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Chairman of the Executive of the Jewish Agency and the WZO: Sallai Meridor.

Director General of the Jewish Agency: Aaron Abramovich and from September: Giora Romm.

Treasurer of the Jewish Agency: Chaim Chesler.

The Jewish Agency establishes the "People to People Center" which initiates and supports Israel-based programs that bring about links between Jews worldwide.

February 11: "Immigration (Aliyah) to Israel and Jewish Zionist Education will be top priorities of my Government" announces Prime Minister Elect Ariel Sharon in a telephone conversation with the heads of the Jewish Agency for Israel.

February 26 - 28: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz address the Jewish Agency Board of Governors.

June/July: Over 10,700 Argentinean Jews have requested information about Aliyah opportunities in Israel. Over 12,000 preliminary interviews have taken place, and approximately 6,000 files have been opened. Through the end of July 2002 over 3,000 Jews have made Aliyah. The total number of Argentinean new immigrants is 550 in July, and the pace of Aliyah is expected to increase over the next several months. Since the Establishment of the State of Israel, over 60,000 Argentinean Jews have moved to Israel, of these approximately 1,400 in the year 2001. For 2002 Aliyah is on the path to achieve, and possibly exceed, its goal of 5,000 new immigrants to Israel, a 250% increase.

June 19: 35,000 Jews have come to Israel since the outbreak of the intifada.

June 24 - 27: The Jewish Agency Assembly convenes in Jerusalem. Prime Minister Sharon, Foreign Minister Peres, Defense Minister Ben Eliezer, Former Prime Minister Netanyahu, dignitaries and top Jewish leaders attend Jewish Agency Assembly. Main theme: Jewish solidarity in time of crisis, immigration and hasbarah.

July 10: Genuine unique historic exhibits from the beginning of the Zionist movement in Austria are displayed at a special exhibition of the Zionist Youth Movements at the Educational Campus of the Jewish Agency at Kiryat Moriah.

July 16 - 23: The Jewish Agency is the main supporter of the 16th Maccabiah. The Jewish Agency brings 350 athletes from Former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe among them olympic champions. (More.)

July 23: Jewish Agency Treasurer Chaim Chesler receives the Na'amat USA Golda Meir Human Relations Award for 2001 for his work for the freedom of Jews in the Soviet Union, Yemen and Syria and for his work to enhance dialogue between Jews in Israel and throughout the world.

August 26: At the conclusion of a meeting with members of the Zionist Executive and Jewish organizations, World Zionist Organization chairman Sallai Meridor decides not to send a delegation, at the present time, to the World Conference Against Racism, Xenophobia, Racial Discrimination and Related Intolerance (WCAR) which will be held in Durban, South Africa.

August 28: The Jewish Agency Executive decides to appoint Maj. Gen. (Res.) Giora Romm to the post of Director General of the Jewish Agency. He replaces Adv. Aaron Abramovich who is retiring from the Agency.

September 16: Jewish Agency Chairman Sallai Meridor and Treasurer Chaim Chesler address a rally of Solidarity with the American people in Tel Aviv.

October 28: A meeting of the Jewish Agency-Israel Coordinating Committee, presided over by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Jewish Agency Chairman Sallai Meridor, and attended by top leaders of World Jewry, deals with a Jewish Agency initiative to award enhanced absorption benefits ("the absorption basket") to immigrants from France, Argentina and South Africa.

October 28: The Jewish Agency Board of Governors announces the inauguration of five new partnerships between Jewish Communities in the Diaspora and Israel.

November 30: Chairman Sallai Meridor announces that the Jewish Agency will fight for Jews from Arab lands to obtain compensation for confiscated property.

November 21: An new Negev settlement is on the map. The cornerstone for Halukim is laid in a ceremony held under the aegis of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Jewish Agency Chairman Sallai Meridor.

December 7: 900 young immigrants, who arrived recently from the Former Soviet Union in the context of Jewish Agency's "Sela" higher education program, receive Israeli ID cards in a Presidential ceremony.

December 9: The Jewish Agency helps families of terror bombing victims.

December 13: The Jewish Agency purchases 20 new bulletproof vehicles to transport children and elderly people.

December 16: The Herzliyah Conference opens. Jewish Agency Chairman Sallai Meridor is one of the key speakers.

December 17: A new Jewish Agency survey of the Israeli Jewish population shows that 80% of the Israeli public believe aliyah must be encouraged in these times.
63% believe that bonds between Israel and the diaspora are equally important to both sides.

