Roadmap timeline
18 June: Palestinian PM Mahmoud Abbas holds separate meetings with Hamas and Islamic Jihad but no cease-fire agreement is reached. Hamas leaders describe meeting as positive, agree to hold further talks, and stress that failure to reach an agreement will not lead to civil war.
US President George Bush urges Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak to assist PA in strengthening its security forces in order to help put an end to attacks against Israelis.
Israeli occupation forces (IOF) open fire on Palestinian labourers at Gaza checkpoint, injuring three. A Palestinian in Gaza dies of wounds he sustained during failed IOF attempt to assassinate Hamas leader Abdul-Aziz Al-Rantisi on 10 June.
IOF bulldoze family home of an Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade (Fatah) activist in the village of Jabeh near Jenin. 65 Palestinians become homeless after IOF bulldozers demolish four homes in Rafah. IOF arrest 14 Palestinians in the Hebron and Qalqilyia areas of West Bank.
19 June: Palestinian PM Abbas meets with representatives of 13 Palestinian factions to discuss proposal for a national unity leadership.
Palestinian factions announce that there will be no truce with Israel if the latter does not withdraw from the Palestinian self-rule territories and cease attacks against Palestinians.
US envoy, John Wolf, attends Israeli-Palestinian security meeting in Jerusalem to discuss transfer of security control in northern Gaza to PA. No agreement is reached as Israel continues to demand continued control over major road connecting northern and southern Gaza.
IOF deny reports that construction of Apartheid Wall in the West Bank has been delayed due to US and British pressure.
British MPs Oona King and Jenny Tonge compare Israeli treatment of Palestinians to Warsaw ghetto.
IOF blow up Palestinian home in Khan Younis. IOF open fire in Khan Younis, injuring one Palestinian. IOF arrest four Palestinians in the village of Ya'bad near Jenin and three Palestinians in the village of Al-Khader near Bethlehem.
IOF dismantle West Bank settler outpost of Mitzpeh Yitzhar and find molotov cocktails at site. Housing one family, it is the first populated outpost to be dismantled.
20 June: Ahmed Abahreh, 22, kills himself and one Israeli in a suicide bomb attack near an Israeli settlement in the West Bank border. Islamic Jihad claims responsibility.
US Secretary of State Collin Powell arrives in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories (OPT) and meets with Israeli PM Sharon and his Palestinian counterpart Abbas. While discussions focus on the Gaza-Bethlehem First Plan, no real progress is reported. Powell urges Abbas to fight "terrorist" organisations and to takeover security control in northern Gaza and Bethlehem without waiting for a cease-fire agreement with Palestinian factions.
EU calls on Hamas to declare an immediate cease- fire and on Sharon to cease construction of settlements and apartheid wall.
Hamas activists open fire on Israeli car in West Bank, killing one Israeli settler.
21 June: IOF under cover units assassinate top leader of Hamas military wing, Abdullah Qawasmi, as he leaves a mosque in Hebron. The assassination comes at a time when Palestinian resistance groups are expected to reach a decision on a possible truce with Israel.
Israeli government announces that it is willing to give Palestinians three weeks to reorganise their security forces in order to quell Palestinian resistance. The government further announces that IOF will withdraw from a large part of the self-rule territories but will not cease assassination attempts.
Hamas announces it is ready to immediately cease its resistance operations if the IOF stop their attacks against Palestinians.
22 June: IOF assassinate four activists from the Al- Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in northern Gaza. IOF shoot dead a Palestinian woman near Israeli settlement in Gaza under pretext that she was acting suspiciously.
Israeli PM Sharon threatens Palestinians with more assassinations if PA does not act against resistance groups. Sharon also announces that Israel can quietly continue to build settlements in the West Bank.
Israeli Hebrew daily, Ma'ariv, reports that settlers have erected 12 outposts in the northern West Bank in the past 10 days.
Hamas refuses to agree to a truce with Israel as long as Israel continues its assassination policy.
US Envoy John Wolf meets with Palestinian officials. Meeting focusses on practical steps involving an IOF pull-out from northern Gaza and a transfer of security control to the PA.
PA Security Minister Mohamed Dahlan announces end of talks with Palestinian factions and says the PA is now waiting for their final response regarding a truce with Israel.
23 June: Hundreds of Israeli rabbis denounce roadmap for mideast peace and urge PM Sharon not to hand over "biblical land" to Palestinians.
US administration announces that National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice will visit Mideast early next week.
PA announces that Hamas and other Palestinian factions are on the verge of agreeing to a truce with Israel.
Israeli and Palestinian security officials end another round of meetings at Erez checkpoint in northern Gaza without reaching any tangible results.
Two Palestinian children are wounded, one of them critically, when IOF open fire at Palestinians in Nur Shams refugee camp near Tulkarm.
IOF dynamite four houses in Khan Younis in southern Gaza.
One Israeli is injured when Hamas resistance fighters fire a Qassam rocket on southern Israeli town of Sedorot.
24 June: Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders are due in Cairo to deliver their response to a possibility of a truce with Israel. Reports indicate that Israel may transfer security issues in parts of northern Gaza and Bethlehem to PA in the next few days.
Both sides continue to disagree over who would control main road connecting northern and southern Gaza. A proposal of conducting joint patrols along the road are being considered.
IOF invade old city of Nablus and exchange gunfire with Palestinian resistance fighters. No injuries are reported but several arrests are made.
Charges are filed in an Israeli court against Islamic Movement leader Ra'ed Salah and four other senior Israeli-Arab Islamic leaders. The five are accused of money-laundering, providing service to illegal organisations and holding funds belonging to illegal organisations. One of the five is charged with contacting a foreign agent and with membership in a "terror" organisation.
Compiled by Muna Hamzeh
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 26 June - 2 July 2003 (Issue No. 644)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/644/re31.htm