May 5, 2008, 5:04 GMT
Tel Aviv - Below is a chronology of important dates in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
November 29, 1947 - United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 recommends partitioning the then British Mandate of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states, with Jerusalem to be internationalized. Jews accept the resolution, Arabs do not.
December 1947 - May 1948 - Fighting in Palestine between local Jewish militias and local Palestinians.
May 14, 1948 - David Ben Gurion proclaims the state of Israel.
May 15, 1948 - Jordanian, Egyptian, Syrian, Lebanese, Iraqi and Saudi Arabian forces invade the new state and the first Arab-Israeli war begins. The war, with ceasefires, lasts until armistices are signed in 1949. Israel emerges with 50 per cent more territory than allocated to it under the UN partition plan. The Gaza Strip comes under Egyptian control and Jordan emerges controlling the West Bank and East Jerusalem, both of which it later annexes.
At least 726,000 Palestinians become refugees, having fled from their homes, or been evicted by the Jewish forces.
Febraury 24, 1949 - Israel and Egypt sign an armistice agreement. This is followed by armistice agreements with Lebanon (March 23), Jordan (April 3) and Syria (July 20). The armistice lines stay in place as Israel's de facto borders until the 1967 war.
Despite the armistice agreements, fighting erupts sporadically throughout the 1950's. Arab guerrillas also stage cross-border raids, targeting Israeli civilians.
April - June 1949 - First round of Israel-Arab talks in Lausanne, under the auspices of the Palestine Conciliation Commission. The second round in August ends in deadlock and the Commission announces the failure of the talks in November 1949.
September 1951 - Egypt rejects the UN Security Council's call to open the Suez Canal to shipping to and from Israel.
September 28, 1951 - Israel calls for direct negotiations with Arab states, proposes non-aggression pacts and offers compensation for refugee's property.
October 29, 1956 - Sinai Campaign. Israel invades the Sinai peninsula, saying it is retaliating for border raids by Arab guerrillas and the closing of the Suez Canal and Straits of Tiran to its shipping.
By the time the campaign ends, Israel occupies the Sinai desert, except for a strip along the Suez Canal, and the Gaza Strip. Israel withdraws by March 1957, after the UN Emergency Force (UNEF) is deployed along the Sinai border and Washington guarantees the right of passage for Israeli shipping through the Tiran straits.
January 1959 - Yasser Arafat and his associates establish the Palestinian Fatah organization.
May 28, 1964 - The Palestine Liberation Organization is founded.
January 1, 1965 - Fatah conducts its first-ever military operation, an attempted bombing of Israel's national water carrier.
May 1967 - Years of regional tension between Israel and its neighbours, including small-scale fighting and mutual cross-border raids, come to a head. Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser closes the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping and successfully calls for the dismissal of UNEF in Sinai. Israel declares a partial mobilization and the countdown to the 1967 war begins.
June 5 - Jun 10, 1967 - Six Day War. In a pre-emptive air strike, Israel effectively destroys the air forces of Egypt, Syria and Jordan, paving the way for a ground offensive. By the time the ceasefire is declared, the armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan are defeated and Israel occupies the Sinai desert, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights.
Jun 12, 1949 - Israel announces it will not withdraw to the 1949 armistice lines until peace is achieved by direct negotiation.
August 29 - September 1 1967 - The Arab League meets in in Khartoum and declares no peace with Israel, no negotiations with Israel, no recognition of Israel.
November 22, 1967 - The UN Security Council passes Resolution 242, calling on Israel to withdraw from territory occupied in war in return for peace.
April 23, 1969 - Nasser formally declares he is no longer bound by the terms of armistice. War of attrition begins along the Suez Canal, as Israeli and Egyptian forces regularly launch limited ground, air and artillery attacks. The war lasts until a ceasefire is declared in 1970.
October 6, 1973 - Egypt and Syria launch surprise attacks against Israel and initially make gains along the Suez Canal and on the Golan Heights. The Israeli army rallies and by the time a ceasefire is declared on Oct 24, Israeli troops are holding positions on the Egyptian side of the canal, and are deep in Syria.
December 21 - A Middle East peace conference convenes in Geneva, with Israel, Egypt, Jordan, the US and the USSR taking part and Syria boycotting.
January 18, 1974 - Israel and Egypt sign the Sinai Disengagement Agreement. On March 4, Israel troops deploy to new lines in Sinai. A similar agreement is signed between Israel and Syria in May, leading to Israeli troops withdrawing from territory captured in the recent war.
November 9, 1977 - Egyptian President Anwar Sadat announces his readiness to visit Jerusalem and address the Knesset.
