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

Director General of the Jewish Agency: Giora Romm.

Treasurer of the Jewish Agency Chaim Chessler and Shai Hermesh.

January 3: The first group of Argentine immigrants since the rioting in December 2001 arrives.

January 22: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon visits the Jewish Agency's Ra'anana absorption center, to learn first-hand about immigration and absorption of Argentine immigrants.

February 14: The Jewish Agency launches a new demography initiative.

February 22: The Jewish Agency approves a a $140 million budget for Argentine Jews who immigrate to Israel.

February 24: Senator Hillary Clinton visits a jointly run Jewish Agency - Ma gen David Adom international volunteers program, during her solidarity trip to Israel.

February 26: The Jewish Agency establishes a fund for the victims of terror in Israel.

March 10: A delegation of women medical professionals and lay activists from the Cleveland Jewish Community Federation arrive in Israel to officially inaugurate the joint Cleveland-Jewish Agency "Advancement of Women's Health" Initiative which already functions in three Bedouin villages and in 15 community centers throughout Israel.

March 12: Jewish Scientists from throughout the world meet to establish the World Congress of Jewish Scientists. The Jewish Agency's "People to People" Center is one of the supporters of this initiative.

March 14: A synagogue is inaugurated at the Beit Canada Absorption Center in Jerusalem.

April 7: Against the backdrop of the security situation and anti-Semitic acts in Europe and elsewhere, the Jewish Agency launches a massive worldwide campaign in support of Israel.

April 15: On Independence Day a special Jewish Agency immigrant flight from Argentina will mark 54 years of aliyah.

April 15: In the first three days of the 'Letter to the Israeli Soldier' campaign held under the auspices of the Jewish Agency and the Ministry of Defense's Youth and Nahal Division, 600 letters are received.

May 12: The Jewish Agency inaugurates the "Information Ambassador" course and the 2nd Virtual Zionist Congress on the Jewish Agency Education Department website.

May 14: Ambassador Dennis Ross and Professor Yehezkel Dror head a new Jewish Agency Institute for Jewish People Policy Planning.

May 21: US Ambassador to Israel, Daniel C. Kurtzer is the first guest lecturer at a new Jewish Agency "luncheon forum" devoted to cardinal issues of the Jewish world.

May 29: A program is launched to integrate Ethiopian immigrants into Israeli society. The National Ethiopian Absorption Project is initiated by the Jewish Agency for Israel and is planned to last nine years.

June 17 - 20: The 34th Zionist Congress takes place in Jerusalem.

June 23: In the Gilboa hills, a new kind of ecologically-aware Jewish settlement is being set up within the Green Line.

July 3: World Zionist Organization Chairman Sallai Meridor and high-ranking members of the Zionist Executive present President Moshe Katsav with a new edition of Theodor Herzl's diaries.

July 10: A plane carrying some 400 North American immigrants landed at Ben-Gurion Airport.

July 22: Six Torah scrolls from the Swansea (Wales) Synagogue, which had been desecrated on 10 July by anti-Semitic vandals, are brought to Israel on a special Jewish Agency flight.

July 30: More than 700 immigrants are arriving. Among the latest arrivals are 157 from France, 126 from Russia, 111 from Argentina, 105 from the Ukraine, 47 from the United States and 14 from Britain. Other immigrants are coming from South Africa, Brazil, Uruguay and India.

July 30: As of this day, 1,917 Ethiopian arrived in 2002.

August 1: Thanks to the generosity of two British families, 39 Ethiopian children from the Jewish Agency Safed Absorption Center, celebrate a special communal Bar and Bat Mitzvah at the Great Synagogue in Jerusalem.

August 19: 650 young adults from the Former Soviet Union and 140 from Argentina arrive in Israel for Jewish Agency Programs.

September 2: Following a Jewish Agency request, the Government of Israel decides to equate the assistance given immigrants from Uruguay with that given to immigrants from Argentina.

September 10: A renewed call to change the Law of Return - which guarantees citizenship to any Jew in Israel with at least one Jewish grandparent - is turning the spotlight on immigration from the former Soviet Union.

October 9: A group of 30 parents of lone IDF soldiers will arrive in Israel to meet their children and tour the country. Their visit is part of the Jewish Agency Keshet program, which is now in its second year of operation.

