CHRONOLOGICAL REVIEW OF EVENTS
RELATING TO THE QUESTION OF PALESTINE
Monitored from the media by the
Division for Palestinian Rights
1 March A Palestinian from Khan Yunis who was shot and wounded in the spine during clashes with Israeli soldiers in 1991, died of his injuries.
Israel released 35 Palestinian prisoners to mark the Moslem feast of Eid al-Fitr. According to Palestinian sources, most of the freed prisoners were close to completing their sentences. (Reuter)
2 March A 19 year-old Palestinian was stabbed and wounded in the back by an Israeli man in East Jerusalem. (AFP)
3 March A Palestinian was shot and injured by an Israeli soldier at a road- block between the occupied West Bank and the self-rule area of Jericho. (Reuter)
Deputy Foreign Minister of Norway, Jan Egeland, held separate talks with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat in Jerusalem and Gaza respectively. He discussed the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and promised to put pressure on donor countries which have not met their obligations, including some Gulf states and European countries. (Reuter)
5 March Osama Borno, 41 year-old, was shot dead and a passenger in his car was wounded in the shoulder when Israeli soldiers opened fire while reportedly giving cover to suspected Palestinian collaborators fleeing to Netzarim settlement. PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and thousands of Gaza students attended the funeral. (AFP)
6 March Israel has for the first time placed a Palestinian from the West Bank under administrative detention for a one-year term without charge or trial, doubling the usual six-month detention period. Human rights organizations condemned the measure applied by a military judge.(AFP)
A statement issued by eight U.S. Christian leaders including the president of the National Council of Catholic Bishops, urged the Clinton administration to press Israel to stop annexing Arab land in Jerusalem. The statement criticised the peace process in which both Israel and the PLO agreed to deal with the status of Jerusalem at the end of the negotiation process and not to be raised at this time. (AFP)
7 March Representatives of Jordan, Egypt, Israel, and the PLO started talks in Amman on the final status of Palestinians who were displaced during the 1967 war. The primary purpose of the meeting was to establish the agenda and set a criteria to guide the technical committees which will negotiate the issue. (AFP)
An Israeli security guard shot and wounded a 14 year-old Palestinian who he claimed tried to steal his refile in the port city of Ashdod. A police spokesman suggested the man panicked and fired without reason. (AFP)
8 March Hundreds of Palestinians gathered in East Jerusalem to see a suspicious tunnel leading to the Esplanade of Mosques, the third holiest site in Islam. The tunnel entrance was discovered near a school in the Via Dolorosa area in the East Jerusalem. Faisal Husseini, the Palestinian Authority official responsible for Jerusalem Affairs, said he had asked for an inquiry to be conducted by the Waqf, the religious administration in charge of Moslem property. Israeli police also launched an inquiry and urged Husseini to call for calm. (AFP)
9 March U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher arrived in Israel from Cairo on the second leg of a Middle East diplomatic tour. Mr. Christopher met with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and discussed with him the Middle East peace talks. (Reuter)
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat agreed that 1 July 1995 will be the deadline to conclude negotiations on the second phase of self-rule in the West Bank. Both leaders described the talks as positive, but it was reported that they did not achieve any concrete results concerning the two main issues, the election and the army redeployment in the West Bank. (Reuter)
British Foreign Minister Douglas Hogg cancelled a visit to Jerusalem in response to Israeli protests at a planned meeting with PLO officials in East Jerusalem. Deputy Foreign Minister, Yehuda Millo, responding to the planned meeting said that "we see in any visit to the Orient House as a violation of the Declaration of Principles". (AFP)
The Kach movement has reportedly been pursuing anti-Arab activities and recruiting new members a year after being banded following the Hebron mosque massacre in February 1994. It was reported that Kach leader, Baruch Marzel, who is supposed to be under house arrest in a Hebron settlement, has been moving around regularly using aliases and has organized meetings of militants. (Ha'aretz)
10 March Faisal Husseini, in charge of the Jerusalem file in the Palestinian
Authority, called for immediate talks with Israel on the future of Jerusalem instead of waiting for the final states negotiations as agreed under the Declaration of Principles. He said that "Jerusalem should be placed at the top of the current negotiations agenda since Israel has lunched a vigorous campaign to Judaize the holy city in violation of the peace accords." (AFP)
