The Palestine Chronology

Hamas’s Gaza leadership calls on factions to halt their fire for 24 hrs. in an effort to restore the truce. Senior Hamas official Mahmud Zahhar appears on Israeli TV to state that Hamas seeks a new cease-fire in exchange for regular food and electricity in Gaza and a halt to IDF operations in the West Bank. On the ground, Palestinians (suspected to be Islamic Jihad, which says it had not agreed to suspend attacks) fire 3 rockets fr. Gaza into Israel, causing no damage or injuries. An unnamed senior Israeli security official states (YA 12/23) that “all of the IDF’s preparations for a military operation are continuing as planned. As far as we are concerned the clock is ticking down on a military operation.” Israel, which maintains a full seal on Gaza, dispatches diplomats to lobby for international support and sympathy for Israel in the face of rocket attacks. Egyptian pres. Husni Mubarak asks Israeli FM Livni to come to Cairo on 12/25 for talks on renewing the truce. In the West Bank, the IDF conducts late-night arrest raids, house searches nr. Hebron, Jenin, Nablus. (IFM 12/22; HA, JP, MA, MM, WP, YA 12/23; PCHR 12/24)

Overnight, the IDF launches ground operations in al-Shuka, using helicopters, drones, and some 50 tanks, armored vehicles, bulldozers; seals off Dahaniyya airport, the eastern entrance to Rafah, the main north–south Gaza highway; makes heavy air and artillery strikes on residential areas throughout the day, with Palestinian militants retaliating with antitank and light weapons fire, leaving 2 Hamas mbrs., 2 Islamic Jihad mbrs., 1 PA security officer, 5 bystanders dead and more than 30 Palestinians wounded (including at least 8 militants, 18 civilians). Palestinians fire 4 rockets toward Israel, but all land inside Gaza, causing no damage or injuries. In the West Bank, the IDF conducts arrest raids, house searches nr. Qalqilya and in ‘Ayn alSultan r.c. nr Jericho, Balata r.c., Hebron, Nablus. (NYT, PCHR, WP, WT 8/3; NYT, WP 8/4; PCHR 8/10)

The IDF operates in 20 villages in s. Lebanon, most of them less than 2 mi. inside the border, engaging in intense clashes with Hizballah (particularly in Bint Jubayl, Maroun al-Ras, Marwahin, Rajmin), with Hizballah killing 4 IDF soldiers, wounding 4, destroying at least 4 APCs in Aita al-Sha‘b and Taybeh. The IDF also continues air strikes across Lebanon, including in s. Beirut (hitting houses of senior Hizballah and Hamas mbrs.), Blat, Nabatiyya, Rashaya, Taybeh, in the Biqa‘ Valley, and in the far n. nr. the border with Syria. Hizballah fires around 180 rockets into n. Israel, killing 5 Israeli civilians in Acre and 3 bedouin in Tarshiha nr. Ma’alot (all 8 killed during a 1- hr. barrage of 40 rockets), also hitting Kiryat Shimona (in another barrage of 30 rockets). (BBC, JAZ, NYT 8/3; AP, NYT, WP, WT 8/4)

Islamic Jihad announces that it will halt all rocket attacks fr. n. Gaza if Israel pledges to cease targeting its mbrs. Hrs. later, the IDF raids a house in Qabatya, assassinating Islamic Jihad mbrs. Jihad Zakarna and Arshad Abu Zayd, also wounding at least 7 bystanders; Islamic Jihad retaliates by firing at least 2 rockets fr. Gaza into Israel, causing no damage or injuries. The IDF also sets up 2 new artillery positions outside n. and s. Gaza to deter rocket fire; opens the Rafah checkpoint for several hrs. to allow Palestinians making the hajj to leave for Saudi Arabia. Shin Bet reports that it has detained 3 PRC “rocket engineers” in the Negev on their way fr. Gaza to the West Bank. In Ramallah, PA police fire in the air to disperse 60 Islamic Jihad mbrs. protesting outside Abbas’s residence against the PA’s arrest of 4 fellow mbrs. earlier in the wk. Jewish settlers fr. Elon Moreh severely beat a 73-yr.-old Palestinian man walking nr. the settlement. (AFP, HA, IMEMC, XIN, YA 10/30; HA, NYT, WP 10/31; PCHR 11/10)

Overnight, the IDF conducts air strikes on the home of PRC mbr. ‘Amr Qarmut in Jabaliya r.c. in what may be an assassination attempt (causing damage but no injuries), a Hamas-run school in Gaza City (injuring 23 Palestinians), and a cultural center in Bayt Hanun run by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), causing damage but no injuries; arrests 207 Palestinians (mostly Hamas and Islamic Jihad mbrs., including Hamas political leaders Shaykh Hasan Yusuf and Muhammad Ghazzal) in the largest raids across the West Bank since 2/05. During the day, Sharon says that he has given the IDF “free rein” to act against Palestinians firing rockets. The IDF continues to mass troops on the n. Gaza border, breaks the sound barrier over Gaza roughly every 2 hrs., fires artillery shells fr. Nahal Oz into open areas nr. Bayt Hanun as a warning to Palestinians (marking Israel’s 1st shelling of Gaza since 1967); fires missiles fr. F-16s at a car s. of Gaza City, assassinating senior Islamic Jihad leader Muhammad Shaykh Khalil, Islamic Jihad mbr. Nassir Barhum, wounding 4 bystanders. In the evening, Hamas agrees to stop rocket attacks immediately. Later, an IDF helicopter gunship strikes 3 targets in Khan Yunis, including the homes of senior AMB mbrs. Ziyad Abu Hayya and Mahir al-Farra in what may be assassination attempts, causing heavy damage, injuring 17 Palestinians; the IDF says it is targeting AMB arms storage facilities. A 12-yr.-old Palestinian wounded in the 9/23 Jabaliya explosion dies, bringing that toll to at least 16. (AFP, AP, HA, IMEMC, JAZ, WP, WT, XIN, YA 9/25; CSM, HA, IMEMC, JP, NYT, WP, WT 9/26; HA 9/27; AFP, DS, MEI, PCHR 9/29)

Today’s Independent (9/25) reports that a new book by 2 prominent Israeli journalists, Ofer Shelah and Raviv Druker, states that “at a conference of officers as early as May 2001, Shaul Mofaz, now defense minister and then chief of staff, asked for the tape to be switched off before telling them that he wanted a ‘price’ exacted from the Palestinians of 10 killed a day on each of the army’s seven fronts.” The book also reports that after 6 IDF soldiers were killed in an ambush in 3/02, “Mofaz personally ordered a revenge operation in which for the first time [sic—see “Overview of Israeli Military Operations,” Resource File Doc. A, JPS 134] Palestinian police officers would be shot, whether they posed a threat or not.” (Independent 9/25)

The IDF raids Tulkarm, exchanges gunfire with Islamic Jihad mbrs, causing no casualties; conducts patrols in ‘Allar and Saida nr. Tulkarm, Nablus; conducts arrest raids, house searches in Bethlehem, Jenin, Tulkarm. Palestinians fire 3 rockets at Sederot where some 25,000 right-wing Israelis launch a 2-day protest against disengagement, but 2 fall in Bayt Hanun in n. Gaza, killing a 6-yr.-old Palestinian boy, wounding 9 Palestinians, damaging a hospital; no damage or injuries are reported in Sederot. A bomb explodes outside the Gaza City home of PA Higher Judicial Council head Zuhayr Surani, causing damage but no injuries; no group claims responsibility. (AP, PCHR, PR, WP, WT 8/3; NYT, PCHR, REU, WP 8/4)