January 2000 ------------ 04.01.2000 , Palestinian officials say they have reached an agreement with Israel under which a long-delayed transfer of Israeli-occupied West Bank land to Palestinian control will be implemented in the next 48 hours , according to Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat. 14.01.2000 , Israeli Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein is reportedly conducting an assessment of possible charges against Israeli President Ezer Weizman. Weizman is suspected of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts between 1988 and 1993 without reporting the gifts to authorities. 20.01.2000 , Palestinian President Yasser Arafat arrived in Washington this morning for a meeting with U.S. President Bill Clinton. 27.01.2000 , In the first taint of scandal to touch his government, Prime Minister Ehud Barak's party was fined $3.2 million for campaign finance violations, and the attorney general said it was opening a criminal investigation. Barak said he hadn't known of any illegal practices, and asserted that the campaign-finance law was unclear. After the state comptroller, Eliezer Goldberg, imposed the fine, the office of Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein said "there are grounds to instruct the police to open an investigation" of the matter. The probe will include past campaign-finance practices by other parties as well, the Justice Ministry said. Barak said that he "honored" the comptroller's report, but said "in light of the large fine" the party was considering appealing to the Supreme Court.
February 2000 ------------- 02.02.2000 - In the latest round of peace talks, the Palestinians have flatly rejected an Israeli map that would keep large chunks of the West Bank under Israeli control. Tayyeb Abdel Rahim confirmed for the first time that Israel submitted a map delineating proposed future borders. Israel's plan would annex swaths of land on the eastern and western fringes of the West Bank, as well as settlement blocs, Abdel Rahim said. Israel and the Palestinians are less than two weeks away from a deadline for agreeing on a peace treaty outline, but little progress has been made in three months of negotiations. 03.02.2000 - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat held talks this morning concerning a framework Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. 07.02.2000 - Israeli warplanes attacked three power stations and a Hezbollah guerrilla stronghold in Lebanon. The move was in response to the recent killing of four Israeli army officers . 09.02.2000 - An Israeli government report published acknowledged what Palestinians and human rights groups have said for years - that Israel systematically used illegal force against Palestinian suspects during the intefadeh. The State Comptroller's report, written in 1997 but withheld by the government until now, said Shin Bet security agents who interrogated suspects also systematically lied about their actions to their superiors and to the courts. The report covers the years 1988-92, when the intefadeh, or Palestinian uprising against Israel, was at its height. Unprecedented numbers of Palestinians were being arrested and interrogated 21.02.2000 - Palestinian officials urged U.S. envoy Dennis Ross to apply pressure on Israel to restart the stalled Mid-East peace process.
March 2000 ---------- 21.03.2000 - Kissing Palestinian earth and warmly welcomed by Yasser Arafat, Pope John Paul II made a prayerful pilgrimage to the town of Jesus' birth that also provided a powerful boost to Palestinian statehood hopes. In a momentous day marred by rock throwing after he left a Palestinian refugee camp, the 79-year-old pope celebrated an open-air mass before a crowd of thousands in Bethlehem's Manger Square and sank to his knees in prayer in the dim grotto where Christian tradition says Christ was born. Amid tight security, the atmosphere was peaceful at all the pope's appearances. But in a graphic display of frustration and volatility in the Palestinian lands, several hundred youths at the Dheisheh camp - apparently angry over heavy-handed treatment by Palestinian security forces - engaged in a rock-throwing clash with police just over an hour after the pope had finished his visit there. 24.03.2000 - Israel and the Palestinian Authority are extending their inconclusive talks into next week, still "brainstorming" over the future of Jerusalem, Palestinian aspirations for a state and other knotty issues. "It's too early to know if this will lead to anything," Hassan Abdel Rahman, the chief PLO representative in Washington, said. An Israeli official, meanwhile, said the "chemistry" was good at the screened-off talks at Bolling Air Force Base in southeast Washington. After Friday's meetings the Israelis and Palestinians scheduled a break for the Jewish Sabbath, beginning at sundown, and plan to resume Saturday night. Rahman said they would meet next week, as well. When the negotiations opened Tuesday, about a week of talks was anticipated. 30.03.2000 - Palestinians staged marches in the West Bank and Gaza Strip - and in some cases clashed with Israeli troops - to protest the confiscation of Arab-owned land and Jewish settlement expansion. At least 15 demonstrators were injured. The most serious clash was in the Israeli Arab town of Sakhnin, where police said about 400 demonstrators broke through a fence surrounding an Israeli army base. Police fired rubber-coated steel bullets at the demonstrators, wounding 15. The director of the Sakhnin medical center said 12 were lightly wounded, two suffered head wounds and another had a broken leg. Hundreds of protesters stoned Israeli soldiers in two locations outside the West Bank town of Nablus where troops fired tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets.