Israeli opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu warned US Secretary of State Warren Christopher that extending autonomy into the West Bank could turn it into another Gaza Strip. "Israelis will not allow the army of Yasser Arafat to replace our army and threaten the towns of Jerusalem, Tel-Aviv and Haifa", he said. (AFP)
The Government of Norway, which chairs an international consortium for aid to the Palestinian self-rule areas, sent an urgent reminder to eight donor countries. The Foreign Minister of Norway said that countries had failed to come up with $33.1 million, or 28 percent of the $115 million pledged to the World Bank's "Holst Peace Fund" in the current budget period which expired on April 1 1995. (Reuter)
13 March The Netherlands officially opened a representative office in Jericho. The ceremony was attended by Dutch diplomats as well as by officials of the Palestinian Authority, including Nabil Shaath and Saeb Erekat. (AFP)
Qatar said it had granted Enron Corp of the U.S. the approval to market part of its liquefied natural gas (LNG) production from the Gulf Arab state to Mediterranean countries, including Israel. (Reuter)
Israel Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, urged British Prime Minister John Major to finance the construction of one of nine industrial parks along the borders with the Palestinian self-rule areas. Mr. Major, who has called for greater trade to improve prosperity throughout the Middle East, made no commitment on Mr. Peres suggestions. (AFP)
Hundreds of plainclothes Palestinian police have been deployed in the West Bank town of Jenin in preparation for its handover to the Palestinian Authority. (Ha'aretz)
Palestinian gunmen shot and slightly wounded an Israeli border guard driving a jeep near Nablus in the West Bank. A petrol bomb was also thrown at the Headquarters of the Israeli military administration in the West Bank town of Jenin without causing any injuries. (AFP)
A bomb was discovered on a Gaza road used by Israelis and Palestinians. An Israeli-Palestinian joint patrol said that the remote-controlled bomb was spotted five minutes before the convoy of PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat was due to pass through on his way to Gaza City back from talks in Cairo. There was no evidence, however, that Arafat was the target. (Reuter)
14 March Israeli police discovered four home made bombs on a road at the northern entrance to Hebron and another near Jenin. The bombs were defused without causing injuries or damage. (AFP)
British Prime Minister John Major, who was on a three day visit to the Middle East, met with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat in Gaza , and pledged his full support for the Palestinian self-rule. Mr. Major also met with Palestinian leaders at the British consulate in East Jerusalem instead of the Orient House. (Reuter)
Representatives of the 22 member League of Arab States (LAS) and of the 52 member Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) attended a three day international seminar, along with Palestinian, Islamic and Christian leaders. The participants discussed the issue of East Jerusalem in the context of international law, U.N. resolutions, the post-cold war era and Israeli policies. At the end of the seminar, the participants urged the international community to uphold UN resolution 478, adopted in 1980, which asked member states not to shift their diplomatic missions from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem. They also declared that East Jerusalem is the key to Middle East peace and condemned Israel for building Jewish settlements there. (UPI)
Palestinian businessmen met in Gaza City with leading British industrialists who are visiting the area. The British delegation also met with their Israeli counterparts and agreed to establish a joint business council consisting of prominent business leaders on both sides. Danny Gillerman, Chairman of the Israel Federation of Chambers of Commerce, said that British companies will facilitate a joint ventures between Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. (UPI)
15 March Around 240 experts from 39 countries including Israel met in Muscat, Oman, for a four-day conference on the management of water resources in arid countries. In a final statement the participants called for "new methods for rationalising water use, especially in the agricultural sector". (AFP)
The Central Committee of Fatah Movement, the PLO's mainstream group, met in Tunis and discussed the difficulties and delays facing the peace process with Israel. The meeting was chaired by PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat. The committee gave the green light for continued talks with Israel and said a "detailed plan" on how to deal with the negotiations would be submitted to the PLO Executive Committee. It was also decided to keep the PLO's official Headquarters in Tunis. (AFP)
