CHRONOLOGICAL REVIEW OF EVENTS
RELATING TO THE QUESTION OF PALESTINE
Monitored from the press by the
Division for Palestinian Rights
1 April Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin met with Israeli opposition leaders in the Knesset (Parliament) and told them that "the proposal to move Jewish settlers to only one site in Hebron or uproot settlements in the territories is no longer on the government agenda". Following the massacre in the Ibrahimi mosque, the PLO and local Palestinian leaders had requested the removal of Jewish settlers from Hebron. (Israeli Radio)
2 April The Israeli military forces in the Gaza Strip have received directives from the Israeli Cabinet to stay away from refugee camps and to avoid clashes with the people of the area. (Ha'aretz)
A Palestinian company for development and investment was established in Amman with an initial capital of $200 million. The company is supported by the Arab Bank and other Arab and Palestinian economic institutions and will deal mainly with private investments in the occupied territories. (Ha'aretz)
Israeli troops shot and injured 20 Palestinians during clashes in Nuseirat and Jabalia refugee camps. (Ha'aretz)
The deposed mayor of Hebron, Mustafa Natsche, took up his post again following an agreement between Israel and the PLO. He was removed from office in 1988 by the military government. (Reuters)
3 April A leading Hamas activist was released by the Fatah movement in Gaza after being kidnapped in retaliation for the abduction of a Fatah supporter by Hamas. (Reuters)
At least 10 Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers were wounded during clashes in Hebron and the Gaza Strip. (Reuters)
Israeli police arrested the leader of the right-wing fundamentalist Kach movement five weeks after he was declared an outlaw. (The New York Times)
4 April Eighteen Jewish families who live in the northern Gaza Strip settlement of Dugit abandoned their settlement and settled temporarily in tents near the border of Gaza, demanding that the Government of Israel provide them with monetary compensation for returning to Israel. (Ha'aretz)
Israeli troops shot and injured 27 Palestinians during clashes in the Gaza Strip. (Reuters)
The Bank of Jordan opened its first branch in the West Bank town of Ramallah. It will be the first commercial bank to operate in the occupied territories. (Reuters)
Israeli soldiers and police hauled away equipment and furniture from bases in Jericho and Gaza, ahead of a hand-over to Palestinian police. (Ha'aretz)
5 April The General Assembly authorized the Secretary-General to establish the office of a Special Coordinator in the occupied territories (at the Assistant Secretary-General level) for the period of 1 April 1994 to 31 December 1995. A group of 25 former Palestinian deportees and fugitives crossed the border from Egypt and returned to their homes in the Gaza Strip. Another 26 deportees crossed the Jordanian border to return to their homes in the West Bank. The return of the deportees is part of an agreement reached in Cairo between Israel and the PLO which includes the return of more Palestinians to the territories in the near future. (The Jerusalem Press)
Eleven Palestinians were shot and injured by Israeli troops during clashes in the Gaza Strip. (The Jerusalem Press)
6 April A Palestinian suicide bomber blew up his car beside a bus in Afula, a northern Israeli town, killing 8 people and injuring 44 others. It was the most serious assault inside Israel since 1989. It was reported that the attack was done by a young West Bank man loyal to Hamas. The Israeli Government said that the incident will not interrupt its participation in the peace negotiations with the PLO. (The New York Times)
United Nations Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and the President of the Security Council, on behalf of the Council, strongly condemned the attack in Afula and extended their condolences to the families of the victims.