April 2000 ---------- 07.04.2000 - Israeli and Palestinian negotiators began a new round of talks against a backdrop of an Egyptian warning that Israel must agree to a Palestinian state in order to have real peace. Negotiators convened at Bolling Air Force base in southeast Washington, with American mediators ready to intervene later in the day to push for an agreement that has eluded the two sides. The negotiators also met for dinner Thursday evening at the base, which is screened off from the public and news media. Despite a 1979 peace treaty, Egypt told Israel on Thursday it could not expect a warm peace unless it consented to a Palestinian state and "dealt with Jerusalem." Egyptian Ambassador Nabil Fahmy said Israelis "do not understand the frustration Arabs feel that there is still occupation." 12.04.2000 - In a concession to the Palestinians, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak accepted President Clinton's proposal to increase U.S. involvement ahead of a May deadline for a peace treaty outline, a senior Israeli official said. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat complained this week that the most recent round of U.S.-sponsored talks has not come up with anything concrete. Arafat is demanding Israel agree to a Palestinian state on the West Bank and in Gaza with part of Jerusalem as its capital. A failure to meet a Sept. 13 deadline for a full-fledged peace agreement could precipitate a complete breakdown in negotiations and a return to violence. 26.04.2000 - Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said during a visit to France that he expected European leaders, notably French President Jacques Chirac, to help advance the Middle East peace process. "His excellency President Chirac is working with all his capabilities to push forward the peace process," Arafat said in Paris. The Palestinian leader was meeting with Chirac and Prime Minister Lionel Jospin later Wednesday. Arafat was visiting France ahead of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, which are due to resume on Sunday at Eilat, an Israeli resort city on the Red Sea.
May 2000 -------- 01.05.2000 - A Palestinian state is already a fact, and an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty will simply define its limitations, an Israeli Cabinet minister said. Haim Ramon's comments sounded a conciliatory note a day after talks got off to a sour start over Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank. However, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said he would declare statehood sometime after Sept. 13, the peace treaty deadline, regardless of whether he had reached agreement with Israel by then on the terms of independence. In the Israeli Red Sea resort of Eilat, negotiators met for a second day to try to formulate a framework for a final peace treaty. Such a framework is due by the end of the month. 04.05.2000 - Israel presented a map of a proposed Palestinian entity covering about two-thirds of the West Bank to Palestinian negotiators, who refused to consider it and broke off the session . It was the first time Israeli negotiators outlined in detail how they envision the future borders of what they have said would likely be a Palestinian state. Palestinian officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the entity proposed by the Israelis on Wednesday covered about two-thirds of the West Bank and was divided into several large parcels of land that were not contiguous. The Palestinians want to establish a state in all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with east Jerusalem as its capital 08.05.2000 - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat failed to bridge "very large gaps," making it unlikely a peace treaty outline will be ready by next week's target date, summit participants said . Barak, meanwhile, confirmed for the first time that he wants to hand three West Bank suburbs of Jerusalem to full Palestinian control, but said he may not be able to go through with the plan for weeks or even months because of strong opposition - including from members of his own coalition. The Palestinians have been angered by Israel's proposal to annex one-third of the West Bank. Barak