|
January 1: Lieut. General Amnon Lipkin-Shahak replaces outgoing Chief of Staff Ehud Barak.
January 1: A tax on stock market profits is announced, evoking widespread criticism.
January 6: A Palestinian terrorist kills a young woman on the road to Elon Moreh in the West Bank.
January 8: The government decides to establish a commission of inquiry into recurring charges that children from Yemen disappeared under mysterious circumstances in the early years of the state.
January 19: Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Chairman Yasser Arafat meet to talks. Israel commits itself to freezing construction in the occupied territories.
January 22: Two suicide bomber incidents at the Bet-Lid junction near Netanya result in the death of 21 Israelis, most of them soldiers.
January 30: Prime Minister Rabin annuls the stock market tax, overriding the opinion of the minister of finance. The market soars.
February: Terrorist incidents by Hamas and the Islamic Jihad continue, as do attacks from Lebanon.
February 2: A four-way summit takes place in Cairo between Prime Minister Rabin, chairman Arafat, King Hussein, and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to discuss implementation of the Israeli-Palestinian agreement.
February 7: The Palestinian Authority establishes the Higher State Security Court which quickly develops into an instrumement for suppressing the opposition.
February 13: The Palestinians promise, in talks in Washington, to fight terror in their midst.
February 27: The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange sinks again, reaching a low of 146.8 points.
March 5: US Secretary of State Warren Christopher shuttles between Jerusalem and Damascus to advance peace talks between Israel and Syria.
March 19: Terrorists shoot at an Israeli bus near Hebron, killing two passengers.
March 31: The Mapam daily "Al Hamishmar" closes after 52 years of publication.
April 5: The Ofek 3 research satellite is launched successfully.
April 9: Two explosions of booby-trapped cars near Kfar Darom in the Gaza Strip result in the death of 6 IDF soldiers.
April 16: IDF troops kill 3 Hamas activists near Hebron.
April 18: Remarks by Foreign Minister Shimon Peres referring to an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights up to the international boundary arouse indignation in the public.
April 26: An announcement by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin about the impending evacuation by the IDF of three bases in the West Bank evokes criticism.
May 8: A crisis develops in relations between Israel and the Arab states in the wake of an announcement by Israeli authorities regarding land expropriation in East Jerusalem.
May 11: Poet David Avidan dies aged 60.
May 14: The government announces that no more land will be expropriated in East Jerusalem.
May 20: Former chief of staff Ehud Barak announces his decision to enter political life.
May 22: A political storm erupts following a motion for a vote of no-confidence in the government proposed by the Arab parties over the issue of land expropriation in Jerusalem. The Likud supports the motion.
May 22: An IDF soldier opens fire in a church in Jaffa, engendering rioting by Arabs in the city.
May 22: Demonstrations are mounted by settlers in the Golan Heights against government plans for withdrawal from the region.
June: The IDF begins redeploying in the West Bank. The Right and the settlers in the West Bank are agitated.
June 15: Katyusha missiles fired into the Galilee wound eight.
June 18: MK David Levy leaves the Likud after confrontations with party leader Benjamin Netanyahu and begins to organize a new political party.
June 18: Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin denies the existence of plans to uproot settlements in the occupied territories.
June 23: Katyusha missiles are fired in the north, killing one resident and wounding nine.
June: A wave of bank holdups takes place in Tel Aviv and elsewhere in the country.
July 2: A massive forest fire breaks out in the Jerusalem corridor, causing extensive damage.
July 3: Incidents occur in the southern Lebanon, taking a toll of two IDF fatalities.
July 6: IDF soldiers serving in the Hesder program request their rabbis to rule on the proper response to orders that negate their principles. The IDF fears disobedience by religious soldiers regarding orders to evacuate army bases in the occupied territories.
July 6: Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Chairman Yasser Arafat agree upon the main points of the Interim Agreement.
July 10: The Council of Settlements in the West Bank and Gaza threatens to declare a civil rebellion.
July 12: Fifteen rabbis rule that any order to evacuate IDF bases in Judea and Samaria must be disobeyed. Reactions in the country are turbulent.
July 15: The Israeli-Syrian talks in Washington are at a crisis.
July 16: Deputy Defense Minister Mordechai Gur takes his own life by gunshot after a prolonged battle with cancer.