7 April Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin discussed in Israel the Middle East peace negotiations with Mr. Viktor Posuvalyuk, head of the Middle East Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry. (International Intelligence Report)
A young Palestinian from the Shati refugee camp and a member of the Islamic Jihad sprayed a bus stop with gunshots at Ashdod junction, killing an Israeli and wounding four others before he was killed by two armed bystanders. (Reuters)
The militant Islamic organization Hamas took responsibility for the attack in Afula and vowed to step up attacks against Israel to avenge the Hebron massacre of 25 February 1994. (Reuters)
In an official statement carried by the Palestinian news agency Wafa, the PLO expressed its condolences to the families of victims of the Afula attack. But US Secretary of State Warren Christopher urged PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat to unequivocally condemn the attack, "as Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin had done with the Hebron massacre". (Reuters)
At the Erez checkpoint between the Gaza Strip and Israel, a Palestinian stabbed and lightly wounded an Israeli. Israelis shot at the attacker, who escaped. (Reuters)
A Jewish settler injured a Palestinian and his five-year-old son while driving in Hebron. Palestinian witnesses said that the driver deliberately hit the two but Israeli police said that it was a car accident. (Reuters)
PLO officials said they expected Israeli negotiators to return to Cairo on 7 April to continue the negotiations on Palestinian self-rule in Jericho and the Gaza Strip. The negotiations were interrupted on Wednesday morning, 6 April, when the Israeli delegation left for Israel for the Holocaust memorial day. The deployment of the initial contingent of Palestinian police to Gaza, which was scheduled for 6 April,was postponed until further agreement with the Israelis. (Reuters)
A young Palestinian from Shati refugee camp near Gaza opened fire on a group of Israeli soldiers with an Uzi machine gun, killing one reserved officer and injuring 4 soldiers before he was shot dead by one of the soldiers. The soldiers were waiting for transportation in Ashdod junction on the road to Ashqelon, north of the Gaza Strip. The Islamic Hamas movement in Gaza took responsibility for the incident. (Ha'aretz)
Israeli troops shot dead a 15-year-old Palestinian boy in Balata refugee camp near Nablus and 15 Palestinians were injured by shots fired by Israeli troops in the West Bank. Five Israeli civilians and 2 soldiers were wounded from stones thrown at them by Palestinian demonstrators in various places in the West Bank. (Ha'aretz)
The Israeli Government, following the suicide operation in Afula, ordered the closure of the occupied territories until after Israel's Independence Day on 14 April. The closure of the territories means that their residents cannot enter Israel without special permits, which normally are given in emergency cases. (Al-Ittihad)
8 April Representatives of the Foreign and Defence Ministries of Norway, Denmark and Italy -the three countries contributing international forces for Hebron – have arrived in Israel to negotiate the deployment of their observers in Hebron in accordance with the Israeli-PLO agreement. (Reuters)
Israeli soldiers shot and wounded at least 25 Palestinians in Hebron during a visit of Rev. Jesse Jackson, a US black leader, to the city. Jackson, on a fact-finding mission to Israel and the occupied territories, got a strong dose of teargas as violence erupted around his bus between soldiers and stone-throwers among a large crowd of Palestinians who greeted him. (Reuters)
A young Palestinian was shot dead by Israeli troops in Balá village in the West Bank. (Jerusalem Press)
10 April Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin informed his Cabinet of his decision to extend the closure of the occupied territories indefinitely. During the closure, only medical teams will be allowed to cross the territories into Israel. The Cabinet decided to grant new work permits to 18,000 foreign workers to substitute for Palestinian labourers banned from crossing into Israel. (Ha'aretz)
An Israeli delegation arrived in Oman to participate in the preparations for the meeting of the multilateral group on water, which will take place next week in Muscat, Oman. The meeting is part of the Middle East multilateral peace negotiations in which Israel is a member. This was the first time that an official Israeli delegation arrived at a Gulf country. (Ha'aretz)
11 April Israeli troops shot and injured 11 youths, including 2 boys under 12, during clashes in Gaza city and Jabalia refugee camp. (The Jerusalem Press)
The first team of 17 international observers toured Hebron in order to get a first impression of the city's problems. The group is an advance team of the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH) agreed upon between Israel and the PLO on 31 March in Cairo. (Israel Line)
12 April Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian during clashes in Ramallah. (Reuters)
Israeli troops shot and injured 11 Palestinians during clashes in Jericho. (The Jerusalem Press)
13 April A bomb ripped through a crowded bus in Hadera's central bus station at 9:30 a.m. killing 5 Israelis and a Hamas member who set off the blast. Thirty-two others were wounded of whom 27 were released shortly after receiving medical treatment. The bus, which arrived from Afula and stopped to pick up passengers in Hadera, was on its way to Tel Aviv. Another bomb was found on a bench nearby and exploded harmlessly. In a statement issued in Amman, Jordan, Hamas claimed responsibility for the blast, which it described as the second of five planned attacks to avenge the Hebron massacre of 25 February. (Haaretz, The Washington Post)