October 28: "The New Challenge", an initiative of the Jewish Agency in conjunction with the Government of Israel and World Jewry, intends to create a Zionist majority in the Negev and Galilee. Jewish Agency Treasurer Shai Hermesh presents this project to the Jewish Agency Board of Governors.

October 29: Two hundred Jewish leaders from around the world are convening to participate in the deliberations of the Jewish Agency Board of Governors.

November 3: The ninth class of the Jewish Agency-Ministry of Foreign Affairs "Briefing Ambassador" online Hasbara course opens with a class of 2,000 students from throughout the world.

November 14: The Jewish Agency presents to the Israel IT Industry the latest developments in Web technologies that enable the creation of a shared Jewish market for information, services and goods.

November 18: A high-ranking 23-member Korean ministerial delegation, headed by Assistant Minister for Planning and Management of the South Korean Ministry of Unification visits the Jewish Agency's Mevasseret Zion Absorption Center to study the Agency's methods for integrating new immigrants.

December 7: The world's Jewish population is declining, according to a survey carried out by an institute affiliated with the Jewish Agency for Israel. According to the institute the number of American Jews dropped by 300,000 in the last decade, while other major Jewish communities around the world also declined. Only Israel's Jewish community is growing, the institute says.

December 9: The Jewish Agency for Israel is one of the major sponsors of the five-day Francophone Conference in Jerusalem. Jewish Agency Chairman Sallai Meridor speaks at the ceremonial opening.

December 12: In the presence of Prime Minister Sharon and Jewish Agency Chairman Sallai Meridor 39 Patrol Cars and State-of-the-Art communications equipment is given to the Civil Guard - a gift of the United Jewish Communities of North America.

December 29: President Moshe Katsav awards the Jerusalem Prize for Jewish Leadership to Rabbis Chaim Druckman, Cyril Harris and Simcha Cohen, Dr. Israel Singer and to Lev Levayev.

December 30: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon visits a Jewish Agency Absorption Center.

December: The Jewish Agency sponsors four major events in Moscow.

December: In 2002, the Jewish Agency budgets $336,000 for high school programs in Israel, which offer pupils in grades 10, 11, and 12 from North America, Latin America, and France an opportunity to study in Israel while receiving full academic credit from their home schools.

December: The Jewish Agency budgets $2,270,000 in 2002 for the Israel Experience, short-term programs in Israel (including birthright) for youth from abroad.

December: The Jewish Agency budgets $30,000 in 2002 to Yavneh Olami, the world organization of Orthodox students, for a one-year leadership program.

December: 34,831 new immigrants arrive in Israel in 2002.

January 3: US Mideast envoy General Anthony Zinni returns to the Middle East.

January 3: Israel says it will begin to pull out of parts of the West Bank, but Palestinian officials condemn the announcement as empty propaganda. Palestinians say Israeli tanks remained stationed with 100 meters of the Palestinian Authority's headquarters in Ramallah.

January 3: Israel Defense Forces (IDF) navy and air force units capture a Palestinian Authority-owned freighter loaded with 50 tons of weapons. The Israeli government accuses the Palestinian Authority of being behind the arms shipment, which includes Katyusha rockets, rifles, mortar shells, mines and a variety of anti-tank missiles. The ship is captured in the Red Sea about 300 miles south of the Israeli port of Eilat

January 4: Israel issues a West Bank security plan.

January 9: Four Israeli soldiers and two Palestinians die in a firefight between Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen at a fortified Israeli army post near where the borders of Israel, Gaza, and Egypt converge.

January 10: Israeli bulldozers destroy 32 homes in the Rafah refugee camp, the home of the two militants shot dead the day before following their attack on an Israeli army post.

January 13: Israeli missiles fired from the sea hit Palestinian naval targets near Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat's office in Gaza City.

January 13: Fifty-eight homes are demolished and 511 people are left homeless in the Rafah refugee camp, located in southern Gaza. The house demolitions spark a debate in the Cabinet.

January 14: Raed Mahmed Raef Karmi, leader of the Al-Aqsa Brigade in Tulkarm, is assassinated.