July 18: Two new ministers join the cabinet: Ehud Barak (interior) and Yossi Beilin (economy and planning).
July 18: A tragedy occurs at the annual pop music festival in Arad when a crowd of tens of thousands trample three teenagers of death, with over 100 others injured.
July 18: Two hikers are murdered in Wadi Kelt east of Jerusalem. The perpetrators flee to Jericho. Arafat orders their arrest and trial.
July 24: A suicide bomber blows himself up in a bus in Ramat Gan, causing the death of five passengers and a large number of wounded. A closure is imposed on the occupied territories. Thousands of Israelis demonstrate at the site of the incident. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Chief of Staff Amnon Lipkin-Shahak who arrive at the site, are derided by the crowd.
August 6: A headline in the daily "Maariv" reads: "Security Around Rabin is Heightened. The Shabak fears an Assassination."
August 10: Two IDF pilots are killed in a plane crash caused by the blockage of thye engine by birds.
August 11: The Israeli-Palestinian Oslo 2 accords are initialed. Arafat commits himself to altering the PLO Charter, which calls for the destruction of Israel.
August 13: The new president of the Supreme Court is Justice Aharon Barak, who replaces retiring Justice Meir Shamgar.
August 21: A suicide bomber blows himself up in a bus in Jerusalem which damages a second bus as well. Five passengers are killed and over 100 are wounded. Agitated anti-government demonstrations are held in Jerusalem and elsewhere throughout the country.
August 29: Government ministers receive threats by right-wing extremists. Likud Chairman Netanyahu denounces them.
August: Richard Wagner's opera "The Flying Dutchman" is broadcast on Israel radio during prime time.
September: Regional radio stations begin operating throughout the country.
September: The People-to-People Program is established in the Oslo II agreement: Article VII. (Interim Agreement)
September 1: Schools fail to open as scheduled in protest against inadequate anti-terror security measures. They open the following day.
September 4: The trimillenial celebration year for the city of Jerusalem begins. The US ambassador is absent from the ceremony.
September 19: A steward hijacks a plane in Iran and lands it at the Uvdah airport north of Eilat. Israel returns the plane and its passengers to Iran and detains the steward for trial in Israel.
September 24: Israeli and Palestinian representatives agree on the Oslo II accords (Washington or Interim Agreement for the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.)
October 25: On the eve of the signing of the Israel-Jordan trade agreement, the spokesman of the Ministry of Trade and Industry issues a statement explaining the nature of the agreement, its background and highlights.
September 27: Israeli composer Sasha Argov dies at age 81.
September 28: The Israeli-Palestinian Oslo II Accord is signed in Washington after a series of delays and crisis. The Right holds turbulent demonstrations protesting the accord as "traiterous". Rabin is excoriated in print, orally, and at rallies where he appears.
October 5: The Knesset ratifies the Oslo II accord by a narrow marjority. Rightist demonstrators attack Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's and Housing Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer's cars.
October 10: A new phase of the IDF evacuation from the West Bank begins. The first point to be evacuated is the town of Salfit.
October 11: The Shabak is reported to have heightened security for government ministers and senior officials in light of threats and violence.
October 12: An ambush by Hezbollah of a Golani Brigade convoy in southern Lebanon results in three soldiers killed and six wounded.
October 15: An ambush kills six more soldiers from the same battalion.
October 22: The Israeli and Jordanian air forces hold a joint "peace flypast."
October 24: The US Congress votes by a large marjority to transfer the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. The US Administration is opposed. A compromise is worked out whereby the transfer is deferred to 1999.
October 25: The leader of the Islamic Jihad, Fathi Shkaki, is shot and killed in Malta. Foreign sources claim he was eliminated by the Mossad.
November 4: Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is murdered by Yigal Amir, a radical rightist, while leaving a mass rally at Kings of Israel Square in Tel Aviv. The country is in shock.
November 6: The funeral of Yitzhak Rabin is held at Mount Herzl, Jerusalem, in the presence of world dignitaries, including US President Bill Clinton, King Hussein of Jordan, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Prime Minister John Major of Great Britain, and Chancellor Helmut Kohl of Germany.
November 6: Yigal Amir, who has admitted killing Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, says at a court hearing "the murder was my obligation according to religious law." Meanwhile, Israeli police announce they are holding Amir's brother, Hagai, as a possible accomplice.
