Chronology: April 16, 2013 – July 15, 2013

Arab-Israeli Conflict

See also Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey

Apr. 17: Two rockets fired from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula struck the Israeli resort city Eilat near the Red Sea and caused no casualties or damage. Islamic extremist group, the Mujahideen Shura Council in the Jerusalem Environs, claimed credit for the attack, which it said avenged Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. [WP, 4/17]

Apr. 22: Palestinian prisoner Samir al-‘Isawi agreed to end his hunger strike after reaching a deal with Israeli authorities for his release after eight additional months of jail time. His imprisonment and eight-month fast stoked weeks of demonstrations across the West Bank protesting against unlawful imprisonment and poor conditions in Israeli prisons. [AJE, 4/23]

Apr. 25: An Israeli aircraft shot down an unmanned, suspected Hizbullah drone fired from Lebanon off the coast of the northern city of Haifa. [BBC, 4/25]

Apr. 26: About 500 Palestinian villagers from Dayr Jarir in the West Bank marched towards a nearby outpost of the Israeli settlement of ‘Ofrah before Israeli soldiers dispersed them with tear gas and rubber bullets. Villagers said that the protests responded to settlers both burning cars on April 22 and throwing stones at villagers the previous week. [AJE, 4/26]

Apr. 30: A Palestinian stabbed and shot a Jewish settler to death in Yitshar, the first fatal attack in a West Bank settlement in 18 months. The murder triggered retaliatory violence in both Jerusalem and the West Bank, though there were no fatalities. [Guardian, 4/30]

An Israeli missile strike in the Gaza Strip killed a Palestinian militant allegedly involved in the April 17 firing of rockets at the Israeli resort city of Eilat from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. An Israeli spokesman stated that the militant was a weapons manufacturer for a number of militant groups in the Gaza Strip. [NYT, 5/1]

May 8: Israeli police detained Muhammad Ahmad Husayn, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, over his suspected involvement in a disturbance on May 7 between Israeli settlers and Palestinians at al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Some Palestinians threw chairs at a group of settlers touring the Temple Mount after they were prevented from praying in the mosque. The mufti’s detention prompted protests in Jordan, and Jordan’s parliament threatened to expel the Israeli ambassador from the country and to recall its own ambassador from Israel. [AJE, 5/8]

May 9: The Israeli Defense Ministry confirmed that approval had been granted for construction of 296 apartments in Beit El, a settlement near the West Bank city of Ramallah. [BBC, 5/9]

May 12: Several rockets launched from Syria landed in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, and Israel temporarily closed Mount Hermon to visitors. On May 12, unidentified armed men released four UN peacekeepers they captured on May 7 in the Golan. [CNN, 5/15]

May 31: Workers renovating a Muslim cemetery in Jaffa discovered six mass graves containing dozens of skeletons, suspected by many to be Palestinian civilians killed in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Experts debated the sources of the skeletons. [Haaretz, 6/3]

Jun. 18: Israeli housing minister Uri Ariel announced that Israel froze construction of nearly all housing in settlements, excluding those already under construction. The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) released a statement that such claims intended to appease US Secretary of State Kerry in upcoming US-brokered peace talks. [Reuters, 6/18]

Vandals slashed the tires of 28 cars and sprayed anti-Arab graffiti in Abu Ghawsh, a Jerusalem suburb in Israel. On June 16, the Israeli government had approved stricter measures on “price tag” vandals, designating them as members of illicit organizations which placed them at the same level as Palestinian militants. “Price tag” vandalism by Jewish ultranationalists, or revenge attacks for perceived threatening of West Bank settlements, increased with attempts to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. [NYT, 6/19]

Jun. 23: Militants launched six rockets into Israel from Gaza on June 23. No group claimed responsibility for the strike, which broke weeks of calm on the Israel-Gaza border. The Israeli military carried out air strikes against two weapons facilities and a launch site in Gaza...