16 March Israel Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin has approved the broad outlines of a $200 million plan to create a security zone between Israel and the West Bank to prevent Palestinian entry into Israel. Under the proposed security plan, a surveillance zone would be set up east of the armistice line that separated Israel from the West Bank before the 1967 war. (AFP)
17 March The PLO Executive Committee opened a two day meeting presided by PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat to discuss the future of the self-rule talks with Israel. Eleven of the 18 committee members took part in the meeting held at the Headquarters in Tunis, including Farouk Qaddumi and Muhmud Abbas, who boycotted the last Executive Committee meeting. The Executive Committee drew up a plan aimed at ending the "paralysis" in the negotiations on extending self-rule to the West Bank. No further details were given. (Reuter)
President Clinton ordered the Defence Department to supply up to $5 million worth of vehicles and spare parts to the Palestinian Police Force in the Gaza Strip. Clinton directed that 200 vehicles be transported to Israel for release to the Palestinians. (Reuter)
Israel begun moving Palestinian prisoners out of Jenin prison in the West Bank in anticipation of extending the Palestinian self-rule over the City. About 90 of the 400 prisoners have recently been shifted to other detention centers outside Jenin. (AFP)
18 March PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat called for the creation of a special supervisory PLO committee to steer the negotiations with Israel. According to Abbas Zaki, a member of the Fatah Central Committee, the new committee would be headed by Mahmud Abbas, a member of the PLO Executive Committee. It was reported that the main role of the committee would be to draw up resolutions on the future of the self-rule talks. (AFP)
PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat said that Israel and the Palestinian Authority originally agreed to complete talks on the next stage of Palestinian self-rule by June 1, not a month later as Israel Foreign Minister Shimon Peres announced earlier. (AFP)
Israel Environment Minister Yossi Sarid said that an independent Palestinian state would be created in several months in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. He added that "it will effectively be a state without being officially named as such and it would carry out all government functions except "external security" which will remain an Israeli responsibility. In response to Sarid's statement, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin expressed his opposition to establishing a Palestinian state. (AFP)
19 March Palestinian gunmen attacked a bus at a crossroads close to the Kiryat Arba settlement and the entrance to Hebron in the West Bank, killing two Israeli settlers and wounding five others. Following the attack several settlers went on a rampage in Halhul village, near Hebron, shot and injured a Palestinian and damaged Palestinian cars. A Palestinian official, Zakaria al-Agha, condemned the attack. A curfew was imposed on Hebron. (AFP)
The bodies of two Palestinians killed while making a bomb were found near Jenin in the West Bank . Initial inquiries showed the two men were members of the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, but their identities were not given. (AFP)
The Gaza Farmer's Association and the Palestinian Authority's Department of Planning and International Cooperation have agreed to export, for the first time, five tonnes of strawberries to the British company, International Fruit Importers. (AFP)
20 March Palestinian Police Chief Naser Yussef visited police facilities in London on a fact-finding mission, upon an invitation from Prime Minister John Major. Britain is one of the main donors to the Palestinian Police Force and 50 patrol vehicles were granted to the Palestinian Authority when John Major met with the PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat last week. (AFP)
Israeli Police Minister, Moshe Shahal, said his plan to separate Palestinians and Israelis ended right-wing dreams of annexing occupied Arab lands. He added, the plan for creating a "security area" between Israel and the West Bank has a political meaning. (AFP)
PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and the World Bank Vice President, Ciao Kochweiser urgently appealed for donor countries to pay out monies they had promised the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority complained that in 1994, only $240 million out of $720 million pledged by donors was paid, and a special fund to cover the salaries of 22,000 Palestinian civil servants now stands empty. (AFP)
21 March Environment Minister Yossi Sarid called for the 400 settlers to be removed out of the center of Hebron as soon as possible following the murder of two Israeli settlers. He added that the government should concentrate on ensuring security for the 98 percent of Israelis who live within the state itself, not those who have settled on occupied Arab lands. (AFP)