December 19 : Violence breaks out in the streets of Argentina. Jewish Agency offices overseas and in Israel work on double shifts to address the more than 8,500 queries and expedite the Aliyah of the thousands who have decided to begin a new life in Israel. Giora Romm, Director General of the Jewish Agency, describes the Agency's actions.

December 25: The first immigrants from Argentina arrive in Israel.

December 30: The second Orthodox General Assembly opens in Jerusalem.

New immigrants in 2001: 43,580.

January 1: European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, prepares to hold meetings on Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. He seeks to persuade the two leaders to accept the latest peace proposals put forward by U.S. President Bill Clinton. Solana is joined by EU Middle East envoy Miguel Moratinos.

January 1: A car bomb explodes near a bus stop in the shopping district in the center of Netanya. About 60 people are injured, most lightly.

January 2: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat meets US President Bill Clinton. There are also meetings with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Arab ministers to discuss the American peace proposal.

January 3: An Israeli army frontier post is targeted by mortar bombs fired from Lebanon. Israeli forces return artillery fire in the disputed Shebaa Farms area.

January 4: Israeli chief negotiator Gilad Sher hands a document to US officials detailing Israel's response and reaction to the US peace proposal.

January 7: U.S. CIA Director George Tenet, senior Palestinian and Israeli negotiators hold a low-profile meeting near Cairo.

January 8: Thousands of people gather at the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem to protest a U.S.-brokered peace proposal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

January 8: Bill Clinton's last-ditch formula for a permanent settlement is rejected by the Palestinians. The President will leave the White House in 12 days, his dream of Middle East peace unfulfilled.

January 10: The Israeli Peace Now movement accuses the government and security forces of running a policy of selective assassination of Palestinian leaders deemed to be security threats. There have been ten such killings so far.

January 12: Fierce clashes erupt despite the renewal of the Israeli-Palestinian talks.

January 12: The US State Department issues a travel warning for Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

January 13: Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat meet in Gaza.

January 14: Hopes fade for a breakthrough agreement before President Clinton leaves office on January 20.

January 16: Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami and Palestinian Parliament Speaker Ahmed Qureia hold talks.

January 19: US President Bill Clinton addresses an open letter to the Israelis and the Palestinians.

January 20: George W. Bush is inaugurated a new US president. The Israeli Cabinet considers new proposals from Palestinian Authority President Arafat. The Cabinet agrees to marathon talks with the Palestinians.

January 21: A Jewish settler who clubbed an Arab child to death with a rifle butt is sentenced to six months' community service. Human rights organizations are outraged by the sentence.

January 21: President Moshe Katsav visits the Ukraine.

January 21: The peace talks in Taba start.

January 22: The marathon peace talks in Taba enter the second day.

January 23: Some progress is made at the Taba talks.

January 24: Likud candidate for prime minister, Ariel Sharon, says he "is the one man who can bring both peace and unity" to Israel.

January 25: The Taba talks resume after the funerals of two Israelis killed in the West Bank.

January 25: An Israeli is killed in a shooting attack against his van near the Atarot industrial park in Jerusalem.

January 26: Israeli and Palestinians discuss the issue of the Palestinian refugees.

January 27: Israeli and Palestinian negotiators end six days of talks in Taba without an accord ending the conflict between them, but with hopes that they could complete their negotiations after next month's Israeli election. A joint statement is issued.

January 28: Israeli Likud prime minister candidate Ariel Sharon dismisses the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks as a failed campaign ploy by a desperate Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Sharon leads voter polls by a wide margin.

January 28: Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

January 30: Prime Minister Ehud Barak calls off peace contacts with the Palestinians until after the election on February 6.

January 31: A general strike, that has brought most of the public sector to a standstill and virtually has halted imports and exports for the past ten days, is settled when the Finance Ministry and the Histadrut come to an agreement to give public sector workers a one time payment plus a rise in their monthly wage of 3.6%. The Histadrut trade federation further agrees not to strike again for the next six months.

February 1: Operation Helping Hand begins: A delegation of IDF soldiers and field hospitals is dispatched to India to help earthquake victims.

February 3: Palestinian Cabinet Minister Nabil Sha'ath calls for Israelis to vote for peace in the election for prime minister and cast their ballots to stop the ongoing violent conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

February 4: In the last Cabinet meeting Prime Minister Ehud Barak reaches out to the Israeli Arabs. He takes responsibility for all what happened in the country, including the death of 13 Israeli Arabs during the clashes at the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Intifada.

February 6: Ariel Sharon wins a landslide victory in the special elections for prime minister. (More on the elections 2001.)

