a "silent wasteland".
April 16
Colin Powell says he is making "progress" in securing a ceasefire.
April 17
Colin Powell leaves the Middle East with neither a truce nor any evidence that Israel is ending its siege of Palestinian cities in the West Bank.
April 18
Israel gives its fullest account of its soldiers' conduct in Jenin so far, admitting 10% of the buildings in the city's refugee camp had been levelled during the fighting, but denying in the strongest terms that they had overseen a "massacre".
April 19
George Bush calls for a probe into civilian casualties in the assault on the Jenin refugee camp.
April 20
Israel says it has nothing to hide from a UN investigation into Palestinian accusations of a massacre in the camp.
April 21
Israeli tanks and armour redeploy around the cities of Nablus and Ramallah as Ariel Sharon says the first stage of the offensive has ended.
April 22
The International Committee of the Red Cross accuses Israel of breaching the Geneva conventions by recklessly endangering civilian lives and property during its assault on the Jenin refugee camp
April 23
Three 14-year-old Palestinian classmates are shot dead by Israeli soldiers after they try to mount a suicide attack on a Jewish settlement in Gaza.
Talks begin to end the siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Meanwhile Israel blocks a proposed UN investigation into the fighting in the Jenin refugee camp and three suspected informers are killed by Palestinian militants in Hebron.
April 25
Yasser Arafat moves to end his month-long incarceration within his Ramallah headquarters by putting on trial and sentencing four Palestinian militants wanted by Israel for assassinating a cabinet minister last year. Nine young Palestinians leave the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem.
US-Saudi talks begin in George Bush's Texas ranch.
April 26
Israeli forces raid the West Bank city of Qalqiliya, defying fresh calls from George Bush to complete their pullout from reoccupied Palestinian areas.
April 27
Two Palestinian guerrillas, reportedly dressed in Israeli army uniforms, shoot dead four Israelis, including a child, in a settlement near Hebron.
April 28
Ariel Sharon bows to intense pressure from George Bush to end the stand-off in Ramallah and backs down from his previous position that the six wanted militants in Yasser Arafat's compound must be handed over to Israel. Instead he accepts a plan putting them under US and British guard in a Palestinian prison. But the impasse grows over the proposed UN mission to Jenin.
April 29
British and American experts begin talks with Palestinian officials in Ramallah to arrange the transfer of six prisoners to joint UK and US custody in return for Israel lifting its month-long siege of Yasser Arafat's headquarters. In Hebron nine Palestinians, including six civilians, are killed when Israel attacks a security compound in the city. Israeli snipers kill a Palestinian in the Church of the Nativity.
April 30
Israel again refuses to cooperate with the UN inquiry into the fighting in the Jenin refugee camp. Meanwhile, 27 Palestinians left the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.
May 1
Yasser Arafat's five-month imprisonment in his Ramallah headquarters draws to an end as the Palestinians hand over six high-profile prisoners to Anglo-American custody.
May 2
Mr Arafat emerges from confinement.
May 5
A deal to end the siege of the Church of the Nativity is brokered - the fighters will be released with the allegedly most hardened going into exile in Italy and the others to Gaza.
May 7
The deal stalls as it emerges Italy has not agreed to the exile plan.
A suicide bomber kills 15 people in an attack on a snooker hall near Tel Aviv. Hamas claims responsibility: the group's attack coincides with Ariel Sharon's talks with George Bush.
May 8
Mr Arafat pledges to root out terrorists planning attacks on Israeli citizens. Another suicide bomber detonates his explosives near Haifa but fails to kill anyone, including himself.
Mr Sharon renews his pledge to exile Mr Arafat - the Palestinian leader says he would rather die in the West Bank.
May 9
A new deal to end the Bethlehem siege is drawn up by EU negotiators that would see the fighters exiled in several countries after first flying to Cyprus. Ending the siege is widely seen as a precursor to an Israeli military offensive in Gaza in retaliation for the suicide attack on the snooker hall.
May 10
The siege ends. Thirteen fighters are flown to Cyprus.
May 12
Mr Sharon loses a Likud vote to his rival Binyamin Netanyahu: after hours of debate the prime minister's party rejects forever the setting up of Palestinian state in land currently occupied by Israel.
It is revealed that Israel has thwarted a Jewish extremist plot to blow up a Palestinian hospital and a girls' school in Arab east Jerusalem, arresting the bombers as they attempted to install their high-powered explosives
May 13
Anger flares at the Jenin refugee camp when Mr Arafat snubs a waiting crowd of several thousand Palestinians by cutting them out of his West Bank tour at the last minute. Some tear up posters of the Palestinian leader in disgust.
Mr Arafat later tells CNN that foreign powers are supporting suicide bombers but does not name them. He says his aim is to reign the bombers in.
May 14
A report by an Israeli human rights group says the Jewish state has secretly grabbed 42% of Palestinian land in the West Bank for illegal settlement activity.
May 15
In a speech to the Palestinian assembly Mr Arafat promises reform and elections in an attempt to win over his people and end criticism at home and abroad of his corruption-riddled administration.
May 16
An adviser to Mr Arafat says the Palestinian leader has agreed to fresh presidential elections in six months.
May 17
Israel makes a new raid on the Jenin refugee camp.
May 19
A suicide bomber, dressed as an Israeli soldier, attacks a fruit and vegetable market in Netanya, killing at least three people.
May 20
An Israeli official alleges that the head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, who is under British and US custody in Jericho, was behind the Netanya attack.
Meanwhile Israel claims that the Palestinian Authority has been diverting almost £6.8m a month from money provided by international donors. Papers seized during raids on its buildings purports to show that money received in dollars from the EU and Arab countries was converted by the PA into shekels at an exchange rate that was well adrift of the normal official rate.
