Palestine Israel Conflict Timeline

1920: The British started ruling Palestine.

1947: The British handed over the responsibility of solving the Zionist-Arab problem to the United Nations. The United Nations voted to divide Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. Jerusalem received an international status.

1948: Israel was declared as the first Jewish state on 14 May. The British left Palestine. Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Egypt declared war on Israel.

1949: Israel and the Arab states agreed to armistice. Israel gained about 50% more territory than was originally allotted to it by the United Nations Partition Plan.

1959: Yasser Arafat and Khalil al-Wazir established the Palestinian political party Fatah.

1964: The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was formed.

1965: First military operation of Fatah took place inside the armistice line.

1967: There was a six-day war between Israel and its Arab neighbors from June 5 to June 11. Israel destroyed the Egyptian air force on the ground, conquered and occupied Sinai and Gaza. It then conquered the West Bank from Jordan and Golan Heights from Syria. U.N. Security Resolution 242 called on Israel to withdraw from territories it occupied in the war. Israel refused, but the U.N. Security Council did not take any action. Instead, Arab states refused to recognize Israel as a state, and Arab terrorist organizations were formed to fight against the Israeli occupation.

1972: A Palestinian militant faction known as Black September killed 11 Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games in Munich, Germany.

1973: Since they were unable to regain the territory they had lost in 1967 by diplomatic means, Egypt and Syria launched major offensives against Israel on the Jewish festival of the Day of Atonement or Yom Kippur. The clashes are also called as the Ramadan war. Initially, Egypt and Syria made significant advances in Sinai and the Golan Heights. These were reversed by Israel after three weeks of fighting. U.N. Security Council Resolution 338 called for a ceasefire and for the implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242. Israel pushed on into Syria beyond the Golan Heights, although they later gave up some of these gains. In Egypt, Israel regained territory and advanced to the western side of the Suez Canal. The United States, the Soviet Union and the United Nations all made diplomatic interventions to bring about ceasefire agreements between the combatants and Israel withdrew its forces back across the Suez Canal into Sinai.

1974: The Rabat Arab League Summit recognized the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people

1979: Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed a bilateral Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty at Camp David. Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt. Arab states boycotted Egypt for negotiating a peace treaty with Israel.

1982: Israel invaded Lebanon to fight PLO. Operation "Peace for Galilee" had the objective of wiping out Palestinian guerrilla bases near Israel's northern border, although Defense Minister Ariel Sharon pushed all the way to Beirut and expelled the PLO from the country. After ten weeks of intense shelling by the Israeli forces, the PLO agreed to leave Beirut under the protection of a multinational force to relocate to other Arab countries.

1987: A mass uprising or intifada by the Palestinians against the Israeli occupation began in Gaza and quickly spread to the West Bank. Protest took the form of general strikes, boycott of Israeli products, civil disobedience, graffiti, and barricades, but it was the stone-throwing demonstrations against the heavily armed occupation troops that captured international attention. The Israeli defense forces responded brutally and there was heavy loss of life among Palestinian civilians. More than 1,000 Palestinians died in clashes, which lasted until 1993. The Palestinian organization, ‘Hamas’ was formed by Sheikh Ahmad Yassin of the Gaza wing of the Muslim Brothers in the Occupied Territories.

1988: Palestinian Independence Declaration took place at the 19th Palestinian National Council, Algiers. PLO leader, Yasser Arafat, denounced terrorism in the UN General Assembly.

1993: There were secret negotiations held near Oslo, Norway, between Israel and the PLO which resulted in a treaty that included mutual recognition, limited self-rule for Palestinians in Jericho and Gaza, and provisions for a permanent treaty that would resolve the status of Gaza and the West Bank The Israeli-Palestinian Declaration of Principles (DOP) was signed at a White House ceremony by PLO official Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.

1994: Yasser Arafat, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres won the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts.

1995: Yitzhak Rabin and Peres signed an agreement expanding Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and giving the Palestinian Authority control over six large West Bank towns.

1996: Yasser Arafat won the first-ever elections held by Palestinians.

1997: Israel and the Palestinians reached an agreement on Israeli redeployment in the West Bank city of Hebron.

1998: The Wye River Plantation talks resulted in an agreement for Israeli redeployment and release of political prisoners and renewed Palestinian commitment to correct its violations of the Oslo Accords including excess police force, illegal arms and incitement in public media and education.

2000: The Al-Aqsa Intifada started. There were mass protests and general strikes. There were also suicide bomb attacks and rockets were fired into Israeli residential area.

2002: After a series of suicide attacks early in 2002, Israel re-occupied almost all of the West Bank in March and again in June. Palestinian cities were regularly raided and remained cut off from each other, under seige and curfew for very long periods of time. In April, Israeli forces entered and captured the refugee camp in the northern West Bank city of Jenin.

2004: PLO leader Yasser Arafat died on November 11.

2005: Yaseer was succeeded by Mahmoud Abbas as President of the Palestinian Authority in January, 2005. The Israeli Disengagement Plan took effect. This involved dismantling settlements in Gaza and four settlements in the northern part of the West Bank, but expanding the remaining settlements in the West Bank.

2006: ‘Hamas’ won parliamentary elections in the West Bank and Gaza and was democratically elected as the government of the Palestinian Authority.

2007: Trilateral Israeli-Palestinian-American summit with US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Abbas ended with no progress.