The Palestine Chronology

IDF commandos ambush, assassinate wanted PA intelligence officer Ayid Mansur outside his home in Nablus. The IDF fatally shoots 1 Palestinian nr. the new security wall in Zita; raids a makeshift PSF jail in Tulkarm, arresting 6 PSF officers, 12 prisoners (the PSF officers, 9 prisoners are later released); conducts arrest raids, searches houses, blows up 2 Palestinian homes in Bayt Hanun; fires on residential areas, bulldozes 1 Palestinian home and part of a mosque in Brazil r.c.; conducts arrest raids, house-to-house searches, fires on residential areas in Askar r.c.; raids Qalandia r.c., detaining 50 Palestinians; directs shells, heavy machine gun fire at residential areas of Bayt Lahia, Gaza City, Rafah; bulldozes 17.5 dunams of Palestinian land s. of Khan Yunis. Some 40 prominent Israelis outraged by recent Jewish settler attacks on Palestinian olive pickers travel to the West Bank to participate in a Palestinian olive harvest. (GS, LAW, PCHR 10/30; PCHR, PR 11/6; MEI 11/8)

DM and Labor party head Ben-Eliezer resigns fr. the government hrs. before Sharon’s FY 2003 budget passes (67-45) in the Knesset, with all 25 Labor party MKs voting against. Afterward, the 5 other Labor Ms, including FM Shimon Peres, resign. (HA, MM 10/30; MM, NYT, WP, WT 10/31; JT 10/31 in WNC 11/1; al-Quds 11/2, MENA 11/3 in WNC 11/5; AYM 11/2 in WNC 11/8; JPI, MEI 11/8)

The IDF fatally shoots a Palestinian said to be planting a bomb nr. Nablus, sparking a gun battle lasting several hrs., leaving 2 Palestinians wounded. Another Palestinian is caught attempting to plant a bomb on an Israeli bus in Kiryat Shimona. IDF commandos land a helicopter nr. a PSF post nr. Nablus, abduct low-level Fatah mbr. Murad Bisharat, who is released hrs. later; Israel Radio reports he was kidnapped by mistake, a senior Fatah mbr. was the intended target. Palestinians fire 2 mortars at Kefar Darom settlement in Gaza, causing no damage. In response, the IDF sends 3 tanks into a nearby PA-controlled area. The IDF also directs shells, heavy machine gun fire on residential areas of Bayt Sahur, Bethlehem, Hebron, al-Khadir, Khan Yunis, Rafah, Ramallah, Tulkarm; demolishes part of a girls' school in Hebron. Israel's Jerusalem Municipality confiscates 100 dunams of Palestinian land in the Jabal al-Mukabir neighborhood of East Jerusalem for a settler bypass road. A PA security court sentences a Palestinian to death for collaborating with Israel in the 7/25 Darwaza assassination. (HA, HP 8/2; NYT, WP 8/3; AYM 8/4 in WNC 8/10; MEI 8/10; HA 8/8)