Israel banned all Palestinian vehicles in Gaza from entering the country after police captured two Palestinians believed to be members of the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, who were planning to blow themselves up in a massive truck bombing in the center of Beersheba. (AFP)
Israel Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin met with the Omani Foreign Minister in Cairo and agreed in principle to allow the Israeli national airline El-Al to high over Omani airspace. Both Ministers also agreed on a visit by Israeli businessmen to Oman and on cooperation between the two countries in the area of water desalination. (AFP)
After half a day of assessment, the Israeli government concluded that the deaths of two Jewish settlers, in a bus attack on 19 March, will not derail its plans to resume negotiations on Palestinian self-rule. There was no official statement made and no members of the Israeli government attended the funerals of the two Israeli settlers. (Lose Angeles Times)
22 March Muhammad Nusseibeh, an official of the Higher Islamic Council, said Israeli archaeological excavations near Al-Aqsa mosque were threatening other buildings in East Jerusalem. Israel denied the charge. (Reuter)
The Mayor of Hebron, Mustafa Natsheh, in a letter to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, urged him to lift a round-the-clock curfew, calling it a "campaign of cruelty" against 100,000 Palestinians residents of the city. In a separate letter, Mr. Natsheh wrote to PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, that the curfew in Hebron has become a great burden to the residents of the town and causes serious damages to its economic, social, political, educational, and health affairs.(Reuter)
Police arrested an Israeli Arab, a third suspect in a foiled truck bombing in the south of the country. The man came from the Bedouin settlement of Tel Sheva, where one of the two Palestinians was already arrested. (AFP)
22 March An unidentified gunman shot and killed an alleged Palestinian collaborator near Jenin in the north of the West Bank. (AFP)
23 March A group of American businessmen agreed with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat to help open the flow of aid to the Palestinians. Mohammad Nashashibi, a Palestinian official in charge of the Finance Department, said he would ask at a donor meeting in Washington on April 3-4 for 250 million dollars to cover the 1995 budget deficit as well as for rescheduling the payment of 500 million dollars of unpaid promised funds from last year. (AFP)
A survey, conducted by the Palestine Research Center in the West Bank town of Nablus found that 67 percent of the 1,296 Palestinian people questioned between March 16 and 18 favoured continuing the peace talks with Israel, while 21 percent were against them. The center said it was the first time such a high level of support for the peace talks had been recorded. (AFP)
24 March US Vice President Al Gore arrived for two-day official visit to Israel and to the Palestinian self-rule areas. Al Gore unveiled a $65 million aid package as he arrived in the self-rule area of Jericho, becoming the first foreign official to meet with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat there. Arafat, who also began his second full visit to Jericho, called on Washington to help implement the autonomy agreement ahead of his talks with Al Gore. (AFP)
In Gaza City, the Palestinian Authority turned back two Israeli trucks loaded with bananas in retaliation for a ban by Israel on cars entering from the Gaza Strip. The action came as the Israeli army began to ease the ban imposed after a foiling of a truck bombing in southern Israel. (AFP)
A survey of 500 Israeli people conducted by Dahaf Institute showed that 73 percent thought the peace process was leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state, while 23 percent said the opposite and four percent had no opinion. A poll published in the daily Yediot Ahronot, also found that 42 percent of Israelis favoured unconditionally continuing talks with the PLO on extending the Palestinian self-rule into the West Bank. 22 percent demanded that the PLO first "deal with terrorism" and 34 percent wanted the negotiations to be halted. Two percent had no opinion. (AFP)
Speaking in Lose Angeles, King Hussein of Jordan said there were "grave difficulties " in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians and pledged to help the parties work out their differences. (Reuter)
26 March Mr. Farouk Qaddumi, the head of the PLO Political Department and chairman of the board of governors of the Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction, arrived in Canberra, Australia, for talks with key Australian Ministers. He met with Australian Governor-General Bill Hayden and Foreign Minister Gareth Evans and Aid Minister Gordon Bilney as well as academics, diplomats and government officials. (AFP)
