1.10.04 Israel deploys over 200 tanks in an incursion in the Gaza Strip in response to al-Qassam rockets launched by Palestinians into the Israeli town of Sderot. Most of the fighting is concentrated in the Jabaliya refugee camp. The Israeli government's intention: to create a nine-kilometer "buffer zone," thought to be the range of the al-Qassam rockets, by leveling land, demolishing houses and uprooting trees. In a week, over 80 Palestinians are killed in the northern Gaza Strip in the largest Israeli military operation in Palestinian territory since 2002.

1.10.04 Five Israeli settlers assault two members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams in Hebron who were escorting Palestinian children to school near a Jewish settlement in the area. According to members of the team, the settlers beat their two colleagues with baseball clubs and chains, inflicting grievous bodily harm on them.

3.10.04 The International Commission of the Red Cross (ICRC) calls for a halt to the Israeli operation in Gaza, as did UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, who also urged the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) to act to stop al-Qassam rockets being fired at Israeli towns.
3.10.04 A Danish peace activist, member of the International Solidarity Movement, and 14 Palestinians are injured by Israeli soldiers during a demonstration against the separation wall in the village of Beit Awwa in the southern West Bank.

4.10.04 Mayor of the Israeli town of Sderot, Eli Moyal, says he wants to meet presidential advisor Jibril Rjoub and Hamas leader Khalid Mash'al, preferably in a European capital. Moyal said he would ask the two Palestinian officials for "one year of quiet" during which negotiations would continue in order to reach a solution.

4.10.04 The Israeli human-rights organization B'Tselem issues a report on the Israeli operations in the Gaza Strip in which it said that 41 percent of the fatalities were civilians. According to the report, as of October 4, 75 Palestinians had been killed, 31 of whom were civilians who took no part in the fighting. Nineteen of the casualties were children, under the age of 17. The report noted that 55 houses had been completely demolished in Jabaliya refugee camp and 50 severely damaged.

5.10.04 A USAID-funded survey shows that 22 percent of Palestinian children aged 12 - 59 months suffer from Vitamin A deficiency.
6.10.04 Twelve United Nations organizations in the Gaza Strip release a report in which they express their concern for the deteriorating humanitarian situation there. The report said since September 28, 82 Palestinians had been killed including 24 children and poverty rates are predicted to rise to 72 percent.

6.10.04 Seven people are killed in the Gaza Strip, including three men who died in an armed clash with the Israeli army while attempting to infiltrate the Kfar Darom settlements east of Deir al-Balah. One Thai worker was also killed in the exchange of fire.

7.10.04 Scores of Israelis are killed when three powerful bombs ripped through the Taba Hilton Hotel and the Shitani and Tal al-Sultan resorts in Sinai, Egypt, packed with vacationing Israelis. Israeli sources put the death toll to no less than 34, including Israelis, Egyptians and other nationalities. An anonymous caller told Agence France Press (AFP) that the bombs were carried out by the International Islamic Group to "avenge Palestinian and Arab martyrs in Palestine and Iraq."

7.10.04 Two al-Qassam rockets are fired into the Israeli town of Sderot, causing no injuries.

9.10.04 The Jewish Agency announces on its website that it plans to bring in 300,000 Jewish settlers to the Galilee by 2010 as part of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to Judaize the Negev and the Galilee.

9.10.04 Ministry of Health sources in the Gaza Strip put the Palestinian death toll as a result of Israel's incursion at 111. Thirty percent of those killed were children as were 43 percent of the 425 injuries.

10.10.04 A group of Jewish settlers attack a religious procession of the Orthodox Armenians between Jaffa Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem and the Christian Quarter to observe mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. The settlers attacked the Armenian archbishop, Nurhan, ripping the cross off his chest, and proceeded to punch him in the face, tearing off his cap and raining religious insults on him.
12.10.04 A spokesperson for UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, criticizes the Israeli operation in Gaza, saying he was concerned with the number of civilian casualties and reiterating that there was no military solution to the problem.