February 6: Palestinian leaders pledge to work with Ariel Sharon. They also express fears that Sharon's election will irrevocably alter the peace process.

February 8: A car bomb explodes in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Mea Shearim in Jerusalem, wounding two.

February 8: Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon begins coalition talks.

February 11: Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Barak says that his successor will not be bound by peace offers made so far to the Palestinians.

February 12: The coalition talks take place amid new clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinians.

February 13: Masoud Ayad, a Fatah activist, is killed in by an Israeli missile in Gaza. Six passers-by are wounded in the attack.

February 14: Notes, taken by European Union representative, Miguel Moratinos, are published in the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz.

February 14: A bus driven by a Palestinian plows into a group of Israeli soldiers and civilians in Tel Aviv, killing eight and injuring fourteen. Israel reimposes a total blockade on the occupied territories.

February 15: Ariel Sharon invites the Labor Party to join the national union government.

February 16: Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Barak accepts an offer to join the government of his successor, Ariel Sharon, as defense minister.

February 20: Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Barak executes one of his famous political u-turns and announces that he will not serve as defense minister in Ariel Sharon's cabinet. He also steps down as leader of the Labor Party and resigns as a member of the Knesset.

February 21: Ariel Sharon offers Shimon Peres the post of defense minister.

February 25: US Secretary of State Colin Powell holds talks with Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon.

February 25: An Israeli is critically wounded in a shooting attack west of Bir Zeit.

February 27: The Labor Party votes to join Ariel Sharon's government. Veteran Labour leader Shimon Peres will be foreign minister.

February 28: A US report criticizes Israel and the Palestinians.

March 1: A bomb blast inside a taxi van kills an Israeli man on and wounds nine people, including the suspected bomber, near an Israeli Arab town in northern Israel.

March 2: Benjamin Ben Eliezer, a former brigadier in the Israeli Army, wins election to become the Labor Party's candidate for defense minister in a unity government.

March 4: Three are killed by a suicide bomber in Netanya.

March 7: Ariel Sharon is sworn in as prime minister heading a fragile seven-party coalition and a government team comprising a third of the 120-member Knesset.

March 7: The Knesset abolishes direct election of the prime minister in favor of a system that requires Israelis to cast ballots for a party instead of an individual.

March 9: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon calls for personal contacts with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to kickstart the peace process. In a letter to Arafat, Sharon says he wants to "put an end to the cycle of bloodshed" through dialogue and direct negotiations.

March 10: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat calls for new talks with Israel.

March 15: Foreign Minister Shimon Peres has appeals to the United Nations to reject a Palestinian proposal for a U.N. observer mission.

March 19: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon arrives in Washington for talks with US President George W. Bush.

March 20: Israel releases its second statement for the Mitchell Committee.

March 21: A fact-finding panel led by former US Senator George Mitchell, resumes its inquiry into Israeli-Palestinian violence with a tour of Gaza and interviews with key leaders from both sides.

March 26: The Israeli Army orders the evacuation of an Arab district in Hebron after a 10-month-old Jewish girl is shot dead in the arms of her father by a sniper.

March 27: At least three people are injured in a car bomb blast near a shopping center in Jerusalem. Islamic Jihad claims responsibility.

March 28: Responding to a series of deadly attacks against Israelis IDF helicopter gunships hit one target in Ramallah and four in Gaza, all belonging to Arafat's elite personal bodyguard unit, Force 17.

March 28: The United States veto a United Nations Security Council resolution that would have backed the creation of an international observer force to help protect civilians in the West Bank and Gaza.

March 29: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat says that the Palestinian flag will fly above the walls of Jerusalem before Israeli military strikes can stop the six-month-old uprising against the Jewish state.

March 30: At least five Palestinians are killed in clashes with Israelis as Palestinians mark "Land Day", commemorating the deaths of six Arabs 25 years ago while protesting land confiscations in northern Israel.

April 1: Israel arrests members of Yasser Arafat's elite Force 17 at a checkpoint near Ramallah. Israelis and Palestinians bury children killed in recent clashes. An Israeli reservist is killed as he stands guard at an army post near the Jewish settlement of Itamar.

April 3: An Israeli helicopter attack kills a senior member of the radical Palestinian group Islamic Jihad.

April 4: Israelis and Palestinian negotiators meet in Athens.

April 6: Palestinians fire four mortar shells on Netzarim in the northern Gaza Strip. Israeli forces open fire with tanks.

April 7: Battles between Israelis and Palestinians continue.