said the final borders must be drawn in such a way that the absolute majority of the 200,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip will come under Israeli sovereignty 12.05.2000 - Palestinians demonstrated throughout the West Bank Friday to demand the release of Israeli-held prisoners, as Israeli radio stations reported secret meetings between Israel and the Palestinians in Europe. A few Palestinians were injured in Bethlehem from inhaling tear gas shot by Israeli soldiers, Israel's army radio reported. There were also clashes in Ramallah and Qalqilya. About 400 Jewish settlers also protested Friday in the West Bank, demanding that the Israeli army move a checkpoint that they say causes security problems. No disturbances were reported, according to the army spokesman. 15.05.2000 - In some of the worst violence in years, Israeli troops and Palestinian police fought fierce gun battles , and at least three Palestinians were killed and more than 320 injured as protests swept the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak told parliament he knew of at least four Palestinians killed, but Palestinian hospital officials could not confirm that. In one tense standoff, Israeli snipers commandeered a West Bank hotel, forcing dozens of guests and staff, including nine Americans, to seek cover in the lobby. Across the West Bank and Gaza, thousands of Palestinians battled with Israeli troops, hurling stones and firebombs. The violence came despite a decision Monday by the Israeli Cabinet to transfer three West Bank villages near Jerusalem to Palestinian control in a goodwill gesture. 19.05.2000 - In its largest offer so far, Israel has proposed that the Palestinians take control of 90% of the West Bank. The offer was rejected by the Palestinian. The offer was made and turned down during last week's round of talks in Sweden. 24.05.2000 - The last Israeli troops and tanks rolled out of Lebanon , completing a swift and dramatic pullout from the southern zone Israel occupied for nearly two decades. Muslim guerrillas swiftly moved into territory left behind by the Israeli troops and their allied militia, seizing several tanks and vehicles.
June 2000 --------- 13.06.2000 - With a White House admonition that "time is short," Israeli and Palestinian negotiators are resuming their sputtering talks on an overall settlement that their governments pledged to conclude by mid-September. It is supposed to determine the future of Jerusalem and how much land Israel will cede to the Palestinians for a state. Refugee and water problems also were on the agenda for the talks at Andrews Air Force Base in suburban Maryland and at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington. While negotiators at one site wrestle with long-range issues, the other negotiators will consider how much land Israel will surrender in a West Bank pullback due this month. 16.06.2000 - After denouncing Israel's prime minister as lacking a desire to conclude a peace accord, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat met with Israel's chief negotiator. Shlomo Ben-Ami and Arafat talked at Andrews Air Force Base in suburban Maryland, one of the two sites of the slow-moving negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. Negotiations in Washington have sputtered, partly broken off by the Palestinians to protest Israel's refusal to release 250 prisoners and to agree to Arafat's terms for a pullback this month on the West Bank. 27.06.2000 - Adopting a tough stance ahead of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's arrival, Palestinian officials said the time was not right for a Mideast summit and suggested that Palestinian statehood will be proclaimed this fall with or without Israel's blessing. Albright was in a route to the Mideast to assess prospects for a U.S. hosted summit in which Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat would try to form the outlines of a final peace treaty. Barak is eager to attend such a top-level gathering. Arafat is reluctant to agree to a summit, saying the gaps are still too wide. Palestinian officials have said Arafat fears U.S. mediators will side with Israel on many issues and he will be pressured into concessions.
