Palestinian security sources urge foreign nationals to evacuate the Gaza Strip because of threats to kidnap them.
4.1.07 Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert meets Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak at Sharm al-Sheikh in Sinai. Egypt floats the possibility of holding a regional summit with the leaders of Jordan and the Palestinian Authority (PA).
13.1.07 Egyptian presidential spokesman Suleiman Awad says Mubarak had sent a letter to the White House questioning the effectiveness of the Road Map for peace between Israelis and Palestinians. The letter includes a counterproposal which aims at thawing the frozen peace process.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrives in Jerusalem at the start of a Middle East trip and meets with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. The two discussed ideas for a "diplomatic horizon" between Israel and the Palestinians that will strengthen moderates in the PA.
15.1.07 The Israeli Ministry of Construction and Housing publishes a tender for the construction of 44 new housing units in the settlement city of Ma'aleh Adumim. The Peace Now group condemns the tender, claiming that Israel is tearing to shreds its obligations under the Road Map.
21.1.07The Israeli cabinet approves the "Gaza Envelope" plan to fortify against Qassam rockets fired from the Gaza Strip all homes and buildings located within 7 kilometers of the border. The cost of the project will range between NIS 400-900 million, and will give precedence to the fortification of schools and educational institutions.
European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana arrives in Amman for a meeting with King Abdullah to discuss the prospects of relaunching peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
25.1.07 B'Tselem urges the Israeli Judge Advocate General to instruct the Israeli army to immediately cease using undercover soldiers in combat.
28.1.07 Fateh and Hamas accept a Saudi Arabian invitation to hold unity talks in Mecca, after four days of internecine clashes in the Gaza Strip left at least 27 dead and dozens wounded.
According to Peace Now, recent aerial photographs show new construction at four illegal West Bank outposts which have been slated for evacuation.
29.1.07 A suicide bomber kills three Israelis when he blew himself up in a bakery in the southern resort city of Eilat. The Islamic Jihad and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades both claim responsibility.
Factional bloodshed in the Gaza Strip continues, claiming five more Palestinian lives as the leaders of Hamas and Fateh prepare to send representatives to the Mecca truce summit. The Grand Mufti of the Palestinian territories, Mohammad Hussein, issues an edict in Ramallah, West Bank, banning internal fighting.
30.1.07 Following a meeting between Palestinian PM Ismail Haniyeh and President Abbas in Gaza, the two sides agree to cease fire and remove all their gunmen from the streets of Gaza. The truce follows two months of fighting that has left more than 60 Palestinians dead.
31.1.07PM Olmert has approved the moving of the separation wall 5 kilometers east of the Green Line in the area of Modi'in Ilit, in order to take in the settlements of Nili and Na'aleh. The new route, which was in response to pressure from residents of the two settlements, both of which would have been left outside the wall, will create two Palestinian enclaves containing about 20,000 people. Nili and Na'aleh together have some 1,500 residents. The new route will lengthen the fence by about 12 kilometers, which will cost an estimated NIS 120 million.
1.2.07 Israeli soldiers kill two al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades militants in a raid in Nablus. They are shot during a clash that erupted when Israeli forces accompanied by jeeps and bulldozers entered Nablus' Old City.
2.2.07 Israeli forces raid the town of Beituniya, killing two Palestinian Preventive Security officers.
3.2.07 Palestinian PM Haniyeh calls on all armed men to withdraw from the streets of Gaza. Fateh and Hamas officials agreed in principle to renew the cease-fire reached days before.
4.2.07 Egypt's State Security Prosecutor charges an Egyptian student holding Canadian citizenship and three Israelis with spying for Israel.
Hamas and Fateh gunmen fight in Gaza City's beach-front neighborhoods and around security compounds, ignoring renewed truce appeals and Arab mediation efforts.
5.2.07 A group of prominent Jewish artists, intellectuals and academics, Independent Jewish Voices, launches a movement aimed at challenging the dominance of Britain's long-established main Jewish organization and opening debate over the conflict in the Middle East.
6.2.07 A two-day summit between PA President Abbas and Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mash'al begins under Saudi auspices in the city of Mecca to discuss the establishment of a national unity government.
