7.7.95 In the talks on the interim
settlement between Palestinians and Israelis, it is agreed that the
Palestinian council to be elected will assume control over land
defined as "state land" in areas A (the area of Palestinian towns)
and B (Palestinian rural areas) on the West Bank.
22.7.95 Settlers block dozens of
road junctions on the West Bank and clash with Palestinians and
soldiers. Thirteen are arrested, but released soon
afterwards.
24.7.95 Five people are killed in a
suicide attack on a bus in Ramat Gan, outside Tel Aviv. Israel
holds Hamas responsible but refrains from placing responsibility on
Yasser Arafat for the arrest of those who plotted the attack -
until the identity of the assailant is known. Israeli Prime
Minister Yitzhak Rabin suspends negotia¬tions with the
Palestinians until after the funerals of those killed.
25.7.95 The head of the political
bureau of the Hamas movement in the United States, Musa Abu
Marzouk, is arrested. Israel asks that he be extradited from
Washington to be tried for terrorist activities in Israel.
28.7.95 Representatives of settlers
and rightist organizations declare "non-violent civil disobedience"
against the Government of Israel and launch a campaign for the
establishment of settler outposts, fencing off areas and laying new
roads on the West Bank with the aim of "declaring ownership of the
entire country." This campaign is spearheaded by the 20 Artzenll
movement. For some time, settler groups have been putting up
"temporary settlement outposts" on hilltops on the West Bank, after
which Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers are assigned to
evacuate them by force. However, the orders given the soldiers are
not clear-cut and the evacuation is hesi¬tant and
inconsistent. Inside the Green Line, the movement stages
demonstrations at road intersections, bringing traffic to a halt,
and attempts to upset public order. Many are detained, but are
released within a few hours; no charges are pressed.
On 13.8.95, a settler shoots a Palestinian at a demonstration
against Jewish settlers near Beit-El, during which Palestinians
burned Torah scrolls. The settler is detained.
1.8.95 A policy paper of the IDF
drawn up prior to the onset of "the safe pas¬sage" between
Gaza and Jericho determines that leading PNA officials may carry
their weapons even while travelling along those sections of highway
that pass through Israeli territory.
7.8.95 Israeli Foreign Minister
Shimon Peres and PNA Chairman Yasser Arafat, in the course of talks
on signature of the interim settlement, agree on the timetable for
IDF redeployment on the West Bank: it is to be implemented in three
stages at six-month intervals, beginning after the elections in the
OPT, until Palestinian juris¬diction is extended to all parts
of the West Bank included in Areas A,B, and C.
13.8.95 The states of the European
Union declare they will boycott the Jerusalem 3000 celebrations
because their participation could be interpreted as taking a stand
on the issue of the permanent status of Jerusalem.
15.8.95 After weeks of deliberation
on methods of interrogation applied by the Israeli General Security
Services (GSS), in which the legality of resorting to
poten¬tially fatal methods (above all, the method of violently
"shaking" the prisoner, which caused the death of a Palestinian
detainee in April) is weighed against the effectiveness of these
methods in what the GSS defines "ticking bomb" situations (i.e.,
when the prisoner is thought to have information that could save
lives that are in immediate danger), a compromise is reached: the
method of shaking will not be abolished, but special permission
must be obtained for its application.
18.8.95 A Hamas activist who,
according to intelligence tips, was planning a sui¬cide
operation in Israel gives himself up to the Palestinian police,
after 12 days of closure imposed by Israel on the Gaza Strip.
Hundreds of residents of the neigh¬borhood throw stones at the
Palestinian police officers who arrest the man.
21.8.95 Five people are killed and
over 100 injured in a suicide attack on a bus in Jerusalem. Hamas
claims responsibility.
24.8.95 Israel recognizes the
Palestinians' water rights on the West Bank, and in return the
Palestinians agree to defer negotiations on water distribution to
the talks on permanent settlement.
On 7.9.95 at Taba, Peres and Arafat agree on a 100-percent increase
in the amount of water to be supplied to residents of the West Bank
over the coming five years, and a lO-percent increase in the amount
of water to be supplied to the Gaza Strip.