July 2000 --------- 05.07.2000 - In a high-risk bid to bring peace to the Middle East, President Clinton announced Israeli and Palestinian leaders would meet with him next week at the Camp David presidential retreat to try to reach an accord by mid-September. 13.07.2000 - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat held their first one-on-one summit talks (since the summit started in 11'th July) as the two sides grappled with the "tough issues" standing in the way of a peace agreement. The meeting last night in Arafat's cabin at the Camp David presidential retreat, came at the two leaders' initiative. The parties were grappling with tough issues that involve their vital interests. The most contentious issues being addressed include the status of disputed Jerusalem, the fate of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and whether more than 2 million Palestinian refugees will be given the right to return to homes in Israel. 19.07.2000 - Israel Prime Minister Ehud Barak was reported to have sent a letter to his summit host complaining that the Palestinians were not negotiating in good faith. Clinton sent the summit into overtime when he delayed a trip to Japan for a day. As the president met Wednesday morning with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat - their second talk in 12 hours - Israel said "it seems" that Barak had decided to stop the talks and return home. Since the summit began July 11, Clinton has been shuttling between the two sides, trying to shepherd them toward an accord on the most painful and divisive issues. 25.07.2000 - The Middle East peace talks at Camp David collapsed in a deadlock over the future of Jerusalem. Conceding failure, President Clinton said the Israelis and Palestinians "couldn't get there." Clinton returned to the White House to say that the gaps between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat had not been bridged, but forecast that they will be "because I think the alternative is unthinkable." The Israeli and Palestinian delegations said in a statement they intended "to continue their efforts to conclude an agreement on all permanent status issues as soon as possible." Barak and Arafat spent two weeks at Camp David with Clinton as the sponsor and sometimes personal mediator in the peace talks.
August 2000 ----------- 16.08.2000 - Israeli soldiers shot and killed a 70-year-old Palestinian after the man opened fire from the roof of his home. The victim, Mahmoud Abdullah, a U.S. citizen, was critically wounded by a shot in the head. Israeli officers kept medics away from the scene for more than an hour. 16.08.2000 - Israel and the Palestinians resumed high-level peace talks , three weeks after the collapse of negotiations at Camp David. 18.08.2000 - In Prime Minister Ehud Barak's clearest statement yet about Palestinian statehood, he offered the Palestinians an independent state if they formally end their conflict with Israel. The remarks came as U.S. State Department negotiator Dennis Ross began talks to see if the two sides were ready to move toward a peace accord. 25.08.2000 - Making a case for Israeli sovereignty over all holy shrines in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Ehud Barak said that under Israeli rule no harm would ever come to the two major mosques in the disputed city. The Palestinians dismissed Barak's assurances and said they would not sign a peace treaty without being granted sovereignty over east Jerusalem, which includes the walled Old City.
September 2000 -------------- 07.09.2000 - Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has rejected U.S. compromise proposals on Jerusalem. Sounding a similar tone, Israel Prime Minister Ehud Barak said "Some of the ideas he has raised are beyond what we believe we can accept. Nevertheless, If Chairman Arafat is ready to take Clinton's ideas as the basis for negotiations, we will be ready to contemplate it and to enter into such negotiations." 13.09.2000 - Sept. 13 was supposed to be Palestinian independence day. Instead, a deadline for establishing a state was missed for the second time in 16 months, and Palestinian leaders desperately tried to maintain some credibility by announcing gradual steps toward statehood, including general elections. Over the weekend, the PLO's top policy-making body, the Central Council, decided to postpone a statehood proclamation at least until Nov.15. 14.09.2000 - The Clinton administration reopened talks with the Palestinians in a bid to end a deadlock over the future of Jerusalem. 18.09.2000 - Prime Minister Ehud Barak ruled out Islamic sovereignty over a key Jerusalem shrine, closing the door to a Palestinian compromise proposal. Israeli-Palestinian peace talks are hung up because of a sovereignty dispute over the compound known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif or Noble Sanctuary. Barak and Arafat accused each other of intransigence and blamed each other for the deadlock. 20.09.2000 - Israel and the Palestinians resumed contacts, a day after Israel made conflicting announcements about the fate of negotiations, first declaring a time-out, then saying talks were back on track. 28.09.2000 - Israeli riot police fired rubber bullets at hundreds of Palestinian stone-throwers at a Jerusalem holy site. The violence broke out just moments after the leader of Israel's hard-line opposition, Ariel Sharon, entered the compound. Chants of "Murderer, get out" followed Sharon. Near the West Bank town of Ramallah, about 200 Palestinian university students angered by Sharon's visit threw stones at Israeli troops who fired rubber-coated steel bullets. Four Palestinians were injured.