January 14: An Israeli soldier is killed near the Shavei Shomron settlement west of Nablus.

January 15: One person is killed and another wounded in a shooting attack against an Israeli vehicle near the Givat Zeev patrol station north of Jerusalem.

January 17: A bombing attack takes place in a banquet hall in Hadera. Six people are killed and 26 wounded.

January 18: Israeli F-16 fighter jets drop eight missiles on the compound of the Palestinian governor of Tulkarem.

January 18: Israeli troops blow up the building housing the headquarters of the Voice of Palestine radio service and some Palestinian television studio facilities.

January 21: Israeli troops take control of Tulkarm and occupy almost one-third of Ramallah.

January 22: Two Israelis are killed and 36 wounded in a shooting attack in downtown Jerusalem.

January 23: Hearings in Belgium into whether Ariel Sharon should stand trial for war crimes draw to a close as the Israeli prime minister's lawyers argue that their client is innocent.

January 23: Hezbollah guerrillas fire missiles from Lebanon at Israeli outposts in the disputed Shebaa Farms area.

January 24: A Hamas activist is killed and two other Palestinians are seriously wounded when an Israeli helicopter gunship attacks their car in southern Gaza.

January 25: 25 people are wounded in a suicide bomber attack outside a cafe on a pedestrian mall near Tel Aviv's old bus station.

January 25: Israeli fighter planes strike Palestinian security installations in Gaza and the West Bank.

January 26: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat renews his call for a cease-fire with Israel, but promises to resist increasing Israeli and U.S. pressure on the Palestinian Authority.

January 27: A resident of Jerusalem is killed and over 150 people are injured in a suicide bombing on Jaffa Road, in the center of Jerusalem.

January 28: European Union foreign ministers urge Israel to regard Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as a "partner" to work towards peace in the Mideast.

January 28: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat Monday dismisses a top security official and issues arrest warrants for two other Palestinian officials in connection with the arms shipment.

January 29: Israeli forces arrest a senior Islamic Jihad activist and two other Palestinians suspected of terrorist activity in the West Bank village of Irthas, south of Bethlehem.

January 30: Two members of the Israeli security service are lightly wounded in an attack by a suicide bomber in the central town of Taibeh, near the West Bank.

January 31: Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer sends a message through Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak Wednesday saying that if Syria drops its support for Hezbollah guerrillas, Israel will be willing to resume talks.

February 1: In an interview with the Jerusalem daily newspaper Ma'ariv, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon says he regrets that Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat was not killed when Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, but says Arafat can still be a partner for peace.

February 3: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat condemns terror attacks against Israeli civilians and calls for peace talks "as partners, not as subjects" with the Jewish state. In a column published on the op-ed page of New York Times he details what he calls "the Palestinian vision of peace."

February 4: Violence continues in the Middle East as five members of a Palestinian militant group are killed in car blast near Rafah in southern Gaza.

February 5: Three people are killed in a shooting attack in the Jewish settlement of Hamra in the West Bank.

February 6: Israel launches an airstrike against a target in the Palestinian city of Nablus.

February 8: In a series of operations, the Israel Defense Forces sweep into Palestinian towns and villages, arresting at least three people and tightening the encirclement of the West Bank town of Nablus.

February 10: French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine presents an outline of a plan that calls for the immediate declaration of a Palestinian state and Palestinian elections, even before a cease-fire is reached in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

February 11: Israel launches a series of airstrikes in Gaza and an armored incursion into the West Bank in response to the firing of a Palestinian-built Qassam-2 rocket into Israel the day before.

February 13: Israeli troops launch the as yet most extensive military operation in the Gaza Strip in 16 months of fighting, a midnight raid on three Palestinian towns and a refugee camp.

February 14: The international court of justice rules that past and present government leaders cannot be tried for war crimes by a foreign state, ending the possibility that a Belgian court can try Ariel Sharon.

February 15: Israeli forces enter Palestinian towns in northern and central Gaza and hold them for 24 hours in response to the firing of two Palestinian-built Qassam-2 rockets into Israel from Gaza.

February 15: The head of an Israeli commando unit is killed after a wall collapses next to a bulldozed house and Palestinian militants blow up a tank. Israeli jets attack the Jabalya refugee camp in retaliation, killing a policeman.