13.10.04 The EU Representative for Foreign Affairs, Javier Solana, presents a new four-point plan to provide support to the PNA. The four areas in which the EU would assist the PNA are security, political reform, economic reform, and the electoral process. On October 17, the PLO Executive Committee welcomed the EU plan.
13.10.04 Palestinian sources confirm that UNRWA suspended a number of its employees from their duties at the agency. The suspensions came days after Israeli authorities announced they had arrested these same UNRWA workers on charges of cooperation with political groups, namely Hamas.
15.10.04 The Israeli army pulls out of Jabaliya and Beit Lahiya proclaiming the end of "Operation Days of Penitence" after a 17-day incursion that killed over 130 Palestinians, left some 430 people injured, and scores of families homeless.
17.10.04 In a meeting between leaders of the settler's movement and Israeli PM Ariel Sharon, the latter rejects requests to put his "disengagement plan" to a national referendum. Settlers are opposed to the dismantling of settlements in the Gaza Strip and anywhere else.

18.10.04 Clashes in Gaza City between members of the Preventive Security Apparatus and the Military Intelligence Apparatus. The incident involved firearms and hand grenades and Fateh officials initiate mediation efforts.
19.10.04 Some 60 rabbis publicly call on Israeli soldiers to disobey any orders to dismantle any settlements. Israeli Defense Minister, Shaul Mofaz, criticized the calls warning they "constitute a terrible danger ... The IDF is what unites all the different parts of this nation ... That is our greatness and the source of our strength. Refusal to execute an order will rend the nation ...."
19.10.04 An Israeli soldier is killed near the village of Arrabeh, Jenin, which was put under a tight curfew. The shooting was claimed by the Jenin al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades who called it revenge for Israel's Gaza operation.
24.10.04 According to the Israeli daily Ha'aretz, a joint Jordanian-Israeli committee convened to discuss the establishment of the Bridging the Rift Center. The center will be built on the border between Jordan and Israel on a 300-square meter area allocated by the two countries.
25.10.04 Sixteen people are killed and 70 injured during an Israeli shelling and shooting in Khan Yunis, while 15 homes are demolished and a cemetery leveled.
25.10.04 In an interview with Der Spiegel, the EU Representative for Foreign Affairs, Javier Solana, calls on Israeli PM Sharon to withdraw from all the occupied territories and not only the Gaza Strip, saying that if he believed the Gaza withdrawal was the end, the EU would not support it: "That wouldn't be a dream but a nightmare."
26.10.04 Israeli Knesset members vote 67 to 45 in favor of Israeli PM Ariel Sharon's unilateral "disengagement" plan from the Gaza Strip that could see all settlements there and four settlement outposts in the West Bank evacuated.
27.10.04 A group of settlers from Shilo attack a number of farmers while they were picking olives in the Mughayer village near Ramallah forcing them to flee their land.
27.10.04 Israeli sources confirm that the West Jerusalem municipality has completed plans for the construction of a new settlement quarter in a part of Abu Dis, the separation wall in that area. The settlement will include 280 housing units and is to be named the "Footsteps of Zion."
29.10.04 Palestinian President Yasser Arafat is flown to France after suffering from a stomach ailment for weeks.
1.11.04 Six Palestinians are killed. Three of them, members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, are assassinated in a coffee shop in Nablus by Israeli undercover soldiers.
1.11.04 A 16-year-old suicide bomber from Nablus detonates a bomb in a marketplace in Tel Aviv, killing himself and three Israelis. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) claimed responsibility.
1.11.04 According to a senior officer in the Israeli army, about 210 kilometers of Israel's separation wall has already been built, more than one-third of its total length. He added that 6,000 dunums of Palestinian land have been confiscated for this purpose.
2.11.04 Rabbi Menachem Froman from the settlement of Tekoa near Bethlehem sent a get-well letter to President Yasser Arafat, wishing him a speedy recovery. Froman, who met with Arafat in the past, believes that peace is possible through closer religious relations.
3.11.04 The Israeli parliament ratifies in its first reading a compensation draft law for Jewish settlers who will evacuate their settlements in any Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank. According to the law, each settler family will receive around $500,00v0.
7.11.04 According to Ha'aretz, Hizbullah sent an unmanned drone equipped with a camera over northern Israel where it flew over Nahariya and back to base. According to official Israeli sources, the drone was Iranian-made and constitutes the first time Hizbullah violates Israeli airspace.
8.11.04 The Israeli army announces that one Israeli soldier is killed and three injured when their tank accidentally overturns on Jabal al-Sheikh on the Syrian-Israeli border.
9.11.04 The spokesperson for British PM Tony Blair says it is important for Britain and the world to support the Palestinian security services to guarantee that no vacuum is created following an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