29.09.2000 - Israeli army and riot police fired rubber bullets and live rounds at hundreds of stone-throwing Palestinians, killing four protesters in the bloodiest clashes in four years at a Jerusalem holy site. Scores of Palestinian protesters were injured. Number of police, including the Jerusalem police chief, were hurt by rocks during the violence in the compound. Tensions have been running high since the Israeli opposition leader, Ariel Sharon, visited the compound to demonstrate that Israel was in control.
October 2000 ------------ 03.10.2000 - The death of a 12-year-old Palestinian boy killed by Israeli fire shocked the world. The death of the boy, Mohammed Jamal al-Durah, was captured by French television. The images of his terrifying last moments have come to symbolize the nature of the violent confrontations of the past few days and the use of live bullets of the Israeli army against the civilian Palestinians. 04.10.2000 - Secretary of State Madeleine Albright brought Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat together to try to get them to return to "the psychology of peacemaking." Barak said talks won't resume until the violence ends. Albright held two rounds of separate meetings with the two Mideast leaders and then convened a three-way session. Arafat condemned the "virulent attacks against our people" and said he would see Barak only if there was a guarantee that Palestinians would be protected and an inquiry was launched into violence on the West Bank and Gaza. In weeklong strife, more than 60 Palestinian have died. 12.10.2000 - Israeli helicopters rocketed Yasser Arafat's residential compound, police stations and broadcasting centers in a swift retaliation for the killings of two Israeli soldiers by a Palestinian mob. The violence was some of the worst in the West Bank and Gaza Strip since the 1967 Mideast war. One of the missiles struck just 50 yards from Arafat's headquarters, with the Palestinian leader inside the building during the attack. 16.10.2000 - In an atmosphere of high tension and mistrust, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat met warily at an emergency summit aimed at halting bloody clashes in the Mideast. "We cannot afford to fail," President Clinton warned. He implored both sides "to move beyond blame" after more than two weeks of clashes on the West Bank and Gaza that left about 100 Palestinians dead. The summit was hosted by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who unmistakably blamed Israel for the violence. 21.10.2000 - Leaders from the Arab League have begun their first emergency summit in four years in a bid to form a unified response to the violence between Israelis and Palestinians. The summit convened with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat addressing the conference as widespread anti-Israeli demonstrations throughout the Arab world placed increased pressure on the leaders to show the depth of their commitment to the Palestinian cause. The leaders are expected to denounce Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians and for failing to complete its promised withdrawal from occupied land in the West Bank and Gaza.
November 2000 ------------- 02.11.2000 - A powerful car bomb exploded near a crowded outdoor market in the heart of Jerusalem, killing two bystanders. Both of those killed near the Mahane Yehuda market were Israeli Jews. 11 people were injured most of them only slightly. 09.11.2000 - Israeli combat helicopters rocketed a pickup truck full of Palestinian killing one and critically wounding another. Two passers-by were killed and 11 others were injured.
December 2000 ------------- 15.12.2000 - Israeli troops fatally shot Hani Abu Bakr a member of Hamas at a military checkpoint, the fourth day in a row that a known Palestinian activist has been gunned down another two Palestinian passengers were wounded. 20.12.2000 - As Israeli and Palestinian delegations headed into preliminary consultations in Washington, clashes in the West Bank injured at least six Palestinians. A stone-throwing clashes broke out near the West Bank town of Hebron after Jewish settlers blocked a roadway and attacks the Palestinians. 30.12.2000 - Israel closed off the West Bank and Gaza Strip in response to bomb attack. A Palestinian policeman Mahmoud Nasser, a 20-year-old was killed by a shell in Israeli attack in the Gaza Strip near the Erez point. Also, 15 Palestinians were hurt when Israeli troops used live and rubber-coated bullets fired at Palestinian during a rally in the West Bank town of Ramallah. Three months of intifada have killed nearly 350 Palestinians.