February 16: Two teenagers are killed and about 30 people are wounded when a suicide bomber blows himself up at a pizzeria in the Karnei Shomron shopping mall in Samaria. A third person subsequently dies of his injuries.

February 17: Israeli police shoot and kill a Palestinian in a gun battle near an army base in northern Israel, and another Palestinian dies nearby when a car explodes.

February 18: A Bedouin policeman from the Galilee is killed by a suicide bomber whom he stops for questioning on the Ma'ale Adumim - Jerusalem road.

February 18: Israeli air force F-16s attack the Palestinian police building in Ramallah.

February 19: Eight Palestinians are killed in missile strikes, bombing raids and gun battles.

February 19: The Israeli Supreme Court issues a restraining order forbidding the army from destroying 20 Palestinian houses in Gaza until the court rules on the issue.

February 19: An influential group of around 1,000 top-level reserve generals, colonels and security officials calls on the Israeli government to get out of Gaza, dismantle 50 Jewish settlements, recognize a Palestinian state, and redeploy troops along a border between Israel and the Palestinians.

February 20: Non-Orthodox Jews both inside and outside Israel celebrate a historic court ruling recognizing Reform and Conservative conversions as valid and binding upon the Jewish state.

February 20: Six Israeli soldiers are killed in a commando-style raid by Palestinian guerillas on an Israeli army checkpoint at Ein Ariq, near Ramallah. Reprisal strikes leave 16 Palestinians dead.

February 21: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon addresses the nation. He announces his government will set up buffer zones aimed at achieving "security separation" to protect Israelis from Palestinian attacks.

February 22: Israeli troops pull out of positions in the Gaza Strip, but as tensions appear to ease a motorist is shot dead and details emerged of a foiled suicide bombing in the West Bank.

February 22: A poll conducted for the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, Israel's largest Hebrew daily, shows that 61% of Israelis are dissatisfied with Prime Minister Sharon's performance.

February 24: Israel grants Yasser Arafat permission to travel in Ramallah.

February 25: A policewoman is killed and ten civilians are wounded in a shooting attack in Neve Yaakov, Jerusalem.

February 25: A 15-year-old Palestinian girl wielding a knife is shot dead at an Israeli checkpoint near the West Bank town of Tulkarm.

February 26: Israel discusses the Saudi Peace Proposal.

February 27: A Palestinian suicide bomber blows herself up at the Maccabim roadblock on the Jerusalem - Modi'in highway, injuring three policemen.

February 27: Europe's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, meets Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to explore the peace initiative.

February 27: The owner of the Bashkevitz factory in Atarot, Jerusalem, is killed by one of his Palestinian employees.

February 28: An additional commercial television channel, Channel 10, is introduced.

February 28: The Israeli army storms the Balata refugee camp, the biggest in the West Bank, strafing it from the air, a mountain top and other strategic positions. A simultaneous invasion of the Jenin refugee camp marks the most concerted effort to crush Palestinian militants on their home terrain since the uprising began.

March 1: Israel launches its largest assault on Palestinian refugee camps since the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict began. The Israeli assaults targeted two camps -- one in Balata, near Nablus; and another in Jenin. Helicopters and tanks are involved in the attacks, but much of the fighting is being done on foot in the camps, which are crisscrossed by narrow alleys. The Israel Defense Forces say the camps "are central bases for terrorist factors responsible for the murder of scores of Israeli civilians."

March 2: Eleven people are killed and over 50 are injured in a suicide bombing near a yeshiva in the ultra-Orthodox Beit Yisrael neighborhood in the center of Jerusalem where people have gathered for a bar mitzvah celebration.

March 3: Ten Israelis - including seven soldiers - are shot dead by a lone Palestinian sniper. Another Israeli soldier is killed and four others injured in an attack in the Gaza Strip.

March 4: Seventeen Palestinians, including five children, are killed in Ramallah as Israel steps up military pressure. Six Palestinians, including two children, die when a car belonging to a Hamas leader is hit. Fighting in the Jenin and Rafah refugee camps that claims 11 lives.

March 5: Three Israelis are killed in a shooting attack in the "Seafood Restaurant" in Tel Aviv.