April 14: Israeli combat planes strike a pair of Hezbollah targets inside southern Lebanon in response to heavy fire targeting the Israeli military near Shebaa Farms. One Israeli soldier is killed.

April 14 - 15: Pipe bombs explode in Kfar Saba and near a settlement in the West Bank.

April 15: Israel destroys a Syrian radar installation in Lebanon.

April 16: Jordanian Foreign Minister Abdel Ilah al-Khatib presents the Egyptian-Jordanian peace initiative to Israel.

April 16: Israeli rightwingers respond angrily to news that Ariel Sharon has used his businessman son Omri, aged 36, as a secret emissary to Yasser Arafat.

April 17: Israel launches air, land and sea strikes on Gaza. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell calls the action an "excessive and disproportionate" reaction to Palestinian "provocation." Israeli planes also continue to fly over eastern Lebanon and carry out reconnaissance missions over southern Lebanon and the Western Bekaa Valley. For the first time since the intifada erupted, Israeli troops seize back land controlled by the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and divide the territory into three parts.

April 22: A suicide bomber blows himself up at a bus stop in Kfar Saba, killing two and wounding at least 39.

April 23: Eight people are lightly hurt in a car bombing in Or Yehuda.

April 26: US President George W. Bush calls Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to discuss ways to secure peace in the Middle East. Bush will host a working visit with President Moshe Katsav at the end of May.

April 27: Heavy exchanges of gunfire between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers are reported near Ramallah, at Tulkarem and at Kalkilya.

April 29: A car bomb explodes close to a school bus near Nablus. There are no injuries.

April 29: Foreign Minister Shimon Peres discusses a joint Egyptian-Jordanian proposal at ending seven months of bloodshed in Amman and Cairo.

April 30 : The preliminary Mitchell Committee Report is released to the public. (More on Israel's reaction.) Mitchell condemns the expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.

May 2: A meeting between Secretary of State Colin Powell and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres to discuss the Egyptian-Jordanian peace initiative ends with little advancement.

May 9: A Jewish settler is killed near a West Bank settlement. Three Palestinians, including Iman Hijjo, a four-month-old baby girl, are killed. Five of her relatives are wounded when a shell bursts through the asbestos roof of their house in the refugee camp of Khan Younis.

May 9: The bodies of two teenagers - Kobi Mandell and Yossi Ishran - are found in a cave near the settlement of Tekoa. The boys were stoned to death.

May 10: Israeli missiles strike several targets in Gaza City.

May 11: UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan condemns the escalating Middle East violence.

May 12: A member of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement and a Palestinian policeman die in an Israeli rocket attack in Jenin.

May 14: Hezbollah guerrillas fire anti-tank missiles and machine guns at an Israeli army outpost near the disputed Shebaa Farms area.

May 14: Israeli troops kill five Palestinian policemen manning a checkpoint in the West Bank and launch a major bombardment of security targets in the Gaza Strip. Thousands of Palestinians gather outside a West Bank hospital chanting for revenge.

May 16: Israel unleashes a helicopter attack on the Palestinian police station at Jabalya in Gaza. Five policemen are killed. Israel later says that the killing of five Palestinian policemen is a case of mistaken identity and expresses regret for their deaths.

May 18: A suicide bomber detonates himself outside the Hasharon SHopping Mall in Netanya. Five people are killed and over 100 are wounded.

May 18: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon orders F-16 aircraft strikes against Palestinian targets in response to the suicide bombing. Eleven Palestinians are killed in the strikes.

May 19: An explosive device is planted in the Biancini Pub in Jerusalem. The attack is prevented when the device is discovered by the proprietor.

May 20: Israel launches missile attacks at a factory that it says produces mortar shells in northern Gaza.

May 21: In his long awaited report on the Middle East conflict, former US Senator George Mitchell calls for an immediate cease-fire, to be followed by confidence building measures and ultimately by renewed peace negotiations. Mitchell also calls for a freeze on expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.

May 22: The European Union condemns Israel for a "disproportionate use of force" and criticizes Jewish settlement policy in the West Bank and Gaza at the Brussels meeting of the EU-Israeli Association Committee.

May 22: Ariel Sharon rejects the Mitchell report's call for a freeze on Jewish settlement expansion in the occupied territories. He describes the settlements as " a vital national enterprise".

May 22: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon calls for a general cease-fire. But: "The first thing that has to happen is an end to the terror."

May 23: US President George W. Bush calls on Prime Minister Sharon and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to end the violence.

