Chronology: July 16, 2013–October 15, 2013

Abbreviations

AFP, Agence France-Presse

AJE, Al Jazeera English

Al Arabiya

AP, The Associated Press

BBC

Bloomberg

CNN

Daily Star (Lebanon)

France24

Guardian, The Guardian

Hurriyet

JT, The Jordan Times

LA Times

NYT, The New York Times

RFE/RL, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

Reuters

WP, The Washington Post

Arab-Israeli Conflict

See also Egypt, Israel, Iran, Lebanon, Palestinian Territories

Jul. 19: An Israeli district court in the city of Beersheba indicted Palestinian Wa’il Abu Rida, a former policeman from the Gaza Strip, on various charges, including terrorism. Israel announced that it had secretly detained Abu Rida since June 21, after his disappearance while traveling in Egypt, but did not clarify the details of his apprehension. The indictment said Abu Rida was active in Islamic Jihad, a powerful Iranian-backed Palestinian faction. [Reuters, 7/19]

In response to increased unrest in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and two rockets fired from Gaza on July 18, Israel deployed its Iron Dome missile defense system near the Red Sea port city of Eilat, located on the Egyptian border. [Daily Star, 7/19]

Aug. 7: An explosion along the Israel-Lebanon border injured four Israeli soldiers. No party claimed responsibility for the explosion, but the Lebanese army said that the Israeli soldiers went 400 meters beyond the border, in a violation of Lebanese sovereignty. [Reuters, 8/7]

Aug. 11: Israeli soldiers killed an unarmed 20-year-old Palestinian man after he climbed over the fortified fence along the Gaza border into Israel. The man was shot after ignoring the soldiers’ warnings to return to Gaza. [Al Arabiya, 8/11]

Aug. 14: Israel released 26 Palestinians jailed between 1985 and 2001 as a stipulation for peace talks that began the same day between Israeli and Palestinian representatives. The first session took place hours after the release and was the first direct meeting that concerned a two-state solution since September 2010. [Reuters, BBC, 8/14]

Aug. 22: The Ziyad al-Jarrah Battalion, the Lebanese branch of Abdullah ‘Azzam Brigades, an Islamist group with links to al-Qa‘ida, fired four Katyusha rockets into Israel from an area south of the southern Lebanese city of Tyre. One of the rockets was allegedly intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, and two others hit populated areas in the northern Israel, but injured no one. [NYT, 8/22, WP, 8/23]

Aug. 23: The Israeli Air Force launched a rocket attack in response to the Ziyad al-Jarrah rocket attack on August 22, targeting a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) base south of Beirut. There were no casualties. PFLP-GC was a longtime client of Syrian president Bashar al-Asad’s regime and was designated as a terrorist group by Israel and the US. [Reuters, 8/23]

Aug. 26: Israeli security forces killed three Palestinian men during violent clashes that broke out in the Qalandiya refugee camp near the West Bank city of Ramallah. Security forces raided the camp to arrest a resident on charges of terrorism, when hundreds of residents began throwing rocks and firebombs. A similar incident occurred on August 20, when security forces killed a Palestinian man in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank after a raid encountered violent protest. [NYT, 8/26]

Sep. 20: Israeli soldiers confronted EU diplomats and seized a delivery of aid to the West Bank. The shipment contained tents and emergency aid for 120 Palestinian Bedouin of the Khirbat al-Makhul community, which was demolished after Israel’s high court ruled on September 16 that the community did not have proper building permits. The soldiers threw sound grenades at the group of diplomats, aid workers, and locals, then pulled a female French diplomat from the delivery truck, and drove away with the shipment. [Reuters 9/20]

Oct. 1: Israeli soldiers killed an unarmed civilian when he and another man approached and allegedly damaged the fence at the Israel-Gaza border, in an attempt to dig underneath it. [BBC, 10/1]

Oct. 9: Israeli soldiers detained two Palestinian men in the town of al-Bira, as suspects in the...