The Palestine Chronology

Israel makes an air strike on a car in Gaza City, assassinating 3 senior Hamas mbrs. (Muhammad Mahdi al-Dayah, Abdullah Lobbad, and Isma‘il Lobbad) and injuring 1 bystander. Israel claims the Hamas mbrs. were plotting to kidnap Israelis in Israel and Egypt during Passover later in 4/2011; Hamas denies that it operates outside the borders of historic Palestine but says the 3 were senior weapons developers. The DFLP says it will no longer observe a cease-fire toward Israel. In the West Bank, the IDF conducts late-night searches in Qalqilya, summoning 1 Palestinian for questioning. Palestinians (sometimes accompanied by Israeli and international activists) hold weekly nonviolent demonstrations against the separation wall, land confiscations, and settlement expansion in Bil‘in, Ni‘lin, and Nabi Salih. IDF soldiers fire rubber-coated steel bullets, tear gas, and stun grenades at the protesters, causing no serious injuries; 3 Palestinians (including 2 children) are arrested. Jewish settlers fr. Beit Hadassah settlement in Hebron set fire to the awnings of several Palestinian stores. (NYT 4/2, 4/3; JTA 4/4; PCHR 4/7; OCHA 4/15)

In a Washington Post op-ed online (in print on 4/3), South African judge Richard Goldstone, head of the UN committee that investigated possible war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during OCL, says that “if I had known then what I know now,” he would have concluded that Gazan “civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of [Israeli] policy” and would have given more weight to crimes perpetrated by Hamas. (WP 4/1; IFM, NYT, WP 4/3; NYT 4/6; JTA, NYT, YA 4/7; NYT, 4/20)

After several days of mtgs. in Denmark, Egyptian, Israeli, Jordanian, PA delegations endorse the establishment of a "peace alliance" to recruit popular support for peace talks, issue declaration. (ITV 2/1 in WNC 2/4; MM 2/4; RJ 2/5 in WNC 2/7; SANA 2/13 in WNC 2/18; WP 3/1)

In Nablus, PA prisoner Yusif Isma'il Baba dies while in custody fr. injuries received during interrogation by PA security forces. Baba, the 11th to die in PA custody, was arrested on 1/3 for making an "improper property sale." (NYT, WP, WT 2/2; NYT 2/4; MM 2/5; PR 2/7) (see 12/3)