May 24: A wedding hall in Jerusalem collapses during a wedding. 25 people are killed, 250 injured.

May 24: Fearing a terrorist attack, Israel shoots down a small plane and kills its pilot after it crossed into its airspace from Lebanon.

May 25: A truck filled with explosives blows up in Gaza near an Israeli military outpost.

May 25: 65 people are injured in a car bombing in the Hadera central bus station.

May 25: A car carrying members of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement explodes in a West Bank refugee camp, killing one person and injuring three others.

May 26: Dozens of people are injured, two of them seriously, as soccer fans rush onto the field in the Kiryat Eliezer Stadium in Haifa during a game between Maccabi Haifa and defending champion Maccabi Tel Aviv. Maccabi Haifa was leading, 3-2.

May 27: Two car bombs explode in Jerusalem: One blast happens in Jaffa Road, the other some hours earlier in an area of discotheques and nightclubs called the Russian Compound. Three people are taken to hospitals to be treated for shock.

May 27: Senior U.S. diplomat William Burns starts mediation meetings with Israeli and Palestinian officials.

May 30: Israeli and Palestinian officials hold their first face-to-face meeting after more than a month.

May 30: A car bomb explodes outside a school in Netanya. Eight people are injured.

May 31: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon comes under increasing pressure to end a unilateral cease-fire with the Palestinians, as violence continues in the Middle East.

May 31: Top Palestinian politician Faisal Husseini dies of a heart attack in Kuweit, aged 61.

June 1: 21 people are killed and 120 wounded when a suicide bomber blows himself up outside a disco near Tel Aviv's Dolphinarium.

June 2: Yasser Arafat condemns the terrorist attack at the Dolphinarium and orders his security forces to implement an immediate cease-fire.

June 5: A cease-fire called by the Palestinian groups Hamas and Fatah begins, but comes with the promise of renewed attacks if Israel does not observe one as well.

June 5: Intense diplomatic efforts continue throughout the Middle East, in an attempt to ensure that the relative cease-fire between Israelis and Palestinians doesn't crumble.

June 5: U.S. CIA Director George Tenet heads for the Middle East amid conflicting reports about the participation of the militant Islamic group Hamas in a cease-fire.

June 7: CIA Director George Tenet meets with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

June 10: The latest cease-fire is thrown into doubt after an Israeli tank shell kills three Bedouin Arab women in a tent in the Gaza Strip.

June 12: CIA Director George Tenet meets with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

June 12: A new and fragile cease-fire takes shape, after talks chaired by CIA director George Tenet. It calls on Yasser Arafat to clamp down on militants, and on Israel to withdraw from territory seized during the intifada.

June 13: Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezerinstructs the IDF to implement the Tenet truce plan over the coming week.

June 14: Israeli officials furiously attack the BBC for a Panorama program which concluded that the prime minister, Ariel Sharon, could be tried for war crimes in connection with the massacre of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon in 1982.

June 16: UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan holds talks with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in an attempt to bolster the truce.

June 18: Survivors of the Sabra and Shatila massacres in September 1982 file two civil lawsuits against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in a Belgian court. A Belgian law passed in 1993 allows prosecutions of any war criminals in the Belgian courts.

June 20: The fragile Middle East cease-fire is under fresh pressure after the deaths of two Israeli settlers and a string of shootings in the West Bank.

June 22: The Jerusalem-Hebron road is blocked to Palestinian travelers in protest at the killing of four Jewish settlers by Palestinians since the truce began nine days ago.

June 23: A suicide blast kills two Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip.

June 23: Talks on how to implement the U.S.-brokered truce agreement between Palestinians and Israelis continues against a backdrop of violence.

June 25: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon arrives in the United States for talks with President George W. Bush. Disagreements over key issues mark the second meeting in three months.

June 26: At least seven Israelis and two Palestinians are wounded during clashes in Hebron.

June 28: Israel and the Palestinians agree to a timetable for resuming peace talks that includes a six-week cooling-off period. (More.)

June 28: Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, achieves a stunning diplomatic coup when he wins the support of the United States for a monitoring force to oversee a Middle East cease-fire

June 29: Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer gives the United Nations assurances that overflights across Lebanon will be immediately suspended. The announcement comes as Hezbollah guerrillas fire anti-tank missiles in the disputed Shebaa Farms area.

June 29 - 30: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres meet in Lisbon. Both sides agree in principle to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's call for seven straight days without violence - to be followed by a six-week cooling off period when the two sides will begin to implement confidence building measures. But it is not clear when that week will begin.