11.11.04 President Yasser Arafat dies at Percy Military Hospital in France. Arafat's body was flown from Paris to Cairo, where a ceremony was held in his honor attended by numerous foreign dignitaries. Arafat's remains were then flown to Ramallah where he was interred in a grave near his headquarters. The Palestinians had wanted to bury him in Jerusalem, but the Israelis objected.
17.11.04 The Israeli police say they arrested 18 Israeli youths who were planning to attack Palestinians picking olives near the Jewish settlement of Itamar in the Nablus area. Around 70 settler youths were ready to assault the olive pickers but were confronted by some 50 policemen.
18.11.04 The Israeli human-rights organization B'Tselem, releases a report on Israeli house demolitions. It finds that in the past four years, 628 housing units, home to 3,983 people were demolished by the Israeli army. Forty-seven percent of the houses demolished were not home to anyone suspected of involvement in attacks on Israelis and in less than three percent of cases were occupants given advance notice.
18.11.04 Three Egyptian soldiers are shot and killed by Israeli gunfire near the Egyptian-Gaza border in Rafah. According to Egyptian police, an Israeli tank shell was fired at the Tal Sultan neighborhood in Rafah, followed by random fire at the Egyptian side of the border that led to the deaths of the three soldiers.
22.11.04 U.S. Secretary of State, Colin Powell, meets PLO Chairman, Mahmoud Abbas, interim PNA President, Rawhi Fattouh, and Finance Minister, Salam Fayyad, in Jericho. The Palestinians urged Powell to pressure Israel to take measures to ensure that January 9, PNA elections would be logistically feasible as well as comprehensive.
24.11.04 Israeli troops bar 140 Egyptian food trucks from entering Gaza through the Rafah crossing. Official Israeli army sources claimed that the electronic gate at the crossing was out of order.
24.11.04 The Israeli and Palestinian tourism ministers sign an agreement to promote tourism in the country. The signing took place during the first meeting in a year of Mitri Abu Eita and Gideon Ezra in Jerusalem. One clause of the agreement includes a provision for tourism promotion in Bethlehem.
24.11.04 Israeli police sources in Jerusalem say they arrested four American Jewish youths, all Talmud students, in the Old City on suspicion of throwing a Molotov cocktail at a group of Palestinians near a phone booth in the Jewish Quarter.
28.11.04 UN Coordinator for Peace in the Middle East,Terje Larsen, says during a meeting with Egyptian President, Husni Mubarak, that the Palestinians are in need of $650 million for their budget by June 2005.
28.11.04 The Israeli army confiscates ten dunums of olive groves in the village of Deir al-Asal near Hebron to make way for the separation wall.
28.11.04 Ten women prisoners and two Israeli guards are injured when prison authorities clashed with inmates at the Hasharon security prison inside Israel. The women held a demonstration after one prisoner refused to be strip-searched. When the prison guards tried to forcefully break up the demonstrations the women threw hot oil at the guards, injuring two.
29.11.04 Israeli PM Ariel Sharon and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz approve a blueprint for a modified route of the separation wall. The new course will see the wall cut off some 400,000 dunums of West Bank land, rather than the original 700,000 dunums. The new route needs Israeli government approval.
30.11.04 A report in Ha'aretz claims that the Israeli government plans for an extended network of bypass roads in the West Bank, creating two different road networks, one Palestinian and one Israeli. The aim of the project would be to ensure that settlements can be seamlessly connected to Israel, but it would also mean that for Palestinians there would be no transportation continuity between the various areas.
5.12.04 Egypt releases Azzam Azzam after serving 15 years in prison on charges of spying for Israel, in exchange for six Egyptian students who had infiltrated into Israel and were arrested at the border.
6.12.04 During a meeting of the Constitution Law and Judiciary Committee in the Israeli parliament, head of the Human Resources Department in the Israeli army, Eliezer Stern, says that at least 20 percent of Israeli soldiers at checkpoints in the West Bank and Gaza "belittle the lives of Arabs" because they believe that their lives are not equal to Jewish ones.
6.12.04 Hamas set a trap for Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip with an explosives-rigged chicken coop. One Israeli soldier is killed and four others wounded.
7.12.04 Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinian PM, Ahmad Qrei', visit Damascus where they held "successful talks" with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. They also met the leaders abroad of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the PFLP General Command. Abbas asked the leaders to support his call for a ceasefire.