March 5: A resident of Upper Nazareth is killed and a large number of people are injured, when a suicide bomber explodes in an Egged bus as it enters the Afula central bus station.

March 5: Palestinians fire rockets at the Israeli town of Sderot, near Gaza, injuring two children.

March 6: Seven Palestinians are killed as Israel shells the Gaza Strip in one of the most intense assaults on the territory since the current intifada began.

March 7: A suicide bomber blows himself up in the lobby of a hotel in the commercial center on the outskirts of Ariel in Samaria. 15 people are injured.

March 8: In the deadliest day of fighting since the intifada began 18 months ago, Israeli troops kill 40 Palestinians in an assault on the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Earlier, a Palestinian militant had opened fire on a military academy in the Jewish settlement of Atzmona in the Gaza Strip, killing five teenage officer cadets were killed and wounding another 24.

March 9: 11 people are killed and 54 injured when a suicide bomber explodes in the crowded Moment Cafe at the corner of Aza and Ben Maimon streets in the Rehavia neighborhood in the center of Jerusalem.

March 9: A gun and grenade attack in the Margoa Hotel in Netanya kills two people and wounds 50.

March 11: Israeli tanks and troops storm a Palestinian refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, unleashing a ferocious firefight in which 17 Palestinians are killed and more than 50 wounded.

March 12: 20,000 Israeli troops invade refugee camps in the Gaza Strip and reoccupy the West Bank town of Ramallah. At least 31 Palestinians are killed and hundreds more ordered out of their homes. Seven Israelis are killed when a Palestinian gunman opens fire on a kibbutz near the border with Lebanon.

March 12: The United Nations security council endorses for the first time an independent Palestinian state, and the UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, accuses Israel of "illegal occupation" of Palestinian land.

March 13: In Ramallah, Israeli machine gun fire claims the life of a 42-year-old Italian photographer, Raffaele Ciriello, 42. He is the first foreign journalist killed in the 18-month intifada.

March 14: US envoy General Anthony Zinni arrives in Israel in the hopes of restarting the peace process after a week of unprecedented violence.

March 17: A suicide bomber blows himself up near an Egged bus at the French Hill junction in northern Jerusalem. 25 people are lightly injured

March 18: The US vice president, Dick Cheney, arrives for talks with Ariel Sharon, and makes a qualified offer to meet later with Yasser Arafat.

March 20: Seven people are killed and about 30 wounded in a suicide bombing of an Egged bus traveling from Tel Aviv to Nazareth near Afula.

March 21: Three people are killed and 86 injured in a suicide bombing on King George Street in the center of Jerusalem.

March 25: US President George Bush asks Israel to release Yasser Arafat from his confinement in Ramallah to allow him to attend the Arab League meeting.

March 26: Yasser Arafat announces he will not attend the Arab summit as Ariel Sharon makes new demands, including asking the US to sanction his permanent exile if there are further terrorist attacks while he is in Beirut.

March 27: 30 people are killed and 140 injured in a suicide bombing in the Park Hotel in Netanya, in the midst of the Passover holiday seder with 250 guests.

March 28: The Arab League summit comes to a final agreement: it promises Israel peace, security and normal relations in return for a full withdrawal for Arab lands occupied since 1967, the establishment of a Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital and a "fair solution" for the 3.8 million Palestinian refugees.

March 29: Two people are killed and 28 injured when a female suicide bomber blows herself up in the Kiryat Yovel supermarket in Jerusalem.

March 29: Israeli tanks and bulldozers attack Yasser Arafat's Ramallah compound, the Palestinian leader is confined to the basement and vows that he would rather die than surrender. It is first stage of what the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, says would be a "long and complicated war that knows no borders".

March 30: US president, George Bush, urges Yasser Arafat - still under siege - to do more to clamp down on terrorism, but urges Israel to remember that a peaceful solution must be found to the crisis. The US also backs a UN security council resolution calling on Israel to withdraw from the Palestinian territories.

March 30: One person is killed and about 30 are wounded in a suicide bombing in a cafe on the corner of Allenby and Bialik streets in Tel Aviv.

March 31: 15 people are killed and over 40 injured in a suicide bombing in the Matza restaurant in Haifa.

