The Palestine Chronology

IDF troops in the Erez industrial zone fatally shoot 2 armed Palestinians laying a roadside bomb nearby, wound and arrest a 3d; fire a shell at Palestinian resistance mbrs. e. of Jabaliya, killing 1 armed Palestinian, wounding another armed Palestinian, 2 bystanders. Hamas mbrs. fire 3 mortars and a rocket fr. n. Gaza into Israel, causing no damage or injuries; the IDF responds with an air strike on the launch site, killing 1 Hamas mbr., wounding 4. As the Annapolis mtgs. open, at least 15,000 right-wing Israeli demonstrators protest in Jerusalem against any possible concessions by Israeli PM Ehud Olmert to the Palestinians. In Gaza, Hamas and Islamic Jihad host a conference on Palestine, attended by Hamas’s top leaders (including Ismail Haniyeh, Mahmud Zahar), vowing to “not relinquish a centimeter of Palestine” or recognize Israel’s right to exist. (NYT, WP, WT 11/27; OCHA 11/28; PCHR 11/29)

In Gaza, the IDF conducts arrest raids, house searches, ID checks in Um al-Nasser nr. Bayt Lahiya, detaining 67 Palestinians for questioning, firing on residential areas (particularly to hold back a group of journalists attempting to reach the area) and making an air strike on a previously destroyed Palestinian home. Overnight, the IDF raids Balata r.c., blows up the home of a senior AMB mbr., causing no reported injuries. Late in the evening, the IDF conducts arrest raids, house searches in Nablus and nr. Hebron, Jenin, Salfit, Tulkarm. The U.S. complains that Israel is not allowing Abbas’s security forces to expand their control of the West Bank before the Annapolis conference, citing the 11/3 confiscation of body armor intended for the PA presidential guard and the continuing raids on Nablus since the new PA security force has been deployed there, undermining its credibility. (PCHR, PAP, WT 11/8; PCHR 11/15)

Firmly in control of Gaza, Hamas declares amnesty for Fatah leaders, except National Security Advisor (NSA) Dahlan, with the aim of quelling violence, releasing several of the 10 senior Fatah political security officials captured earlier in the day; orders all mbrs. of the PA security forces in Gaza to continue to report for duty to provide law and order, albeit under Hamas cmdrs. Hamas also calls for the immediate release of kidnapped BBC correspondent Johnston. With fighting suspended, Palestinian crowds loot abandoned Fatah buildings, targeting in particular Dahlan’s home and Abbas’s presidential compound; Hamas mbrs. surround and prevent looting at Abbas’s Gaza residence. Some violence persists, with a Fatah mbr. thrown to his death from a high building by the family of a man he killed earlier; a Fatah security official commits suicide after learning that he was on a Hamas wanted list. Meanwhile, Egypt reinforces its forces on the border with Gaza with riot police, APCs, and water cannons, fearing that Palestinians will attempt to flee Gaza for Egypt en masse at the first opportunity. Israel temporarily opens the Erez crossing to allow Fatah officials to escape Gaza for Ramallah. In the West Bank, Abbas names Finance M Salam al-Fayyad as his new PM, charging him with forming a government; issues a presidential decree suspending articles of the Basic Law (the interim Palestinian constitution) requiring the new government to receive a vote of confidence from the PC (currently controlled by the Hamas-affiliated Change and Reform party). Fatah-Hamas tensions remain high in the West Bank, where heavily armed Fatah mbrs. patrol in Ramallah in a show of force; Fatah mbrs. ransack Change and Reform offices, Hamas-run charity organizations in several cities; kidnap at least 9 Hamas mbrs. AMB mbrs. fatally shoot a Hamas mbr. in Nablus. Inside Israel, the Israel Prisons Service separates Fatah, Hamas detainees to prevent rioting. Meanwhile, the IDF conducts arrest raids, house searches, patrols in villages around Jenin, firing on residential areas, causing no injuries. In Gaza, the IDF conducts arrest raids, house searches in Dayr al-Balah; fires rubber-coated steel bullets, percussion grenades, tear gas at Palestinian, Israeli, international activists attending weekly nonviolent demonstrations against the separation wall in Bil‘in, injuring 2. (AP, HA, WP, QA 6/15; NYT, WP, WT 6/16; Interfax 6/16 in WNC 6/17; PCHR 6/21; NYT 7/9)

