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Timeline of Oslo Negotiations

1991 30 October Middle East peace conference opens in Madrid with delegations from Israel, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and the joint Palestinian-Jordanian delegation present.
3 November Face-to-face bilateral talks between Israeli and joint Palestinian-Jordanian delegations begin in Madrid.


 
1993 19 August Israeli and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) negotiators secretly meet in Oslo and create final draft of the Declaration of Principles (DOP). The document is initialed by Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and PLO official Ahmad Qurei. News of meeting is leaked to the press on 27 August 1993.
13 September The DOP is signed at White House ceremony by Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and PLO official Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen). The handshake on the White House lawn between PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin symbolically concludes the pact.
The final document, the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements (also referred to as Oslo I), includes mutual PLO-Israel recognition, framework for interim phase, and a pledge to begin final status talks not later than the beginning of the third year of the interim period.


1994 4 May Agreement on the Gaza Strip and Jericho Area (also referred to as the Cairo Agreement) is signed, which includes: Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and Jericho, security arrangements, transfer of civil affairs to the Palestinian Authority (PA), and legal and economic framework.
29 August The Early Empowerment Agreement transfers powers and responsibilities in certain spheres to the PA in areas not included in Oslo I including education, culture, health, social welfare, direct taxation, tourism, and others.


1995 28 September The Palestinian-Israeli Interim Agreement on the West Bank and Gaza Strip (also referred to as Oslo II) is signed, which furthers Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, divides the West Bank into areas A, B, and C, and provides guidelines for the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC).


1996 20 January PLC elections are held.
31 March Redeployment of Israeli military from occupied Hebron scheduled, but delayed.
DOP deadline for the beginning of the final status talks, but talks are delayed. Issues to have been discussed were: Jerusalem, settlements, borders, security, refugees, and external relations.


1997 15 January Israel and the PLO sign a Protocol Concerning the Redeployment in Hebron (also referred to as the Hebron Agreement) which guarantees implementation of Israeli withdrawal from 80 percent of the city of Hebron.
October Further redeployments, planned to be completed by October 1997 (Oslo II) did not materialize.


1998 23 October The Wye River Memorandum is signed, which includes: implementation of Oslo II, resumption of final status talks, further Israeli redeployment (13 percent of the West Bank), changes to the PLO Charter, opening of Gaza Airport and safe passage, and release of prisoners.


1999 4 May End of the interim phase (after fifth year of self-government according to the DOP). Permanent status agreement to enter into force, but delayed.
September Sharm El-Sheikh Agreement (also referred to as Wye II or Wye Plus Agreement) is signed and includes: implementation of the Wye River Agreement, resumption of final status talks (September 13), Israeli withdrawal from 11 percent of West Bank in three stages, opening of safe passage, and release of 350 Palestinian prisoners (September 4).
13 September Final status talks to begin, according to Wye II.
October Final status agreement to be completed, according to Oslo II.
25 October Southern safe passage opens (originally planned: October 1).


2000 5 February Northern safe passage scheduled to open, but delayed.
13 February Framework for final status agreement scheduled, but delayed.
11 July U.S.-mediated negotiations between Israel and the PLO commence at Camp David (so-called Camp David II) in order to reach a framework agreement on the final status issues; the summit concludes with no agreement reached after two weeks.
13 September Overall agreement scheduled, but delayed.
28 September Israeli leader Ariel Sharon visits Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem under heavy guard. Protests by Palestinians are brutally suppressed by the Israeli military; seven Palestinian demonstrators are killed. A second Palestinian uprising, the al-Aqsa intifada erupts.
27-30 December The Sharm El-Sheikh peace summit is canceled. Arafat, in reaction to Clinton’s proposed parameters for a final status agreement, wrote a letter requesting clarification on the parameters. In turn, Clinton refused clarification, discontinued communication with the PA until Arafat agreed with the parameters, and called upon Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan to press Arafat to accept the parameters.