United Nations Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali condemned the bomb attack in Hadera and other recent violence which resulted in Israeli and Palestinian casualties. He urged Israel and the PLO to continue their peace negotiations. (Reuters)
A Jewish settler shot dead an 18-year-old Palestinian woman who was in her fourth month of pregnancy. The woman was killed inside her house in the village of Jib when the settler opened fire on her house claiming he was stoned by children while driving by the main road of the village. (Ha'aretz)
Israeli troops opened fire, killing a young Palestinian and injuring 3 others, in the refugee camp of Jalazone. (Ha'aretz)
Special units of the Israeli military demolished a house of a prominent PLO activist, who is also an UNRWA official, in Ramallah. The units, which were searching for wanted Palestinians, first launched tank rockets on the house and then bulldozed it. Attempts by local leaders to prevent the destruction of the house by searching the house themselves, were rejected by the military. No one was found inside the house. (Ha'aretz)
14 April Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin strongly attacked and accused Jordan of helping the Islamic militant Hamas, whose suicide bombers have killed 12 Israelis in two weeks. Rabin said that "Israel cannot tolerate the situation of Amman being a base for Hamas, whose spokesman is permitted to publicly announce the assault on Israel". He said that he decided to appeal in public after quiet contacts with Jordan had failed and that he had discussed the issue with US Secretary of State Warren Christopher. (Ha'aretz)
PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to express his regrets at the bus bombing in Hadera and to extend his condolences to the victims' families. (Reuters)
A Jewish settler who was driving through opened fire on a schoolyard in Jericho and injured four students. The Israeli police said that they will investigate the incident. Following the shooting, students took to the streets and clashed with Israeli troops who shot and injured two students. In the refugee camp of Jalazone, Israeli troops shot and injured three people during clashes. (Al-Ittihad)
16 April Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin met in Muscat, Oman, with the Omani Ministers of Economic and Foreign Affairs, and discussed with them bilateral cooperation, particularly in the sphere of agriculture, human resources and technology. Mr. Beilin had arrived in Oman the previous day to participate in the meeting of the multilateral working group on water. (Ha'aretz)
Israeli troops shot dead a young Palestinian and injured 10 others in Kalandia refugee camp. Five Palestinians were injured during clashes with the army in the refugee camps of Bureij and Nuseirat. (Al-Ittihad)
18 April The Palestinian delegation to the multilateral talks on water announced in Oman the establishment of a Palestinian Water Authority in accordance with the Declaration of Principles signed on 13 September between Israel and the PLO. Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin, who led his delegation at the meeting in Oman, said that Israel has reached an agreement with the PLO on water issues, including the establishment of the water authority. (Israel Line, Reuters)
A young Palestinian attacked Israeli passengers aboard a bus in Jerusalem with an axe, wounding three of them before he was shot and injured by a soldier who was in the bus. (Reuters)
Israeli troops shot and injured 13 Palestinians during clashes in the Gaza Strip. (The Jerusalem Press)
Six Palestinians, who were wanted and escaped to Egypt several years ago, returned to the Gaza Strip through Rafah crossing point. (The Jerusalem Press)
19 April Israeli security authorities detained some 450 Palestinians suspected of supporting Hamas in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. (Al-Ittihad)
Six Palestinians, who were deported by Israel a few years earlier, returned to the Gaza Strip via Rafah crossing point. (Reuters)
Israeli troops shot and injured 5 Palestinians during clashes in Kalandia refugee camp. (Reuters)
20 April A representative of Israel to the multilateral talks on water announced in Oman that his delegation has reached an agreement with senior Omani officials that paves the way for an economic delegation from Oman to travel to Israel in the near future. (Israel Line)
Seventy families, about one-third of the Maale Ephraim Jewish settlement in the West Bank, requested the Government of Israel to assist them in leaving the settlement and resettle in Israel. (Reuters)
21 April PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat started his first official visit to the Russian Federation during which he met President Boris Yeltsin, Foreign Minister Kozyrev, Duma Speaker Rybkin, Interior Minister Yerin and the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, Aleksiy II. During his visit, a Russian-Palestinian agreement of cooperation in the cultural and educational fields was signed. (International Intelligence Report)
PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres concluded a series of talks in Bucharest during which they resolved some of the difficulties facing the implementation of the self-government arrangements. (UPI)
Ten Palestinians, who were deported by Israeli authorities five years ago, returned to Gaza through Rafah crossing point. (Al-Ittihad)
Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian in Kalandia refugee camp and injured 7 others in Jalazone camp. (Al-Ittihad)
22 April Kol Yisrael (Israel Radio) reported that a delegation of the World Bank signed a number of agreements with the PLO in Tunis which pave the way for the implementation of several development projects in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Some of the projects will be funded by money from donor countries which pledged funds to the Palestinians several months ago.