28.8.95 Israeli Police Minister
Moshe Shahal says he will force three Palestinian institutions in
East Jerusalem to close, under the terms of the law banning all
activ¬ities of the PLO and the PNA in Jerusalem, if they do
not shut down voluntarily.
30.8.95 Shahal suspends the closure
orders, after PNA Minister of Economics, Trade and Industry Ahmed
Qrei' assures him the PNA has no intention of violating the law on
Jerusalem, and after representatives of the three institutions sign
a declaration negating any link between them and the PNA "until
agreement is reached otherwise."
1.9.95 The school year begins. The
Jerusalem municipality announces it is going to cover with labels
all PNA emblems stamped in every textbook in every East Jerusalem
school. Several months earlier, responsibility for education on the
West Bank had been transferred to the PNA.
2.9.95 Palestinian police shoot and
kill a settler who drove through police road¬blocks in the
Gaza Strip without stopping. Investigators conclude the man was
seeking to commit suicide.
Compromise agreement is reached on the issue of how East Jerusalem
Palestinians are to vote: they will be able to vote in elections
for the Palestinian council, but only at branches of the Israeli
Post Office. This is in order to avoid hav¬ing to set up
Palestinian polling booths in Jerusalem.
4.9.95 U.s. Ambassador Martin Indyk
refrains from attending the opening cere¬mony of the Jerusalem
3000 event - and sends the embassy's cultural attache in his stead
- noting that the ceremony is a cultural, not a political
event.
6.9.95 Israeli Justice Minister
David Liba'i presents PNA Justice Minister Freih Abu Meddein with a
request for the extradition of seven Palestinians suspected of
killing Israelis - including two members of the Popular Front for
the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) suspected of the murder of two
Israeli hikers in Wadi Kelt on 18.7.95. The PNA's response is that
the two men have already been sentenced in summary court
proceedings of the PNA, to seven years' imprisonment for
"incite¬ment against the peace process," and therefore cannot
be handed over to Israel.
7.9.95 A violent confrontation
breaks out between Israeli right-wingers who have set up a "protest
encampment" outside Orient House in Jerusalem, and local
resi¬dents, who charge the demonstrators with causing
disturbances and harassing them.
The Israeli police minister and PNA Minister of Planning and
Interniltional Cooperation Nabil Sha'ath agree that refugees from
Iraq, Iran, Egypt and Syria who have sought political asylum in
Israel be handed over to the responsibility of the PNA, which has
undertaken not to extradite them to the countries from which they
fled.
10.9.95 Six civil authorities in the
West Bank are transferred to the PNA: municipill administration,
labor, commerce and industry, gas and fuel, insurance and
statistics.
Israeli settlers physically assault teachers and children at the
elementary school near the Jewish enclave in Hebron, and forcefully
remove the Palestinian fbg from the roof of the school building.
For a week, the settlers continue to cause distur¬bances in
Hebron, harassing and insulting Palestinian residents and IDF
soldiers who were not given clear instructions on how to deal with
them.
28.9.95 The interim agreement is
signed in Washington. It regulates the relations between Israel and
the Palestinians for the interim period, until a permanent
set¬tlement is agreed upon, a period not to exceed five years
from the signing of the agreement on Gaza and Jericho (May
1994).
Main points of the agreement: arrangements for elections to the
Palestiniiln Autonomy Council in the West Bank and Gilza Strip;
principles for spheres of authority on the West Bank; security
arrangements; and IDF withdrawal from areas of the West Bank
("redeployment"). The pace and procedures of the withdmwilj and the
transfer of powers were determined by dividing the West Bank into
three areas: A - the six large Palestinian towns (with Hebron to be
dealt with as a spe¬cial case); B - the Palestinian rural
areas; and C - Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian
Territories and areas of strategic importilnce to Israel.
In this period, in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, eight
Palestinian civiliilns, including one child, were killed by Israeli
military forces; one Palestinian was killed by Israeli civilians.
Two Israeli civilians and one member of the Israeli military were
killed by Palestinians. Within the Green Line, nine Israeli
civilians were killed by Palestinians. (All figures from
B'Tselem.)