May 21
Mr Sharon sacks four ultra-orthodox ministers from his coalition government after they failed to back his austere budget cuts in parliament.
May 22
The 12 Palestinian fighters from the siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem are dispersed across Europe after being flown from their temporary refuge in Cyprus amid tight security.
May 27
A suicide bomber kills an elderly woman and a small girl, injuring 30 others, in an attack on an ice cream parlour. The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claims responsibility.
May 28
Yasser Arafat cheesy puffs are proving a big hit in Egypt.
May 29
Jack Straw demands an explanation from Israel about the use of British equipment in Israeli tanks and attack helicopters, the two main weapons used against Palestinians in the occupied territories.
May 31
Israeli troops enter the West Bank city of Nablus, while the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is reported to have signed a law reform package which is a framework for a Palestinian constitution.
June 3
The Palestinian supreme court releases a Palestinian faction leader, Ahmed Saadat, held under British and American guard at a jail in Jericho.
June 5
A Palestinian suicide bomber detonates a car packed with explosives next to an Israeli bus crammed with soldiers and civilians at Megiddo junction, killing 17. Within hours Israeli helicopter gunships attack Jenin and tank columns move to its outlying areas.
June 6
A six-hour wrecking mission by Israeli tanks flattens Yasser Arafat's Rammallah headquarters. No building in the compound remains intact - not even Mr Arafat's bedroom, which sports a large crater in the wall.
June 7
Tanks return to Jenin and Israeli forces also patrol the southern edge of Bethlehem but do not enter the town.
June 9
Responding to international pressure to reform the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat sacks almost half his cabinet on the eve of Ariel Sharon's meeting in Washington with George Bush.
The Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, calls on Mr Bush to give Mr Arafat "a chance" and set a timetable for the creation of a Palestinian state.
June 10
Israeli tanks and troops make a pre-dawn raid on Ramallah and declare a curfew. In Washington, George Bush backs Israel's demand that the Palestinian leadership be overhauled before meaningful peace talks can begin.
Mr Bush says he will not lay down a timetable for the creation of a Palestinian state.
June 11
A bomb explodes near a road outside the West Bank city of Hebron, injuring three Israeli teenagers, one seriously, who were preparing to board a bus.
June 12
US moves to launch a Middle East peace initiative are thrown into disarray by a split between the president, George Bush, and the secretary of state, Colin Powell.
Lawyers acting for the Palestinian politician credited with being a key organiser of the intifada say he is being "systematically tortured" while in Israeli detention.
Meanwhile, Israeli police investigate reports that an illegal gambling ring is taking bets on the location of the next suicide bombing.
June 14
Israeli bulldozers fence off some Palestinian areas.
June 17
A Palestinian suicide bomber blows himself up near a group of Israeli border police, killing himself but causing no injury to bystanders.
June 17
The Palestinian Authority is condemned by the US national security adviser, Condoleezza, Rice as a "corrupt" body that "cavorts with terror".
June 18
At least 20 people are killed and more than 40 wounded, including several schoolchildren, when a suicide bomber blows himself up on a crowded bus in Jerusalem during the morning rush hour.
Israel says it will reoccupy Palestinian land on the West Bank and hold it indefinitely in reprisal for the bombing.
June 19
Jerusalem is shaken by the second suicide bombing in two days and Israeli helicopter gunships launch immediate strikes on Palestinian refugee camps in retaliation.
George Bush postpones plans for a major foreign policy speech that had been expected to back a timetable and conditions for Palestinian statehood.
June 20
Yasser Arafat orders his people not to attack Israeli civilians. He said recent suicide bombs "have given the Israeli government the excuse to reoccupy our land".
June 21
Four civilians who inadvertently broke a curfew in Jenin are "mistakenly" shot dead by the Israeli army. Hours earlier five Israeli settlers were killed in the West Bank.
The Israeli Ha'aretz newspaper reports that Yasser Arafat is now prepared to accept a peace plan proposed by Bill Clinton at Taba, Egypt, in January 2001 but the deal is no longer on the table.
June 24
Ariel Sharon says he plans "massive activity" against Hamas but by far the most important events are happening on the other side of the Atlantic in the White House as George Bush reveals his plans for an eventual Palestinian state.
Mr Bush says he supports a two-state solution to the conflict but demands the Palestinians reform their institutions, set up a western-style democracy and replace their leader. There is, however, no clear timetable for the creation of a Palestinian state, no call for Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and no move to send international monitors.
June 25
Israeli troops storm the Palestinian Authority headquarters in Hebron. The invasion brings the total of reoccupied cities to seven, leaving only Jericho, isolated in the Jordan valley, under effective Palestinian control.
June 26
A Palestinian cabinet minister, Saeb Erekat, announces elections for Yasser Arafat's job in January 2003 and details planned reforms to the Palestinian Authority. Meanwhile, as the G8 summit begins in Canada reports emerge of a US-Europe split on George Bush's demands that Mr Arafat is replaced as Palestinian leader.
June 27
The Israeli army warns Palestinian fighters sheltering in a Hebron compound - a former British military base - to come out or face a raid by its soldiers. The compound is already under attack from machine guns and helicopter gunships.
June 28
Israeli troops attempt to demolish the building with a bulldozer.
June 29
An explosion destroys the building. Israel says that the 15 men it believes to be inside are dead.
The EU is to launch a Middle East peace initiative amid fears that George Bush's policy switch has left a dangerous vacuum in the region, it is reported.
June 30
Israeli security forces begin the removal of two illegal Jewish settler outposts in the West Bank after the leftwing defence minister, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, vows to dismantle the rogue communities.
Colin Powell renounces Yasser Arafat.