4.10.98 Two Muslims and two Jews are killed in a synagogue in Baghdad in an attack carried out by a Palestinian, Mahdi Sharqawi, who carries an Egyptian passport. The assailant was arrested by the Iraqi police.
7.10.98 A trilateral meeting between President Yasser Arafat, US. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu is heId at Beit Hanoun, the Palestinian side of the Erez Checkpoint. According to Albright, the meeting led to substantial progress.
7.10.98 The head of the CIA, George Tanet, arrives in Israel and, reportedly, held meetings with Israeli intelligence officials and Palestinian security officials, in a bid to help the two sides reach a framework of understanding on the issue of final security arrangements, within the context of the next phase of Israeli redeployment in the West Bank.
7.10.98 Israeli minister of transport Shaul Yahalom lays the cornerstone for new housing units in the settlement of Avraham Avinuh in Hebron. The Israeli claim is that mobile homes are being replaced by bulletproof concrete homes.
8.10.98 Amjad Natsheh, 21, on a visit to Hebron from Jordan, is shot dead by Israeli soldiers using rubber-coated metal bullets during clashes in the city.
9.10.98 Unknown assailants set fire to the offices of the Burj al-Laqlaq Society in the Old City of Jerusalem, destroying furniture, documents and equipment. The offices are located near a site where Jewish settler groups are trying to build housing to accommodate 400 new settlers.
10.10.98 An Israeli woman soldier is stabbed to death near the village of Fassayel in the Jericho area. Imad Kamal, from Qabatya village, is apprehended by Israeli soldiers the same day and charged with the killing. A Palestinian National Authority (PNA) spokesperson noted that KaI1lal has been mentally ill since 1985, when he was committed to the Bethlehem Psychiatric Hospital.
10.10.98 Jewish settlers from the Yitzhar settlement in the Nablus area open fire on a group of Palestinians from the nearby village of Howara, and three Israeli journalists with them covering a story about olive-picking. The settlers try to attack the Israeli cameraman and to damage his camera.
12.10.98 In a bilateral agreement signed with the PNA, the Norwegian government promises the latter a total of U.S. $55 million for 1999. The funds will go to building schools, improving water, electricity and infrastructure projects, in addition to supporting UNRWA and the Bethlehem 2000 project.
13.10.98 The Johan Jorgen Hoist Park is officially opened in Gaza City by Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres and Norwegian representative Marianne Heiberg. The park, funded by the Norwegian government, is in memory of the former Norwegian foreign minister Johan Jorgen Hoist, who played a major role in the peace process.
15.10.98 Jewish settlers, headed by extreme right-wing MK Benny Elon (Moledet), seize an abandoned house in the Sheikh Jarrah Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem, claiming it is Jewish property.
15.10.98 Two Israelis are arrested by Palestinian security men in al-Bireh town near Ramallah, outside the home of PLO executive secretary Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen). The two men turned out to be settler security guards dressed in civilian clothes who had, allegedly, wandered into town in pursuit of stone-throwers.
23.10.98 The Israeli daily Ha' aretz reports that Israel, the second-largest recipient of u.s. foreign aid in the world, has demanded that Washington provide half a billion dollars to cover costs incurred by a further Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian territories. That works out to some u.s. $38 million per percentage point (including the nature reserve).
26.10.98 A 25-year-old Kiryat Arba settler is shot dead by a Palestinian in Hebron. Palestinian police catch the killer within 24 hours. The following morning, a 67-year¬old Palestinian from Beit Foureek near Nablus is killed in revenge for the settler's death. Mohammad Zalmot's head was smashed with a rock while he was picking his family's olives.
26.10.98 Representatives of Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, the Islamic National Salvation Party, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the Arab Liberation Front meet in Gaza to express their dissatisfaction with the Wye River Memorandum. They also stress the need to maintain Palestinian unity.
27.10.98 Four Knesset members from right-wing groups erect a IS-meter fence around a building occupied by Jewish settlers in the Arab neighborhood of Ras al-Amoud in East Jerusalem.
29.10.98 A suicide-bomber tries to run into a school bus carrying 40 Israeli children from Gush Katif, and escorted by two Israeli army jeeps. The attacker and an Israeli soldier are killed and five others are wounded.
30.10.98 A Jordanian government official confirms that the remains of four Jordanian soldiers killed in the 1967 war will be buried with full military honors in the Jerusalem village of Nabi Samuel.
2.11.98 Five members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) begin a sit-in in front of the house of Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin. They are informed by the Palestinian police that they need to obtain a permit from the PNA authorities before they are allowed to visit Sheikh Yassin.
2.11.98 About 80,000 Palestinian laborers will bf" able to go back to work inside Israel, after an Israeli military spokesman announced .e easing by the Israeli military of the tight closure clamped on the occupied territori'
2.11.98 The U.5. administration expresses displeasure and worry about Israeli settlement activity in Ras al-Amoud and Hebron, saying they could lead to the failure of the new interim accords signed in Washington.
6.11.98 A car bomb rocks the West Jerusalem market of Mahane Yehuda, killing the two suicide-bombers and injuring 24 Israelis. The Islamic Jihad claims responsibility.
9.11.98 An agreement between the PNA and the EU pledging ECU 20 million is signed in Ramallah. PECDAR director-general, Dr. Mohammad Shtayye, said the money would go towards supporting municipal infrastructure programs.
11.11.98 After a series of delays, the Israeli cabinet ratifies the Wye River Memorandum with eight ministers in favor, four against and five abstentions.