March 31: An MDA paramedic is seriously injured along with three other people in a suicide bombing at the emergency medical center in Efrat, in the Gush Etzion bloc south of Jerusalem.

March: The Union of European Football Associations prohibits teams from playing in Israel after a terrorist attack rocks a restaurant the night before an important match between Hapoel Tel Aviv and Milan.

April 1: A police officer is killed in Jerusalem when a suicide bomber heading toward the city blows himself up in his car after being stopped at a roadblock.

April 1: Tanks are put outside Tulkarem and Bethlehem, Palestinian collaborators are lynched by militants and, in an ominous sign, Iranian-backed Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon fired a Katyusha rocket into Israel. Yasser Arafat spends his fourth day under siege, with George Bush calling on him to do more to "denounce" terror.

April 2: Israeli warplanes, armour and infantry launch a huge attack on Bethlehem. Gunships fire missiles into a number of targets around Manger Square and the Church of the Nativity with witnesses describing desperate close quarter fighting in the old part of Bethlehem.

April 3: The attack on Bethlehem and siege of Ramallah continue as diplomatic tensions grow. The Vatican denounces the military operation on the West Bank and Egypt limits its ties with Israel. More rockets are fired into northern Israel by Hezbollah fighters on the Lebanese border and Syria announces it is to deploy 20,000 troops in the country.

April 4: US president, George Bush, tells Prime Minister Sharon to end the West Bank occupation and blames Palestinian leader Arafat for failing to halt a wave of suicide bombings. There are fears of wider conflict as the army pushes on to Nablus, the Bethlehem standoff goes on and troops enter Hebron.

April 5: Against a backdrop of continuing gun battles in major West Bank towns, General Zinni, the US envoy, becomes the first international representative to meet Palestinian leader Arafat since he was confined to his Ramallah headquarters last week. West Bank residents are once more forced to stay indoors.

April 6: The Guardian publishes an open letter signed by 120 university professors, including 90 from Britain, calling for a moratorium on cultural and research links with Israel at a European or national level, "unless and until Israel abides by UN resolutions and opens serious peace negotiations with the Palestinians, along the lines proposed in many peace plans..."

April 6: President Bush calls on Israel to withdraw "without delay" from the West Bank cities. He reinforces the message with a 20-minute phone call to the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon. Meanwhile, bloody fighting rages between Israeli forces and Palestinians and Israel launches artillery attacks and air raids in southern Lebanon.

April 8: Ariel Sharon, says he will complete his military operation against Yasser Arafat's "regime of terror", a move that directly defies US calls to pull troops out of the West Bank immediately. Israeli soldiers open fire on Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity. US Secretary of State, Colin Powell,is publicly rebuked by the Moroccan leader, King Mohammed VI, for his week-long delay in going to Israel.

April 9: Thirteen soldiers are killed in a West Bank battle, the Israeli army's single biggest loss of life since the fighting began. The men are killed in a booby-trapped building during an assault on Palestinian militants in the Jenin refugee camp.

April 10: Eight people are killed and 22 injured in a suicide attack on an Egged bus en route from Haifa to Jerusalem.

April 10: An Armenian Orthodox monk is shot and seriously wounded at Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity compound, where more than 200 Palestinian gunmen are besieged by the Israeli army. In the worst violence in the area since Israel withdrew from south Lebanon two years earlier, Hezbollah guerrillas exchange fire with Israeli troops and war planes along the Lebanese border. Hundreds of Palestinians surrender in al-Ayn refugee camp after 13 days of intense battles with Israeli troops.

April 11: Israeli forces sweep into two towns and a refugee camp in the West Bank but pull out of 24 other villages, sending mixed signals ahead of the arrival of Colin Powell. US Secretary of State Colin Powell, insists that a negotiated settlement to the Middle East conflict is the only way to secure lasting peace in the region.

April 12: Six people are killed and 104 wounded when a woman suicide bomber detonates a powerful charge at a bus stop on Jaffa Road at the entrance to Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda market.

April 14: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon offers Palestinian gunmen trapped in an armed standoff in Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity the choice of surrendering and being tried in an Israeli military court, or going into exile "forever".