8.12.04 According to a report published in Ha'aretz, the Israeli army admits to the killing of 29 innocent Palestinians since the start of 2004 out of a total of 148 civilians in the West Bank. Among the "non-innocents" the Israeli army included those who were armed, throwing Molotov cocktails or stones. The army report also said that 52 Israelis died this year in attacks by Palestinians in comparison to 167 in 2003. The army's figures are disputed by the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, who say 187 Palestinians were killed in 2004, 11 of whom were not involved in any fighting.
12.12.04 Four Israeli soldiers are killed and six others wounded when members of Hamas' Izzedin al-Qassam Brigades and Fateh's Black Hawks dynamited a tunnel beneath a military post at the Rafah Crossing.
13.12.04 Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz tells the Herzliya Conference that Israel was looking for a long-term interim agreement since "there is no possibility at the present time for a permanent one." This was after Israel said it would withdraw its forces from Palestinian cities or a period of 72 hours one day before elections are to take place.
15.12.04 Israeli military authorities issue an order to confiscate 600 dunums of land from the villages of Surif and Jabba, north of Hebron in order to continue the construction of the separation wall. According to residents, the military order gave them 10 days to appeal the decision, but was dated two weeks before.
15.12.04 According to the Israeli daily Ma'ariv, a Knesset committee approved the allocation of NIS 2 million to settlements in the West Bank and Gaza for the renovation of "tourist projects." The paper reported that part of the funds were to be used to build a new entrance to the Gaza settlement of Gush Katif.
16.12.04 Twenty-Five Catholic bishops in the Middle East and Africa call for a day of fasting and prayer for peace in Palestine and Israel on December 22. Lutheran Church Bishop Munib Younan also called on the Lutheran world to join in the day of prayer, urging all Christian denominations to come together and "recognize their duty towards the Holy Land."
19.12.04 A senior official in the Israeli PM's office says that Israel would not participate in the upcoming Middle East conference to be held in London at the beginning of next year. The spokesperson said Israel wanted to make it clear that it would not be part of an international conference.
19.12.04 The Yesha Council, which represents settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, urges its supporters to engage in "nonviolent civil disobedience" in an effort to foil the evacuation of settlements from Gaza.
20.12.04 Israeli Police Inspector General Moshe Karadi warns of the ramifications if public opposition should prevent the evacuation of Gush Katif.
20.12.04 World Bank president, James Wolfensohn, warns that simply pulling out of Gaza is "insufficient" if it does not also offer hope of a better future for the Palestinians.
20.12.04 After protracted negotiations, Israeli PM Sharon receives support for his unilateral "disengagement plan" when the Israeli Labor party agreed to enter into a coalition government with Sharon's Likud party.
22.12.04 Four Palestinians are killed during an Israeli incursion into Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip.
22.12.04 An Israeli army incursion into Khan Yunis, Gaza Strip, leaves 11 dead and 55 injured. Israeli army bulldozers demolish a number of houses near the Jewish settlement of Neve Dekalim.
23.12.04 Israel and Jordan sign an agreement to promote bilateral economic and trade cooperation, to allow the products of both countries to reach European markets without paying custom taxes. The agreement was criticized by Jordanian labor unions, who said it showed support for Sharon "to continue massacring our people."
23.12.04 Twelve right-wing and ultra right-wing members of the Israeli Knesset, including National Religious Party head, Efi Eitan, sign a petition in which they pledged to support settlers' calls for civil disobedience against any withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. The petition said the signatories would form a human chain between the soldiers and settlers in Gaza to "nonviolently" prevent any withdrawal from these areas.
23.12.04 Peace Now launches a petition calling for volunteers to take the place of soldiers who refuse to take part in evacuating settlers from the Gaza Strip as part of the disengagement plan.
24.12.04 Three members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Fateh's military wing, are killed in the Tulkarem refugee camp.
25.12.04 Seventy settlers attack the homes of Palestinians living east of Deir al-Balah near the Kfar Darom settlement, forcing them out with clubs and guns.
26.12.04 Two members of Hamas' military wing, the Izzedin al-Qassam Brigades, are killed in Gaza while setting a booby trap for Israeli tanks passing near the Bureij refugee camp.
28.12.04 The U.S. government transfers $20 million to the PNA saying that the payment was a confidence-building measure to boost the Palestinian reform program.

During this period, in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, 240 Palestinians were killed by Israeli security forces, 38 under the age of 18. One Palestinian was killed by Israeli civilians. One Israeli civilian and 9 Israeli security forces personnel were killed by Palestinians. Within the Green Line, 6 Palestinians were killed by Israeli security forces. Four Israeli civilians were killed by Palestinians.