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The following is a chronology of key events since the outbreak of the uprising in September 2000 which has now claimed nearly 3,900 lives.
-- 2000--
Sept 28: The head of the right-wing Likud party and now prime minister, Ariel Sharon, ignores warnings and visits the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, a site holy to both Muslims and Jews, sparking the first clashes of the intifada.
Sept 30: Twelve-year-old Mohammad al-Durra is shot dead in his father's arms after coming under Israeli fire against Palestinian protestors. The death is caught on film and the heartbreaking footage is shown around the world.
Oct 12: Two Israeli army reservists are lynched by a crowd of Palestinians in the West Bank town of Ramallah. Israel retaliates with helicopter strikes on the Palestinian territories.
Oct 16-17: A peace summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, brings together Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, then-Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, then-US president Bill Clinton, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Jordan's King Abdullah II, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
The summit ends with a three-point accord which commits Arafat and Barak to calling publically for an end to violence, obliges Israeli forces to pull back to pre-intifada positions and calls on Palestinian protesters to stay out of Israeli security zones. The plan immediately falls apart.
--2001--
Feb 6: Sharon is elected as Israeli prime minister.
May 4: The US Mitchell Commission issues a report recommending a cooling-off period followed by confidence-building measures, a freeze on developing Jewish settlements and, ultimately, a return to political negotiations.
May 18: Israeli F-16 warplanes bomb the Palestinian territories for the first time since the 1967 Middle East War, in retaliation for a suicide bombing in northern Israel that killed five.
June 1: Hamas suicide bomber kills 23 young party-goers outside a Tel Aviv beach-front nightclub.
June 13: A ceasefire is brokered by the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, George Tenet, but fails to take hold on the ground.
Aug 9: Eighteen people are killed when a Hamas bomber blows himself up by a pizzeria in central west Jerusalem.
Aug 27: The Israeli army assassinates Abu Ali Mustafa, leader of the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
Oct 17: A PFLP unit assassinates Israel's tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi.
Dec 3: Israeli warplanes pound the West Bank and Gaza Strip after more than 20 Israelis are killed in suicide attacks in Jerusalem and Haifa.
Dec 5: The Israeli army encircles Arafat in his West Bank headquarters in Ramallah and troops destroy his fleet of helicopters in Gaza. Since then, Arafat has never left Ramallah for fear Israel would prevent him from returning.
--2002--
March 8: Forty-six people die, most of them Palestinians, in the bloodiest day of the intifada as Israel pushes ahead with its offensive inside the Palestinian territories.
March 27: Thirty people are killed and more than 100 injured in a suicide blast in a packed hotel in Netanya on the first day of the Jewish holiday of Passover.
March 29: Israeli troops and tanks enter Arafat's Ramallah compound and open fire on his office.
April: Some 54 Palestinians and 23 Israeli soldiers are killed during clashes in the West Bank town of Jenin over three days at the beginning of April.
May 10: Israel lifts the siege imposed on 123 Palestinians holed up in the Church of the Nativity in the southern West Bank town of Bethlehem.
June 16: Israel begins construction of a separation barrier in the West Bank designed to prevent infiltrations by Palestinian militants.
July 22: Hamas military chief Salah Shehade among 17 people killed during an Israeli F-16 raid in Gaza.
Dec 20: The Mideast quartet, comprising diplomats from the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia, adopt the "roadmap" peace plan.
--2003--
Jan 5: Twenty-two killed in double suicide attack in Tel Aviv.
April 29: Mahmud Abbas installed as first-ever Palestinian prime minister.
April 30: Palestinians formally approve the roadmap.
May 25: Israel adopts roadmap with 14 reservations.
June 4: Sharon and Abbas attend peace summit along with Bush at the Jordanian port of Aqaba to launch the roadmap.
June 29: Palestinian radical groups, including Hamas, announce truce.
Aug 19: Twenty-three dead, including Hamas bomber, in Jerusalem suicide attack.
Aug 22: Senior Hamas leader Ismail Abu Shanab killed in Israeli air raid in Gaza, prompting Hamas and Islamic Jihad to end the truce.
Sept 6: Abbas resigns as Palestinian prime minister after a power struggle with Arafat over control of the security services. Shortly afterwards, Israel attempts to assassinate Sheikh Ahmed.
Sept 9: Two Hamas suicide bombers kill 15 people in attacks in Jerusalem and near Tel Aviv.
Sept 10: Ahmed Qorei agrees to succeed Abbas as Palestinian premier.
Sept 11: Israel approves in principle the removal of Arafat.
Oct 4: Twenty-one people are killed in a suicide bombing by a female member of Islamic Jihad on a restaurant in Haifa on the eve of the Jewish fast of Yom Kippur.
Dec 1: The Geneva Initiative, an unofficial peace accord drawn up by left-wing Israelis and a group of Palestinians, is unveiled at a ceremony in Switzerland.
2004
Jan 31 - Palestinian suicide bomber kills 11 passengers on Jerusalem bus outside Sharon's residence.
Feb 22: Eight passengers killed in a suicide bombing on a bus in Jerusalem.
Feb 23: Palestinians argue against the legality of Israel's West Bank. separation barrier in hearings at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
March 14: Ten Israelis killed in a twin suicide attack in the southern port of Ashdod in an attack carried out jointly by Hamas and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
March 22: Israel kills Sheikh Yassin in an helicopter strike after dawn prayers at a mosque in Gaza City.
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