11.2.07 The founder of the Islamic Movement in Israel, Sheikh Abdullah Nimr Darwish, condemns Holocaust denial in the Muslim world. "Tell all who deny the Holocaust to ask the Germans what they did or didn't do," he said before the Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism in Jerusalem.
13.2.07 Israeli Arabs, West Bank residents and Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem face tougher border control regulations at the Erez Crossing on the Israel-Gaza border in light of a new directive requiring Israeli citizens to present a passport or a laissez-passer when seeking to enter the Gaza Strip. One of the implications is that East Jerusalem residents living mostly in the Gaza Strip now run the risk of losing their Jerusalem residency status.
15.2.07 At least 25 Jordanian lawmakers sign a petition urging the government to officially declare that Israel has "violated" the peace treaty concluded between the two countries in 1994 by going ahead with excavations outside the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
During their meeting in Amman, Russian President Vladimir Putin tells President Abbas that despite Russian statements supporting the Mecca agreement on a unity government, Moscow would only cooperate with the new government if it accepts the demands of the Middle East Quartet: the European Union, the U.S., the UN and Russia.
18.2.07 Israeli PM Olmert tells the cabinet that the U.S. and Israel are in total accord on shunning any Palestinian government that doesn't meet international demands to recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept existing peace accords.
In an interview with Haaretz, U.S. Secretary of State Rice says Israel's relationship with President Abbas should remain intact, as he is committed to the conditions set forth by the Quartet.
19.2.07 A trilateral summit between PM Olmert, U.S. Secretary of State Rice and President Abbas begins at the David's Citadel Hotel in Jerusalem.
21.2.07 The Quartet convenes in Berlin to seek a way to advance stalled Middle East peace efforts amid strong skepticism about the Palestinians' planned unity government. The Quartet reiterates its demand that the new Palestinian unity government recognize Israel, renounce violence and adhere to past international agreements.
22.2.07 An average of NIS 1.5 - 2 million in compensation is expected to be paid to each one of the 1,800 families evacuated from the Gaza Strip, according to data on amounts already paid by the disengagement authority (Sela) and those due to be paid.
25.2.07 The Supreme Planning Council for Judea and Samaria legalizes the largest-ever illegal construction project in the West Bank. Part of the project is situated on private land, which belongs to Palestinian residents of the village of Bil'in, west of Ramallah. The project calls for the construction of 42 buildings containing approximately 1,500 apartments.
The Israel army carries out an incursion into Nablus, imposing a curfew. While searching houses, they opened fire, killing one civilian and injuring 32 civilians, including 12 children.
28.2.07 Three Palestinian militants are killed during an Israeli raid in the West Bank city of Jenin. According to the Israeli forces, all three men killed were Islamic Jihad members.
3.3.07 Israel could remove dozens of Jewish settlements from the West Bank, Vice Premier Shimon Peres told Channel Two television, but warned that "not all the settlements, and I'm not even sure most of the settlements," would be evacuated.
4.3.07 Eight percent of Gazans receive food aid from the World Food Program (WFP) or from UNRWA, WFP spokesperson Kirstie Campbell says, "and without it they are liable to starve."
President Abbas accuses the European Union of discriminating against the Palestinians, and of fostering an unjust, pro-Israel approach. In a letter from Dr. Rafiq Husseini, Abbas' chief of staff, to German Foreign Minister Frank Walter-Steinmeier, current president of the EC, the Palestinian leadership complained of several instances in which Israel has allegedly violated its commitments, including the Road Map.
5.3.07 A scheduled visit to Egypt by Israeli Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer has been postponed amid a controversy over Egyptian media reports alleging that during the 1967 Six Day War, troops of the Shaked commando unit, then led by Ben-Eliezer, may have killed 250 captured Egyptian soldiers.
6.3.07 If Israel agrees to persuade the international community not to boycott the new Palestinian unity government, the Palestinians "will offer a promise from Hamas and Fateh of a total cease-fire with Israel, including a complete halt to Qassam rocket fire and suicide bombings," a senior Hamas official tells Haaretz.
7.3.07 The World Bank recommends that donor countries stop transferring aid funds via the office of President Mahmoud Abbas' office, saying such means of bypassing the Hamas government have hurt PA economic reforms. The Bank advises a return to channeling the money to the Palestinian Finance Ministry. It also recommends the PA dismiss some 6,000 workers to help deal with the budgetary crisis which is threatening the existence of the Authority. The Bank also calls on Israel to transfer the taxes it has collected on behalf of the PA to the PA treasury.
