January 23 An 11-year-old Palestinian boy is killed and two other youths wounded by Israeli soldiers close to the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip. 28 At least 13 Palestinians are killed by Israeli occupation forces, according to Israel's army radio. Palestinian medics say they have reports of corpses as yet unrecovered from the streets after the Israeli incursion into Gaza city. 29 At least ten people are killed and another 50 injured in a suicide bomb attack on a bus outside the official Jerusalem residence of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. The Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claims responsibility. February 9 Israeli civil rights groups launch a legal action against the separation wall in the country's supreme court 11 Israeli occupation forces kill 11 Palestinians in a fresh incursion into the Gaza Strip. Hamas vows revenge for the attack, whose victims include Abu Shkail, a senior activist with the group. 22 A Palestinian suicide bomber blows himself up, killing eight people on a rush hour bus in Jerusalem. 23 Israeli troops fire tear gas at Palestinians protesting the construction of the separation wall, as a court case on its legality opens in The Hague. March 7 Israeli forces kill 14 Palestinians, including three children, in the biggest Israeli raid into Gaza in months. 11 Ten people are killed when two Palestinians from Gaza blow themselves up in the Israeli port of Ashdod. 16 Israeli occupation forces kill six Palestinians and wound 27 others in a series of air strikes against the Gaza Strip. Ground forces raid the Rafah refugee camp and demolish seven houses. 22 An Israeli tank commander is charged with negligent homicide after having authorised his tanks to shell a group of Palestinians in a market, killing three children and an adult. Having received the green light from Sharon, in the small hours of the morning the Israeli occupation forces assassinate Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder and spiritual leader of the Palestinian resistance group Hamas, triggering an immediate outcry across occupied Palestine. Hamas vows swift and bloody retaliation, accusing Israel of having opened "the gates of hell". 23 Israeli warplanes attack southern Lebanon, killing at least two Palestinians and injuring a third. The Israeli army claims that the two were part of a cell preparing launchers to fire rockets at northern Israel. April 17 Abdul-Aziz Al-Rantisi, Hamas's new leader in the Gaza Strip, is assassinated in an Israeli air strike, dying of his wounds in Gaza City's Al-Shifa hospital after his car takes a direct hit from at least two rockets fired by an Israeli helicopter. Hamas threatens a "volcano of revenge" against Israel for assassinating Al-Rantisi. 23 Sharon issues a warning that President Yasser Arafat is next in Israel's line of fire. 25 Israeli special forces disguised as Palestinians assassinate four Palestinian resistance activists overnight in two separate incidents in the West Bank city of Jenin. May 4 An Israeli missile attack kills two Palestinians, including a 16- year-old boy. 11 Six Israeli soldiers are killed in fighting with Palestinians in Gaza city. Five Palestinians are killed, and an 18-year-old and 88-year- old wounded by Israeli forces after the incursion. 18-24 Massive Israeli operation in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip. According to the director of Rafah's Abu Youssef Al-Najjar hospital, Dr Ali Moussa, the week- long Israeli incursion kills 62 Palestinians, including children, and injures some 270 others. According to an UNRWA report released immediately after the incident, during the period 18-24 May a total of 167 buildings are destroyed or rendered uninhabitable in the Tel Sultan, Brazil and Salam quarters of Rafah. These buildings housed 379 families or 2,066 individuals. Since the start of the Intifada in September 2001, 1,476 buildings have been demolished in Rafah, affecting 14,666 people. Israeli Justice Minister Tommy Lapid condemns the Rafah offensive as "inhumane", and says it makes Israelis "look like monsters to the rest of the world". 19 The UN Security Council passes a resolution, with a rare US abstention, condemning Israel for its actions in Rafah. Amnesty International describes the Rafah offensive as a "war crime", while French daily Le Monde refers to it as a "dirty war" against the Palestinians. 27 A British journalist released from Israeli custody says he was held in a dungeon whose walls were covered with excrement during his detention on allegations of espionage. June 27 The Ezzuddin Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's armed wing, launches a rocket attack against the southern Israeli town of Sderot just 12 hours after an explosion carried out by Hamas underneath an occupation army observation post in southern Gaza. July 3 Four Palestinians are killed and several others injured in a deadly Israeli raid into the Gaza Strip, while Israeli bulldozers continue to reduce Palestinian homes to rubble in the southern city of Rafah. 