The military wings of the Fatah movement and Hamas in Gaza reached an agreement on stopping the killing of Palestinian collaborators, refraining from using violence in solving disputes between them and curbing the number of strike days in the Gaza Strip. (Reuters)
A day after suggesting that he was willing to dismantle Jewish settlements in the Golan Heights to buy real peace, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said that certain settlements in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip are also expendable. (UPI)
Five Palestinians, who had fled the Gaza Strip to avoid arrest, returned to Gaza via Rafah crossing point. (Reuters)
23 April Jewish settlers shot and critically wounded a 14-year-old Palestinian boy. A military spokesman said that they are investigating the incident. (Reuters)
24 April Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin began a four-day visit to the Russian Federation, the first by an Israeli Prime Minister, for bilateral talks. Before leaving for Moscow, Rabin was quoted as saying that, "with the fact that Russia is now having a more active foreign policy, I see a need to achieve a dialogue with the top Russian leadership, so this activity will be in the framework of the two superpowers, Russia and the United States". (Christian Science Monitor)
Eight Palestinian deportees returned to the Gaza Strip via Rafah crossing point. (The Jerusalem Press)
Israeli troops shot and injured 6 Palestinians during clashes in the Gaza Strip. (The Jerusalem Press)
25 April According to The New York Times, "major figures on both sides questioning Israel-PLO talks". It reported that Israeli opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu reaffirmed that he considered the peace understandings to have already been "vitiated" by the PLO and he did not feel required to honor commitments made by the current government should he become prime minister. It reported that in the occupied territories, Dr. Haider Abdel-Shafi, former head of the Palestinian delegation to the peace talks, together with 22 other prominent Palestinians, had circulated a petition saying that if the eventual agreement allows Israel to continue expanding settlements, they will declare it to "lack legitimacy" and therefore not binding on Palestinians. He was also quoted as saying that "the agreement could not prevent the continued struggle of our people against the illegal actions of the Israeli occupation".
According to Ha'aretz, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin has decided to hold off on approving a plan, reached in talks earlier between Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat. It was reported that Rabin insisted that all issues be resolved before the agreement on the withdrawal of the Israeli army from Jericho and the Gaza Strip is signed. Peres suggested that the agreement be signed even if several issues remain unresolved.
Israeli troops shot and injured 5 Palestinians during clashes in Gaza city. (The Jerusalem Press)
26 April According to the daily Ha'aretz, US sources said that senior Syrian officials had explained that Syria will establish full diplomatic relations with Israel "only after a final settlement is reached between Israel and the PLO, based on the right of self-determination".
The Israeli Ministry of Justice and the Constitutional Committee of the Knesset (Parliament) issued new firing orders to settlers in the occupied territories. The new orders stipulate that no settler is allowed to open fire on an attacker (Palestinian) unless his life is in immediate danger. (The Jerusalem Press)
Israeli troops shot and injured 5 Palestinians during clashes in Gaza city. (The Jerusalem Press)
27 April Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, the founder of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in Gaza, who is serving a life sentence in Israel, said that the movement would run in parliamentary elections under Palestinian self-rule but will not participate in "any apparatus of the autonomy authorities". He added that Hamas will continue to oppose the autonomy by using "only the media and statements" in order to convince the majority that "Islam is the solution". (Reuters)
The military commander of the Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip, Gen. Doron Almog, met in Gaza city with Mohsen Abu Eita, a senior Hamas official, and discussed with him an agreement reached earlier between Hamas and Fatah leaders in Gaza. Abu Eita informed the commander that the agreement is related to their mutual relations and internal issues and does not deal with political matters. (The Jerusalem Press)
An Israeli advance team has arrived in Qatar to prepare for next week's multilateral round of Middle East peace talks on arms control. Israel's participation last week in multilateral talks on water, held in Oman, marked the first official visit by an Israeli delegation to the Gulf States. (UPI)
Israel Radio (Kol Yisrael) reported that Kuwait's Foreign Minister, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah, said in Tunis that his country has partially removed its economic boycott of Israel because it needs to deal with companies which trade with Israel.
Israeli soldiers shot and seriously wounded a Palestinian woman who tried to stab a soldier in Gaza city. (Reuters)
28 April The US Secretary of State, Israel's Foreign Minister, the PLO Chairman and the President of Egypt met in Cairo to finalize the PLO-Israel agreement on Palestinian self-rule in Jericho and the Gaza Strip. At the end of the day-long negotiations, it was announced that May 4 was set as the target day for signing the agreement. (Reuters)
The PLO has formed the new authority for Jericho and the Gaza Strip, headed by Chairman Arafat, which consists of 18 members, including 11 from the diaspora, and 7 from the occupied territories. (The Jerusalem Press)
The United Nations Committee Against Torture urged Israel to end its methods of interrogating Palestinian detainees which violate the International Convention against Torture. The Committee also determined that Israel's laws, which permit the use of `moderate physical pressure' on suspects, were unacceptable. (Reuters)
29 April Israeli Finance Minister Avraham Shohat and PLO Chief economist Abu Alla, signed in Paris, a "Protocol on Economic Relations" between Israel and the PLO for future relations with the Palestinian Authority. The signing of the agreement was presided by the French Foreign Affairs Minister Alain Juppe. (UPI)
Six Palestinian deportees returned to the Gaza Strip via Rafah crossing point. (The Jerusalem Press)
30 April PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and Mr. Federico Mayor, the Director-General of UNESCO, signed in Tunis an accord on "Plan of Action" on projects for the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Among the projects listed for immediate action are the rehabilitation of schools, support for a Palestinian television service, conservation of monuments and a study for setting up a Palestinian national museum. (Reuters)