The IDF makes 7 air strikes on Gaza, targeting 2 Hamas rocket-launching sites in n. Gaza, killing 3 Palestinian shepherds, 1 Palestinian child; hitting a car driving in Gaza City, assassinating Hamas’s Muhiy al-Din al-Sirhi, also killing 2 civilians traveling with him; destroying the Gaza City home of Hamas mbr. Imad Dallul in an apparent assassination attempt, wounding him and 3 other Hamas mbrs.; destroying 4 alleged weapons factories in Bayt Hanun, Bayt Lahiya, and Nussayrat r.c., damaging nearby homes. The IDF also shells residential areas in Bayt Hanun, injuring a Palestinian woman, 4 children. In Gaza City, 3 Palestinians are injured by IDF UXO; 3 Hamas mbrs. are injured when explosives they are handling detonate prematurely. Hamas fires an RPG at an IDF bulldozer leveling land along the Gaza border fence, injuring 2 IDF soldiers; fires 5 rockets fr. Gaza into Israel, starting a brush fire but causing no injuries. In the West Bank, the IDF patrols in, fires on residential areas of Nablus. Jewish settlers fr. Tel Rumeida in Hebron beat 2 international peace activists escorting Palestinian children nr. Beit Hadasah settlement. Jewish settlers fr. Itamar nr. Nablus burn Palestinian olive trees in nearby Bayt Furik. Meanwhile, at least 6 Palestinians are wounded in factional fighting in Gaza that includes a gun fight btwn. ESF and NSF mbrs. in Gaza City, a Hamas attack on a PSF base in Rafah, and Fatah’s kidnapping and malicious wounding of 2 Hamas mbrs. in Gaza City. NSF officers manning several checkpoints reportedly harass observant Muslims, ordering women to remove their head coverings and arresting bearded men on suspicion of being Hamas mbrs., raising public outrage against Fatah. Another Egyptian-brokered cease-fire (involving 3 phone conversations btwn. Abbas, Damascus-based Hamas leader Khalid Mishal) that was to go into effect at 3:00 P.M. local time is ignored by Hamas and Fatah. (NYT, WP 5/20; PCHR 5/21; OCHA 5/23; PCHR 5/24)

IDF soldiers on the Gaza border fatally shoot an Islamic Jihad mbr. planting a roadside bomb nr. the border fence n. of Bayt Hanun, wounding 2 Palestinian farmers working a field nearby; troops briefly enter Gaza nr. Bayt Hanun to examine and dismantle the explosive device, but Israel says it was not meant as a breech of the cease-fire. The Israeli navy fires on Palestinian fishermen off the coast of Rafah, forcing them to return to shore. In the West Bank, the IDF shoots, wounds a Palestinian attempting to circumvent the Awarta checkpoint nr. Nablus; conducts arrest raids, house searches nr. Jenin (exchanging gunfire with Palestinian gunmen, leaving 1 IDF soldier injured) and in ‘Arub r.c. nr. Hebron, Nablus, Qalqilya. In addition, the Israeli Municipality of Jerusalem issues demolition orders for a playground and six houses in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem on Palestinian land that has been sought by Jewish developers in order to build 30 homes, a synagogue, and a religious school for Jews only. In Rafah, 2 Palestinian children are injured when they accidentally trigger an unexploded IDF artillery shell. (Playgrounds for Palestine press release 4/4; PCHR, WP 4/5; OCHA 4/11; PCHR 4/12)

The IDF demolishes 2 Palestinian homes in Sur al-Bahir southeast of Jerusalem; issues military orders confiscating 150 d. of Palestinian agricultural land nr. Jenin for “military purposes”; conducts arrest raids, house searches in and around Jenin and Tulkarm, nr. Bethlehem and Nablus, and in Marda, Qalqilya. ESF mbrs. fire on the home of a local Fatah leader in Bayt Lahiya, killing a Fatah mbr. Separately, Hamas mbrs. kidnap a PA General Intelligence officer in Bayt Lahiya, shoot him in the legs, let him go. In Gaza City, 300 PFLP mbrs. stage a sit-in outside the Red Cross offices to mark the 1-yr. anniversary of PFLP leader Ahmad Saadat’s capture by the IDF in Jericho. (PCHR 3/15; OCHA 3/21; PCHR 3/22)