April 15: The leader of the Palestinian intifada, Marwan Barghouti, is seized by Israeli special forces from a house not far from Yasser Arafat's compound in Ramallah. Meanwhile journalists enter the Jenin refugee camp, seeing a "silent wasteland".

April 17: Colin Powell leaves the Middle East with neither a truce nor any evidence that Israel is ending its siege of Palestinian cities in the West Bank.

April 18: Israel gives its fullest account of its soldiers' conduct in Jenin so far, admitting 10% of the buildings in the city's refugee camp had been leveled during the fighting, but denying in the strongest terms that they had overseen a "massacre".

April 19: George Bush calls for a probe into civilian casualties in the assault on the Jenin refugee camp.

April 20: Israel says it has nothing to hide from a UN investigation into Palestinian accusations of a massacre in the camp.

April 21: Israeli tanks and armour redeploy around the cities of Nablus and Ramallah as Ariel Sharon says the first stage of the offensive has ended.

April 22: The International Committee of the Red Cross accuses Israel of breaching the Geneva conventions by recklessly endangering civilian lives and property during its assault on the Jenin refugee camp.

April 23: Three 14-year-old Palestinian classmates are shot dead by Israeli soldiers after they try to mount a suicide attack on a Jewish settlement in Gaza.

April 23: Talks begin to end the siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Meanwhile Israel blocks a proposed UN investigation into the fighting in the Jenin refugee camp and three suspected informers are killed by Palestinian militants in Hebron.

April 25: Yasser Arafat moves to end his month-long incarceration within his Ramallah headquarters by putting on trial and sentencing four Palestinian militants wanted by Israel for assassinating a cabinet minister last year. Nine young Palestinians leave the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem.

April 26: Israeli forces raid the West Bank city of Qalqiliya, defying fresh calls from George Bush to complete their pullout from reoccupied Palestinian areas.

April 27: Two Palestinian guerrillas, reportedly dressed in Israeli army uniforms, shoot dead four Israelis, including a child, in a settlement near Hebron.

April 28: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon bows to intense pressure from George Bush to end the stand-off in Ramallah and backs down from his previous position that the six wanted militants in Yasser Arafat's compound must be handed over to Israel. Instead he accepts a plan putting them under US and British guard in a Palestinian prison. But the impasse grows over the proposed UN mission to Jenin.

April 29: British and American experts begin talks with Palestinian officials in Ramallah to arrange the transfer of six prisoners to joint UK and US custody in return for Israel lifting its month-long siege of Yasser Arafat's headquarters. In Hebron nine Palestinians, including six civilians, are killed when Israel attacks a security compound in the city. Israeli snipers kill a Palestinian in the Church of the Nativity.

April 30: Israel again refuses to cooperate with the UN inquiry into the fighting in the Jenin refugee camp. Meanwhile, 27 Palestinians leave the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

May 1: Yasser Arafat's five-month imprisonment in his Ramallah headquarters draws to an end as the Palestinians hand over six high-profile prisoners to Anglo-American custody.

May 5: A deal to end the siege of the Church of the Nativity is brokered - the fighters will be released with the allegedly most hardened going into exile in Italy and the others to Gaza.

May 7: The deal stalls as it emerges Italy has not agreed to the exile plan.

May 7: 16 people are killed and 55 wounded in a crowded game club in Rishon LeZion, when a suicide bomber detonates a powerful charge in the 3rd floor, causing part of the building to collapse.

May 9: A new deal to end the Bethlehem siege is drawn up by EU negotiators that would see the fighters exiled in several countries after first flying to Cyprus. Ending the siege is widely seen as a precursor to an Israeli military offensive in Gaza in retaliation for the suicide attack on the snooker hall.

May 10: The siege ends. Thirteen Palestinian fighters are flown to Cyprus.

May 12: Mr Sharon loses a Likud vote to his rival Benjamin Netanyahu: after hours of debate the prime minister's party rejects forever the setting up of Palestinian state in land currently occupied by Israel.

May 12: It is revealed that Israel has thwarted a Jewish extremist plot to blow up a Palestinian hospital and a girls' school in Arab east Jerusalem, arresting the bombers as they attempted to install their high-powered explosives.