14.11.98 Jewish settlers from Rehelim settlement, near the West Bank city of Nablus, run an army roadblock with trucks carrying mobile homes for the expansion of the settlement.
22.11.98 Around 200 Jewish settlers occupy 4 buildings in the village of Sabastia near Nablus and announce they also plan to build a religious college and a hotel.
23.11.98 The body of Sabah Abu Sneineh, 23, a student at the Islamic University in the West Bank city of Hebron, is found near the Jewish settlement of Elazar near Hebron. Abu Sneineh had suffered multiple fractures in the head. Fatah accused the Jewish settlers of kidnapping and killing her.
24.11.98 The first Palestinian airport is inaugurated in the Gaza Strip. Nine airplanes land on the opening day.
25.11.98 The Palestinian Ministry of Education and the Norwegian government sign a U.5. $11.5-million cooperation agreement for the next three years for the building of new schools, the renovation of old ones and the training of 1,350 teachers in modem teaching and training methods.
26.11.98 During a joint press conference with Israeli PM Netanyahu in London, British Foreign Minister Robin Cook announces that Britain will pledge U.5. $165 million in financial aid to the Palestinians to be distributed in the form of aid over a three-year period.
27.11.98 The PNA arrests a top Islamic Jihad activist, 27-year-old Iyad Hardan from Jenin, suspected of planning the November 6 bombing in West Jerusalem.
30.11.98 President Arafat meets with President Clinton, Secretary of State Albright and 45 participants from donor countries, in Washington, D.e. at the Donor Countries Conference to discuss the Palestinian budget for the next five years. President Clinton pledges to increase U.5. assistance to the Palestinians to U.5. $900 million, a significant increase from the U.5. $329 million donated be~een 1994 and 1998.
1.12.98 The PNAand the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) sign in Switzerland a free-trade agreement which will go into effect in July 1999. The agreement is signed by Minister of Economy and Trade Maher Masri and his Swedish counterpart.
2.12.98 A Palestinian street cleaner, Usama Mousa Natsheh, 41, is stabbed to death by a Jewish assailant in Abu Tor. This is the eighth "serial stabbing" in Jerusalem against Palestinians in the last six months.
5.12.98 Lulu Abu Dahi, 16, from Rafah, Gaza, dies after a to-year coma as a result of a bullet wound to the head she received while standing on her balcony in 1989.
7.12.98 Two hundred Fatah followers from Balata Refugee Camp storm the old Nablus prison which now houses the special police force, in protest against the police dispersal earlier in the day of a march in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners. Eleven youths and one policeman are injured.
12.12.98 Ezzedin al-Qassam, the military wing of Hamas, issues a statement threatening to resume military operations if the PNA does not lift the house arrest imposed on Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, the movement's spiritual leader.
12.12.98 U.S. President Bill Clinton arrives on a three-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority areas. Clinton is the first president to officially visit the Palestinian areas.
13.12.98 U.S. First Lady Hillary Clinton visits the joint Jewish/ Arab village of Neveh Shalom/Wahat al-Salam as part of her visit to the region. She is accompanied by Sarah, wife of Israeli PM Netanyahu. The village is home to 36 Arab and Jewish families living together.
14.12.98 An official opening celebration is held at the Gaza Industrial Zone with the participation of the u.s. Secretary of Commerce and Agriculture and Palestinian Minister of Industry and ministry officials.
18.12.98 Su'ad Razel, 15, from the northern West Bank town of Sabastia, stabs and moderately wounds a 17-year-old settler from the nearby Jewish settlement of Shavei Shomron. She is later taken into police custody.
21.12.98 Palestinian prisoner Jamil Jadallah escapes from a PNA prison in Nablus. Jadallah was arrested two months earlier on charges of killing a Jewish settler in Kiryat Arba near Hebron. Israeli authorities claim he is also responsible for a drive-by shooting near Jerusalem which left one Israeli dead.
23.12.98 An Amnesty International statement accuses the Wye River Memorandum of being "founded on the sacrifice of human rights in the name of security," and encouraging human-rights violations. It notes that, while Palestinians are strictly required to abide by international norms of human rights and the rule of law, the agreement is silent about the need for Israel to respect human rights.
23.12.98 The house arrest imposed on October 29 by the PNA on Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin is lifted.
23.12.98 In response to the killing of a mother and her six children in South i..P.banon by Israeli air raids, the Lebanese Islamic movement Hizbullah fires 60 Katyt:shas into northern Israel. The bombs mainly hit the Nahariya area, causing substantial danage to buildings and homes and woUnding 16 Israelis.
27.12.98 In an interview with the Tunisian newspaper AI-Shurouq, former PLC member and chief Palestinian negotiator Haidar 'Abdel Shafi warns of a hasty declaration of a Palestinian state in May 1999, saying such a declaration might lead to an Israeli response to annex more Palestinian lands.
30.12.98 An Israeli military court sentences Abdel Halim Bilbesi from Gaza to life imprisonment after convicting him of involvement in the attack at the Beit Lid junction three years ago in which 22 Israeli soldiers were killed.
In this period, in the occupied territories 7 Palestinian civilians and 2 children under the age of 16 were killed by Israeli security forces, 2 Palestinians were killed by Israeli civilians, 1 Israeli civilian was killed by Palestinians and 3 Israeli security forces personnel were killed by Palestinians. Within the Green Line, 1 Israeli civilian was killed by Palestinians.
Above figures from B'Tselem.
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