July 1: Israel attacks Syrian positions in southern Lebanon. The strike responds to the injury of the two Israeli soldiers near the Shebaa Farms.

July 2: Two separate car bombs explode in the Tel Aviv suburb of Or Yehuda, hours after three Palestinian militants are killed in by Israeli helicopter gunships. Israeli ministers say they will continue the policy of "targeted killings".

July 4: The Israeli security cabinet votes after four hours of heated debate to give the army almost complete freedom in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to liquidate anyone it regards as a potential terrorist.

July 5: The Israeli government coalition is in turmoil after a row over the previously unthinkable option of whether to launch a massive military strike to topple the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat. Two rightwing ministers, pushing for the harder line against Mr Arafat, say they will boycott the cabinet indefinitely because of its failure to agree a military strike.

July 5: UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan calls on Israel to stop "what have become known as 'targeted assassinations'" of Palestinian militants, saying the practice violates international law.

July 6: German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder calls on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to show more flexibility on the question of the Jewish settlements. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon arrives home after his short trip to Europe where he makes efforts to gain European support for his policy. His meeting with his French counterpart Lionel Jospin ends in disagreement.

July 6: The United Nations admit that they are in possession of a video tape containing information about the kidnapping of three Israeli soldiers in October 2000.

July 9: A Palestinian suicide bomber is killed in a car-bombing attack. No other casualties are caused.

July 12: Israeli tank shells kill a Palestinian policeman in the West Bank city of Nablus after an attack on Jewish settlers.

July 13: Violence in the West Bank and Gaza continues.

July 15: Foreign Minister Shimon Peres meets Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in Cairo.

July 16: A suicide bomber sets off a blast at a railroad station in Binyamina, two Israeli soldiers, one of them a woman. In retaliation, Israeli tanks shell four Palestinian military posts.

July 16 - 23: Close to 3,000 athletes participate in the 16th Maccabiah.

July 17: Israel sends tanks and infantry units into the West Bank after a day that saw the military assassination of four alleged Palestinian militants, mortar attacks and widespread small arms clashes.

July 19: Israel rejects a call from the G8 summit in Genoa for international observers to monitor its somewhat theoretical cease-fire with the Palestinian National Authority.

July 19: Three Palestinians, including a three-month-old baby, are killed by Jewish extremists near Hebron. A shadowy group calling itself the Committee for Safety on the Roads is thought responsible.

July 21: One person is killed in an explosion that damages the Hebron office of Fatah, the party of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

July 25: Israeli troops assassinate a Hamas militant with anti-tank missiles near the West Bank city of Nablus

July 28: In retaliation for a mortar attack on a Jewish settlement, Israeli launches a helicopter strike on a Palestinian target in Gaza.

July 29: Israelis and Palestinians clash on the Temple Mount.

July 30: Israeli warplanes fly over the disputed Shebaa Farms region along the Israel-Lebanon border for the first time in more than four weeks. The IDF say the air force was carrying out military exercises.

July 30: Six Palestinian activists in Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement are killed in an explosion at a refugee camp near the West Bank city of Nablus. Palestinians blame the Israeli army, but Israeli officials say the deaths were a "work accident" - the euphemistic jargon for the premature explosion of a bomb.

July 31: Eight Palestinians are killed when an Israeli helicopter rockets an office of the militant Islamic group Hamas in the West Bank town of Nablus. The dead include Jamal Mansour, the leading Hamas figure on the West Bank, and two young children. Hamas vows bloody revenge.

July: The prestigious Berlin Staatskapelle performs Richard Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" overture at the Israel Festival. While the orchestra's conductor, Daniel Barenboim, has promised to respect the ban on Wagner's music, he surprises his audience by asking them if they want to hear Wagner as an encore following the scheduled performance. Most of the audience is in favor of the encore, which receives a standing ovation from all but a few of the listeners. However, during a half-hour debate that precedes the performance of the overture, numerous Israelis protest and walk out of the theater, some shouting insults.

August 1: The Israeli Cabinet votes to continue its policy of an "active self-defense" despite heavy criticism of its bombing of a Hamas office in Nablus that resulted in eight deaths.

August 2: Six Israeli soldiers are remanded in custody, charged with severely beating nine Palestinian taxi passengers. It is the first time in the 10-month uprising that Israeli military has taken such action, in spite of scores of complaints of alleged excesses.

August 4: Israel's strategy of assassinating Palestinian political and military leaders moves to within one rung of Yasser Arafat, as two missiles narrowly mi