November 19, 1977 - Sadat arrives in Jerusalem, and Israeli Prime Minister Menahem Begin visits Egypt shortly afterward. The two countries begin peace negotiations, culminating in the September 1978 Camp David framework for peace. A full peace treaty is signed on March 26, 1979.
March 16, 1978 - Israel launches Operation Litani, advancing up to the Litani River to clear south Lebanon of Palestinian guerrillas, after Palestinians had highjacked a bus in Israel and killed 37 civilians. Israeli troops will remain in southern Lebanon until May 2000.
May 25, 1979 - Under the peacy treaty with Egypt, the staged Israeli withdrawal from Sinai begins and is completed in April 1982.
June 7, 1981 - Israeli jets destroy an Iraqi nuclear reactor just as it is about to become operative.
June 6, 1982 - Israel launches Operation Peace for Galilee. The ostensible plan calls for Palestinian guerillas to be pushed 40 kilometres from the border; it later transpires that Defence Minister Ariel Sharon had a far more embracing plan in mind, which involved a new government in Beirut. Israeli troops surround the Lebanese capital by June 13.
September 16, 1981 - Lebanese Christian Phalange militiamen massacre between 400 to 800 Palestinian refugees in Beirut's Sabra and Shatalia camps. An Israeli inquiry later finds Sharon and senior Israeli officers indirectly responsible for the massacre for not anticipating what would happen if they allowed the Phalange into the camps, and for not preventing the killings once they were underway.
December 8, 1987 - The First Palestinian Uprising (Intifada) erupts in the Gaza Strip and quickly spreads to West Bank. It is characterized by mass demonstrations and rock-throwing against Israel troops.
January 18, 1991 - Tel Aviv is hit by Iraqi Scud missiles after the outbreak of the first Gulf War. As the war progresses, more missiles land in Israel and in the West Bank.
October 30, 1991 - The Madrid conference, on a peaceful resolution to Middle East conflict, begins. Israel. Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and a Palestinian delegation from the West Bank and Gaza Strip attend. The parley leads to multi-lateral talks between the parties.
September 13, 1993 - Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization sign the Oslo Declaration of principles, agreeing to mutual recognition. Over the next year, Israel withdraws from a small area of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, given to Palestinian autonomy, and from areas turned over to Palestinian civil control. Palestinian extremists, mainly from the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, begin suicide bombings in Israeli cities.
October 26, 1994 - Israel and Jordan sign a peace treaty.
September 1995 - The Oslo II Agreement is signed between Israel and the PLO, widening Palestinian self-government in the occupied territories.
November 4, 1995 - Israeli Premier Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated in Tel Aviv by ultra-nationalist opposed to peace moves with the Palestinians. Although Rabin's immediate successor Shimon Peres vows to continue peace moves, he is voted out of power on May 31, 1996 and replaced by hardline Benjamin Netanyahu.
October 1998 - The Wye River Plantation Talks result in a deal on Israeli redeployment in West Bank.
May 1999 - Netanyahu is defeated in elections by Ehud Barak, who says he hopes to reach a deal with the Palestinians as quickly as possible.
January 2000 - Israel and Syria resume peace talks, but the negotiations end in March without a conclusion.
May 2000 - Israel withdraws from Lebanon to the international border.
Jule 11-25, 2000 - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and US President Bill Clinton meet at Camp David for intensive but ultimately failed talks to hammer out a peace treaty.
September 28 - The Second Palestinian Uprising breaks out. Violence escalates rapidly from rock throwing to gunfire and suicide bombings.
December 2000 - Israel and the Palestinians make another failed attempt to reach a peace deal.
March 2002 - Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah announces a peace plan under which Israel is to withdraw from the occupied territories in exchange for recognition.
April 2003 - Israel and the Palestinians receive the international 'road map' peace plan, which calls on the sides to take a series of steps culminating in a Palestinian state living alongside Israel. =Both sides accept the plan, with reservations, but it quickly falls into abeyance amid mutual charges of non-compliance.
August 2005 - Israel begins the evacuation of settlers from the Gaza Strip and from four West Bank settlements. The last Israeli soldiers leave the Strip in September.
July 12, 2006 - Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas launch cross-border raids, killing three Israeli soldiers ands capturing two others. Guerrillas also fire rockets at Israel. Israel responds with massive air strikes on Lebanon and sends in ground troops, sparking the Second Lebanon War, which comes to an end on August 14.
November 26-28, 2007 - The US convenes a summit in Annapolis, Maryland, at which Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas agree to resume negotiations and try reach a peace deal by the end of 2008.
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