2001 21-27 January Palestinian and Israeli negotiating teams meet in Taba without Egyptian or American mediators to discuss a comprehensive final status agreement focused on Jerusalem, borders, security guarantees, and refugees.
6 February Right-wing Ariel Sharon sweeps to power in Israel’s prime ministerial election. Sharon uses his victory speech to call for a government of national unity to bring peace to the Middle East.
17 April Israeli soldiers for the first time reoccupied territory in the Gaza Strip ceded to the PA under the 1993 Oslo peace accords.
27 April As Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres made plans for meetings in Cairo and Washington to discuss an Egyptian-Jordanian proposal for reviving long-dormant peace talks, officials played down chances for peace.
6 May The United States criticized Israeli incursions into Palestinian-run territory as “a serious escalation” that complicates peace efforts.
13 June CIA chief George Tenet brought together senior Israeli and Palestinian security officials to begin implementing a U.S.-brokered truce the two sides have accepted.
9 July Bulldozers leveled fourteen Palestinian homes under construction in one of Israel’s biggest demolition operations in years, provoking tears and stone throwing at a refugee camp on the northern edge of Jerusalem. Palestinians said the demolitions were part of an Israeli effort to restrict their numbers in and around Jerusalem.
16 September Israeli tanks rumbled into Palestinian towns in the West Bank for the second straight day. The Israeli incursion into Jericho and Jenin ignited gun battles that left three Palestinian militants dead and 21 wounded. A fourth Palestinian militant died from injuries sustained in a raid overnight Wednesday in Jenin and two nearby villages. Palestinian leaders accused Israel of stepping up incursions into their territory as the world turned its eyes toward the horrendous aftermath of the terror attacks in the United States.
27 September Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and PA President Yasser Arafat agreed on Wednesday to make a new bid to forge a lasting truce that could boost U.S. efforts to create a global anti-terror coalition. Meeting under U.S. pressure, the leaders reiterated their commitment to a truce-to-talks plan that allows for measures including the lifting of blockades imposed on Palestinian areas.
8 October Israeli tanks and troops drove into a Palestinian area of the West Bank city of Hebron seizing strategic positions and killing five Palestinians in a gun battle. Sharon said U.S. efforts to win Arab support for a war on terrorism after the suicide attacks on New York and Washington would not stop Israel from defending itself, and he warned the United States not to “appease” the Arabs at the Jewish state’s expense.
17 October Israeli Minister of Tourism Rehavim Ze’evi was gunned down at close range outside his Jerusalem hotel room, apparently by Palestinians seeking revenge for Israel’s assassination of a Palestinian leader.
24 October Israeli soldiers killed at least fifteen Palestinians in overnight and early morning fighting in the bloodiest day since the Palestinian uprising erupted thirteen months ago. The Israeli actions come despite reports that Israeli troops will soon end their crippling siege of six Palestinian cities in the West Bank following massive international pressure.
10 November President Bush referred to “two states—Israel and Palestine” in his speech to the UN General Assembly. This is the first time an American president has used the word Palestine.
24 November Mahmoud Abu Hanoud, the head of Hamas’ military wing, is assassinated by rockets from Israeli Apache helicopters. The Israeli actions came amid the expected arrival of U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni to Palestine.
27 November William Burns, the assistant secretary of state for Near East Affairs, and Anthony Zinni, a retired Marine Corps commander, arrived today in an attempt to impose a ceasefire on the Israelis and Palestinians. Peres is not sidestepped by Sharon as the negotiation team will be led by Meir Dagan, a former general who served under Sharon.
11 December One of Israel’s nine Arab parliamentarians, Azmi Bishara, went on trial charged with undermining the state. The Knesset voted to lift Bishara’s parliamentary immunity so that he could be tried. This vote marked the first time in Israel’s 53-year history that parliamentary immunity has been lifted.
13 December Sharon severs all ties with Arafat as tanks train their cannons on Arafat’s compound in Ramallah.
16 December U.S. Middle East Envoy Anthony Zinni returned to Washington yesterday from an aborted ceasefire mission which produced the most spectacular surge in violence in the fifteen months of the Palestinian uprising.


2002 4 January

Israel seizes the Karine-A ship in the Red Sea and accuses the PA of attempting to escalate the conflict. Anthony Zinni’s return to the area on 4 January coincided with the discovery of the ship.

  16 January Raed Karmi, head of Tanzim and a leader in the al-Aqsa Brigades in the West Bank town of Tulkarem, is assassinated by the Israel Defense Force (IDF) in an explosion. Ahmed Saadat, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), arrested by the PA.
21 January Israel seizes the West Bank town of Tulkarem in the first complete takeover of a town since the inception of the al-Aqsa intifada. The seizure is accompanied by a curfew and house-to-house searches.
27 January A 20-year-old woman becomes the first Palestinian women suicide bomber after she blows herself up in a busy Jerusalem shopping street, killing one woman and injuring 100 others.
14 February 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 Sharon.
19 February Palestinian guerrillas inflict the most devastating attack on the Israeli military since the start of their 17-month uprising last night, storming an army checkpoint at Ein Ariq in the West Bank, and killing six soldiers.
26 February There is growing interest in a peace proposal from Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Abdullah, which offers recognition, trade, and security to Israel in return for giving up the West Bank, Gaza, and part of Jerusalem.
28 February The IDF storms the Balata refugee camp with combined arms killing at least two and wounding over 100. The assault on Balata, and the simultaneous invasion of the Jenin refugee camp adjoining a market town in the north of the West Bank, mark the most concerted effort by Sharon to crush Palestinian militants on their home terrain since the al-Aqsa intifada began.
8 March In the deadliest day of fighting since the intifada began 18 months prior, 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 killed and wounding another 24.
12 March 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. Fourteen of the fifteen security council members approve U.S.-backed UN resolution 1397 endorsing a Palestinian state, and called for an immediate ceasefire in the escalating conflict.
14 March U.S. Envoy Anthony Zinni arrives in Israel in an effort to restart the peace process after a week of unprecedented violence.