27 March The United States has informed Israel that Syria is preparing to expel Damascus-based Palestinian leaders hostile to the peace process. PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat has invited Syria-based Palestinian politician leaders to settle in the Gaza Strip to contribute to the building of a Palestinian state.(AFP)
The Secretary-General of Israel's Trade Union Federation (Histadrut) Haim Ramon, called for all Jewish Settlers to be evacuated from the Gaza Strip, including the 3,000 to 4,000 settlers in Gush Katif area close to the Egyptian border. He said that instead of investing in these settlements, Israel should concentrate on solving the problem of unemployment which has reached up to 40 percent of the Palestinian workforce in the Gaza Strip. (AFP)
The Clinton administration announced that the West Bank and Gaza Strip are allowed to enter the United State duty-free system. President Clinton has designated the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a beneficiary of the Generalization System of Preferences, effective 7 April 1995. (Israel Information Service)
28 March A senior Palestinian official edited a map of Palestine showing Tel-Aviv and other towns in Israel as Jewish settlements. The map has been edited by the Arab Studies Society run by Faisal Husseini who is in charge of the Jerusalem file for the Palestinian Authority. Mr. Husseini told the Israeli radio that the map would "remain our reference as long as the Israelis continue to use biblical terms such as Judea and Samaria to refer to the occupied West Bank". (AFP)
Around 500 Palestinian traders and businessmen from the Gaza Strip protested against Israeli restrictions on agricultural exports from the Gaza Strip at the Erez crossing, between Gaza Strip and Israel. According to Palestinian sources the measures are costing farmers two million dollars a day. (AFP)
The Palestinian Authority accused Israel of "robbery" in planning a huge extravaganza to mark 3,000 years since Jerusalem became the King David's capital. Deputy Minister Yossi Beilin has questioned the wisdom of holding the event when control of the city is the main obstacle to peace between Israel and the Palestinians. (AFP)
A leader of the right-wing opposition Ariel Sharon, vowed to quadruple the number of Israeli settlers in Palestinian territories if the Likud party comes to power next year. He accused Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's government of "hating the settlers" and failing to protect them against Palestinian militant attacks. (AFP)
29 March Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian driver from Gaza City who crashed his truck into a police jeep near Netzarim settlement, killing two officers and injuring two others. According to an army spokesman, the incident looks like an attack, but Palestinian officials said that the driver lost control on the vehicle due to failing breaks. (AFP)
Israel Foreign Minister Shimon Peres proposed a 45-kilometre (28 mile) road bridge between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The scheme would enable Palestinians to travel between the two areas without entering Israel and thereby improve security. (AFP)
Dutch Foreign Minister Hans Van Mierlo pledged full support for the Palestinian Authority when he met with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat. The Minister said that his government would back the construction of a port in Gaza and renewed European Union commitments to help the Palestinians elections to an autonomy council.
Jordan announced it would recognize the Palestinian passport to be issued by the Palestinian Authority, becoming the first country to do so. The Palestinian interior department give the first passport this week to 5,000 people planning to make the Moslem pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia at the beginning of May. (AFP)
The European Investment Bank has granted the Palestinian Authority a 300 million dollar loan. The loan would be spent on industrial, agricultural and water projects. (AFP)
30 March Representatives of more than 30 donor countries met in Gaza City to review the development efforts made by the Palestinian Authority in preparation to a major aid conference to be held in Washington on 3-4 April. (AFP)
The UN special coordinator in the occupied territories Terje Larsen reported progress in disbursing aid to the Palestinian Authority. His statement came ahead of a donors conference in Paris on April 24 which will be preceded by preparatory talks in Washington on 3-4 April. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has granted three million dollars to the Palestinian Authority to help develop the Palestinian infrastructure and for educational projects. (AFP)
Police detained 20 extremist Jews among dozens who were trying to pray in the Moslem Holy shrine, which houses the al-Aqsa and Dome of the Rock mosques. (AFP)
31 March Saudi Arabia requested that Israeli-Arabs carry Palestinian papers to enter the country for the Moslem pilgrimage to Mecca in May. Israel's Interior Minister Uzi Baram rejected the request and said "if the Saudi want to give them additional papers, we have no objection". (AFP)