November 7: Acting Prime Minister Shimon Peres announces that planned Israeli troop withdrawals from West Bank towns will continue on schedule.
November 8: The government decides to establish a commission of inquiry into the circumstances of the assassination, headed by former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Meir Shamgar. The public is shocked by the security oversights that facilitated the act.
November 8: Israeli police arrest Avishai Raviv, leader of the right-wing group Ayal to which Rabin assassin Yigal Amir belonged, and are searching for Raviv's deputy, Natan Levi. The Amir family issues a letter of apology "to the Rabin family and all the people of Israel."
November 9: Palestinian National Authority President Yasser Arafat, on his first known visit to Israel, calls on Leah Rabin, widow of the slain prime minister, to offer his condolences. Meanwhile, Israeli police, calling the assassination the result of an apparent conspiracy, arrest two more suspects and say they had uncovered a weapons cache at the home of Yigal Amir.
November 12: A massive memorial rally is held at Kings of Israel Square in Tel Aviv, which is to be renamed Yitzhak Rabin Square.
November 12: Israel's internal Shin Bet security service acknowledges it has received information on religious-nationalist agitator Yigal Amir prior to the assassination.
November 12: Secretary-General of the Histadrut Haim Ramon returns to the Labor Party.
November 12: The High Court of Justice rules, giving "de facto" recognition to Reform and Conservative conversions performed in Israel for the purposes of civil issues, such as population registration. It rules that the Religious Community (Conversion) Ordinance giving the Chief Rabbinate [Orthodox] sole authority over Jewish conversions only applies in cases of personal status [marriage, divorce], i.e. not civil status. Only the Knesset can legislate to decide what sort of conversions are valid or to change who controls personal status registration; at present, these converts will be unable to marry in Israel. In effect, the High Court does not explicitly recognize Israeli Reform and Conservative conversions, but recommends that the guidelines already in use for recognition of overseas converts who wish to come to Israel under the provisions of the Law of Return, which has been recognized as valid since 1989.
November 15: President Ezer Weizman assigns Shimon Peres the task of forming a new government.
November 19: The Shamgar Commission begins its investigation of the circumstances of the assassination. The public is shocked to learn that the head of the radical rightist Eyal organization, Avishai Raviv, is a Shabak undercover agent.
November 22: The government formed by Peres is approved by the Knesset. Peres is prime minister and defense minister; Ehud Barak - foreign affairs; Chaim Ramon - interior; Moshe Shahal - internal security; Yehuda Amital - minister without portfolio. The rest of the previous cabinet remains as it was.
November 22: An earthquake in Israel and neighboring countries measures 6.2 on the Richter scale, causing large-scale damage in Eilat.
November 26: Two rabbis are questioned on suspicion of granting religious sanction to the murder of Rabin.
November 28: An intensive Katyusha missile barrage targets the north of the country, wounding dozens of residents.
November: An IDF evacuation from additional cities in the West Bank, starting with Jenin, begins towards the end of the month.
December: Strict security measures are adopted during the month to guard Prime Minister Shimon Peres.
December: America applies pressure on Israel and Syria at the start of the month to begin serious peace talks.
December 1: Shimon Peres states: "Israel must pay Syria the full price for a full peace."
December 10: The IDF evacuates from Tul Karm.
December 11: The IDF evacuates from Nablus in haste a day before schedule in an atmosphere of tension and public hostility.
December 19: The trial of Rabin assassin, Yigal Amir, begins in the Tel Aviv district court. The judge reads out the charges while the suspect smiles. The trial is scheduled to resume on January 1, 1996.
December 19: A video of the assassination filmed by an amateur photographer, Roni Kempler, is broadcast on TV. The public is shocked by the ease of access that the murderer had and by the security gaps.
December 21: The IDF evacuates Bethlehem.
December 21: The representive rate of the dollar to the shekel climbs rapidly. It reaches 3.17 shekels during approximately one month, a rise of 5%.
December 24: The Uman knitwear plant in Ofakim closes and its 230 workers are dismissed. The town is in a uproar.
December 27: High-ranking Israeli and Syrian delegates begin peace talks in the US.
December 29 - 30: Two Katyusha barrages targeting Kiryat Shmonah cause heavy damages.
Inflation in 1995 is the lowest in 26 years: 8.1%.
|
PRINT 
0