8 Israeli occupation troops kill at least eight Palestinians, including the local leader of the Hamas resistance group, and injure many others in two separate incursions into the Gaza Strip. 11 A few hours after Israel assassinates four Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, an Israeli woman is killed and 20 people injured in a suicide bomb attack at a bus stop in Tel Aviv claimed by Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. August 11 A car bomb explodes between two Israeli army checkpoints on the edge of Jerusalem, killing at least two people and wounding 16 others -- seven Israelis and nine Palestinians. The blast occurs on a road leading from Jerusalem to the West Bank city of Ramallah. Al- Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claims responsibility. 17 Israel announces plans to build 1,000 new houses in Jewish settlements in the West Bank, violating the roadmap, which had called for no more construction. 26 The Israeli army arrests two soldiers for killing an unarmed Palestinian. Two more officers from the same battalion are detained for covering up the killing. 31 Ezzuddin Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, 6 Israeli occupation forces kill 14 people in an air strike on a football pitch in eastern Gaza. 9 A 15-year-old Palestinian is crushed to death by an Israeli army jeep during a brief incursion into Al-Amari refugee camp near Ramallah, while in Gaza Israeli troops kill five others, including an 11-year-year-old boy, during a major new offensive. Al-Jazeera airs footage of the boy showing the vehicle intentionally driving over him. 13 Israeli forces kill three Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades activists in a helicopter missile strike on a car in Jenin. 15 Ten Palestinians, including an 11-year-old girl, are killed and ten others wounded during two Israeli sweeps into the West Bank 19 Khaled Abu Salmieh, 33, a member of the Ezzuddin Al- Qassam Brigades, is killed when his car takes a direct hit from a rocket fired by an Israeli aircraft. The attack also injures six others, including a six-year-old boy. 23 Two Palestinian resistance fighters are killed by the Israeli army in the southern Gaza Strip while they are trying to infiltrate the Morag settlement. Three Israelis are also killed during the attack. 28 Four senior officers of an elite Israeli air force unit hit out at the military's "immoral" policies in the occupied territories in a letter published by the Israeli newspapers. 29 Large numbers of Israeli forces, tanks, bulldozers and armoured personnel carriers launch the "Days of Penitence" operation into northern Gaza. According to UNRWA (UN Relief and Works Agency), the operation, which continued for the next 17 days, resulted in 107 Palestinians killed and 431 injured by Israeli forces. Tank shells and helicopter missiles, fired into densely populated areas, caused many of the casualties. A quarter of those killed (27) were aged 18 years and under. Five Israelis were killed during the same period. The dead include nine UNRWA pupils from six schools and two teachers. During the operation, approximately 36,000 Palestinians in different locations were under siege. Many thousands of civilians were unable to leave their homes, as the shelling raged around them. An additional 4,000 persons fled their homes in the affected areas. According to initial investigations by UNRWA social workers and technical staff, 675 Palestinians were made homeless during the operation. Over 90 per cent of those affected were refugees. The total cost of rebuilding these homes is estimated at around $2.5 million. A further 101 homes (housing 833 persons) sustained damage. In addition, 19 public premises and commercial properties were completely destroyed during the incursion, either by shelling or bulldozers. These included PA security compounds, as well as a mosque, two farms, three factories and several workshops and small shops. October 25 At least fourteen Palestinians are killed and 70 others injured in a major Israeli incursion overnight into Khan Younis, south of the Gaza Strip. November 1 At least five Israelis are killed and 30 others wounded when a suicide bomber explodes in the Hacarmel market in the centre of Tel Aviv. 11 Palestinian President Yasser Arafat dies in a French hospital. Arafat's body was taken from France to Cairo, where the Egyptian government hosted a state funeral for him. The body was finally flown to Ramallah, where Arafat was laid to rest. Speaker of Palestinian Parliament Rawhi Fattouh took over as the Palestinian president on an interim basis until presidential elections due on 9 January. December 12 Four Israeli soldiers are killed and at least ten others wounded as a result of a large explosion in a tunnel dug by Palestinian resistance fighters near the Rafah border crossing between the southern Gaza Strip and Egypt. The Ezzuddin Al-Qassam Brigades claims responsibility for the attack, in which 1.5 tonnes of explosives were used. 15 The Israeli soldier on trial for killing the British peace activist Tom Thurndall admits he was lying when he said his victim was carrying a gun, and tells the court he was under orders to open fire even on unarmed people. Compiled by Mustafa El-Menshawy