Israeli forces raid the Palestinian military headquarters in Ramallah and arrest 18 fugitives who had sought shelter there. According to the Israeli army, the fugitives were suspected of involvement in shooting attacks on Israeli civilians and soldiers.
9.3.07 The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination calls on Israel to allow Palestinian refugees to return to their property and land in Israel and to ensure that the bodies responsible for distributing property, such as the Jewish National Fund, not discriminate against the Arab population.
11.3.07 PM Olmert meets with President Abbas in his Jerusalem residence. Olmert told Abbas that not only would Israel not recognize the PA unity government unless it agrees to the Quartet demands, Israel would not hold contacts with Fateh ministers serving in the unity government. Palestinians called on Olmert to ease travel restrictions in the West Bank by removing roadblocks, and to release sick and elderly Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, but Olmert made no promises.
14.3.07 Israel, the PA and Jordan agree to a plan to build an agro-industrial park in the West Bank, part of efforts backed by Japan to promote economic cooperation and development.
Peace Now claims that 32% of land held for settlement and outpost use is private Palestinian property, as is 24% of the land on which the settlements are actually built. The organization says the report is based on "official figures" from the Israel Defense Forces' Civil Administration.
President Abbas and PM Haniyeh agree on the make-up of the new PA unity government, even as renewed factional violence wounds nine people in the northern Gaza Strip, including two children.
The Palestinians join major Arab countries in saying a 2002 Arab plan for peace with Israel should not be amended at an upcoming Arab summit in Saudi Arabia. Israel has expressed interest in the peace plan, which calls for a full Israeli withdrawal from lands it occupied in the 1967 Six Day War, in exchange for recognition by the Arab world.
15.3.07 Hamas and Fateh join forces in a coalition government in the hope of ending the isolation of the PA and a year of punishing sanctions. The new government pledged to respect previous peace deals between Israel and the PLO. It also called for peace talks to be conducted by President Abbas, and for any future deal to be submitted to a national referendum.
19.3.07 In an interview published in the Saudi newspaper Al-Jazeera, Syrian President Bashar Assad says international envoys have shuttled between Syria and Israel, carrying each country's point of view on peace. The contacts were conducted through a non-official channel, via former Israeli Foreign Ministry Director General Dr. Alon Liel and Syrian-American businessman Ibrahim Suleiman.
Norway's Deputy Foreign Minister Raymond Johansen meets with PM Haniyeh in Gaza, marking the country's restoration of political and economic ties with the new Palestinian government. Johansen was the first senior European official to meet the new government.
20.3.07 A day after dozens of settlers move into an unoccupied Palestinian building in Hebron, Israeli Vice Premier Peres says, "The presence of settlers inside the West Bank city of Hebron has created an 'unbearable situation' for Israel and the Palestinians."
22.3.07 The U.S. intends to continue funding and training Palestinian security forces loyal to President Abbas, despite the formation of a unity government with Hamas.
23.3.07 The East Jerusalem YMCA holds the Palestine International Bike Race which includes 350 bicyclists from Palestine, Israel and participants from all over the world. The message of the race was, "No to checkpoints and yes to freedom of movement." The Israeli army refused to let all the bikers cross the checkpoints and prevented them from reaching their destination.
25.3.07 UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon visits the West Bank and meets with President Abbas. He strongly criticizes violations of basic human rights of the Palestinians, referring to the separation wall and the road blocks.
In an interview with Haaretz, Ban Ki-moon says that the international Quartet is planning to invite to its next meeting Israel, the Palestinians and the Arab Quartet - comprising Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.
26.3.07 The World Bank calls for the opening of the Rafah crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt to exports and imports to try to stem the Palestinian territory's economic collapse. The World Bank said increased trade was the key to reviving the Palestinian economy.
During this period, in the occupied Palestinian territories, 32 Palestinians were killed by Israeli security forces, 10 under the age of 18. One Israeli civilian was killed by Palestinians. Within the Green Line, three Israeli civilians were killed by Palestinians.
Above figures from B'Tselem