May 14: A report by an Israeli human rights group says the Jewish state has secretly grabbed 42% of Palestinian land in the West Bank for illegal settlement activity.

May 15: In a speech to the Palestinian assembly Palestinian leader Arafat promises reform and elections in an attempt to win over his people and end criticism at home and abroad of his corruption-riddled administration.

May 17: Israel makes a new raid on the Jenin refugee camp.

May 19: Three people are killed and 19 injured when a suicide bomber, disguised as a soldier, blows himself up in the market in Netanya.

May 20: A suicide bomber kills himself after Border policemen approach him for questioning at a bus stop. There are no other injuries.

May 20: Israel claims that the Palestinian Authority has been diverting almost ten million dollars a month from money provided by international donors. Papers seized during raids on its buildings purports to show that money received in dollars from the EU and Arab countries was converted by the PA into shekels at an exchange rate that was well adrift of the normal official rate.

May 21: Prime Minister Sharon fires four ultra-orthodox ministers from his coalition government after they failed to back his austere budget cuts in parliament.

May 22: Two people are killed and about 32 wounded when a suicide bomber detonates himself in the Rothschild Street downtown pedestrian mall in Rishon LeZion.

May 23: A bomb explodes underneath a fuel truck at the Pi Glilot fuel depot north of el Aviv. The truck bursts into flames, but the blaze is quickly contained.

May 24: A security guard opens fire on a terrorist attempting to ram a car bomb into the Studio 49 Disco in Tel Aviv. The terrorist is killed and five Israelis are slightly injured when the bomb explodes prematurely.

May 27: A grandmother and her infant granddaughter are killed and 37 people are injured when a suicide bomber detonates himself near an ice cream parlor outside a shopping mall in Petah Tikvah.

May 31: Israeli troops enter the West Bank city of Nablus, while the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is reported to have signed a law reform package which is a framework for a Palestinian constitution.

May: Rabbi Shlomo Amar, a close associate of the Shas Party's spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, and recently named chief rabbi of Tel Aviv, visits Ethiopia to check the Jewishness of the Falash Mura, people who once had been Jews or whose ancestors had been Jewish.

June 5: 17 people are killed and 38 injured when a car packed with a large quantity of explosives strikes an Egged bus traveling from Tel Aviv to Tiberias at the Meggido junction near Afula.

June 6: A six-hour wrecking mission by Israeli tanks flattens Yasser Arafat's Ramallah headquarters. No building in the compound remains intact - not even Arafat's bedroom, which sports a large crater in the wall.

June 7: Tanks return to Jenin and Israeli forces also patrol the southern edge of Bethlehem but do not enter the town.

June 10: Israeli tanks and troops make a pre-dawn raid on Ramallah and declare a curfew. US President George Bush backs Israel's demand that the Palestinian leadership be overhauled before meaningful peace talks can begin. Bush says he will not lay down a timetable for the creation of a Palestinian state.

June 11: A 14-year-old girl is killed and 15 others are wounded when a Palestinian suicide bomber sets off a pipe bomb at a shwarma restaurant in Haifa.

June 17: A Palestinian suicide bomber blows himself up near a group of Israeli border police, killing himself but causing no injury to bystanders.

June 18: 19 people are killed and 74 injured in a suicide bombing at the Patt junction in an Egged bus traveling from Gilo to the center of Jerusalem.

June 19: Seven people are killed and 50 injured when a suicide bomber blows himself up at a crowded bus stop and hitchhiking post at the French Hill intersection in northern Jerusalem.

June 20: Yasser Arafat orders his people not to attack Israeli civilians. He said recent suicide bombs "have given the Israeli government the excuse to reoccupy our land".

June 21: Four civilians who inadvertently broke a curfew in Jenin are "mistakenly" shot dead by the Israeli army. Hours earlier five Israeli settlers were killed in the West Bank.

June 25: US President Bush says he supports a two-state solution to the conflict but demands the Palestinians reform their institutions, set up a western-style democracy and replace their leader. There is, however, no clear timetable for the creation of a Palestinian state, no call for Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and no move to send international monitors. (Full speech.)

June 27: The Israeli army warns Palestinian fighters sheltering in a Hebron compound - a forme