7.7.95 In the talks on the interim settlement between Palestinians and Israelis, it is agreed that the Palestinian council to be elected will assume control over land defined as "state land" in areas A (the area of Palestinian towns) and B (Palestinian rural areas) on the West Bank.

22.7.95 Settlers block dozens of road junctions on the West Bank and clash with Palestinians and soldiers. Thirteen are arrested, but released soon afterwards.

24.7.95 Five people are killed in a suicide attack on a bus in Ramat Gan, outside Tel Aviv. Israel holds Hamas responsible but refrains from placing responsibility on Yasser Arafat for the arrest of those who plotted the attack - until the identity of the assailant is known. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin suspends negotia¬tions with the Palestinians until after the funerals of those killed.

25.7.95 The head of the political bureau of the Hamas movement in the United States, Musa Abu Marzouk, is arrested. Israel asks that he be extradited from Washington to be tried for terrorist activities in Israel.

28.7.95 Representatives of settlers and rightist organizations declare "non-violent civil disobedience" against the Government of Israel and launch a campaign for the establishment of settler outposts, fencing off areas and laying new roads on the West Bank with the aim of "declaring ownership of the entire country." This campaign is spearheaded by the 20 Artzenll movement. For some time, settler groups have been putting up "temporary settlement outposts" on hilltops on the West Bank, after which Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers are assigned to evacuate them by force. However, the orders given the soldiers are not clear-cut and the evacuation is hesi¬tant and inconsistent. Inside the Green Line, the movement stages demonstrations at road intersections, bringing traffic to a halt, and attempts to upset public order. Many are detained, but are released within a few hours; no charges are pressed.
On 13.8.95, a settler shoots a Palestinian at a demonstration against Jewish settlers near Beit-El, during which Palestinians burned Torah scrolls. The settler is detained.

1.8.95 A policy paper of the IDF drawn up prior to the onset of "the safe pas¬sage" between Gaza and Jericho determines that leading PNA officials may carry their weapons even while travelling along those sections of highway that pass through Israeli territory.

7.8.95 Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and PNA Chairman Yasser Arafat, in the course of talks on signature of the interim settlement, agree on the timetable for IDF redeployment on the West Bank: it is to be implemented in three stages at six-month intervals, beginning after the elections in the OPT, until Palestinian juris¬diction is extended to all parts of the West Bank included in Areas A,B, and C.

13.8.95 The states of the European Union declare they will boycott the Jerusalem 3000 celebrations because their participation could be interpreted as taking a stand on the issue of the permanent status of Jerusalem.

15.8.95 After weeks of deliberation on methods of interrogation applied by the Israeli General Security Services (GSS), in which the legality of resorting to poten¬tially fatal methods (above all, the method of violently "shaking" the prisoner, which caused the death of a Palestinian detainee in April) is weighed against the effectiveness of these methods in what the GSS defines "ticking bomb" situations (i.e., when the prisoner is thought to have information that could save lives that are in immediate danger), a compromise is reached: the method of shaking will not be abolished, but special permission must be obtained for its application.

18.8.95 A Hamas activist who, according to intelligence tips, was planning a sui¬cide operation in Israel gives himself up to the Palestinian police, after 12 days of closure imposed by Israel on the Gaza Strip. Hundreds of residents of the neigh¬borhood throw stones at the Palestinian police officers who arrest the man.

21.8.95 Five people are killed and over 100 injured in a suicide attack on a bus in Jerusalem. Hamas claims responsibility.

24.8.95 Israel recognizes the Palestinians' water rights on the West Bank, and in return the Palestinians agree to defer negotiations on water distribution to the talks on permanent settlement.
On 7.9.95 at Taba, Peres and Arafat agree on a 100-percent increase in the amount of water to be supplied to residents of the West Bank over the coming five years, and a lO-percent increase in the amount of water to be supplied to the Gaza Strip.

28.8.95 Israeli Police Minister Moshe Shahal says he will force three Palestinian institutions in East Jerusalem to close, under the terms of the law banning all activ¬ities of the PLO and the PNA in Jerusalem, if they do not shut down voluntarily.

30.8.95 Shahal suspends the closure orders, after PNA Minister of Economics, Trade and Industry Ahmed Qrei' assures him the PNA has no intention of violating the law on Jerusalem, and after representatives of the three institutions sign a declaration negating any link between them and the PNA "until agreement is reached otherwise."

1.9.95 The school year begins. The Jerusalem municipality announces it is going to cover with labels all PNA emblems stamped in every textbook in every East Jerusalem school. Several months earlier, responsibility for education on the West Bank had been transferred to the PNA.

2.9.95 Palestinian police shoot and kill a settler who drove through police road¬blocks in the Gaza Strip without stopping. Investigators conclude the man was seeking to commit suicide.
Compromise agreement is reached on the issue of how East Jerusalem Palestinians are to vote: they will be able to vote in elections for the Palestinian council, but only at branches of the Israeli Post Office. This is in order to avoid hav¬ing to set up Palestinian polling booths in Jerusalem.

4.9.95 U.s. Ambassador Martin Indyk refrains from attending the opening cere¬mony of the Jerusalem 3000 event - and sends the embassy's cultural attache in his stead - noting that the ceremony is a cultural, not a political event.

6.9.95 Israeli Justice Minister David Liba'i presents PNA Justice Minister Freih Abu Meddein with a request for the extradition of seven Palestinians suspected of killing Israelis - including two members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) suspected of the murder of two Israeli hikers in Wadi Kelt on 18.7.95. The PNA's response is that the two men have already been sentenced in summary court proceedings of the PNA, to seven years' imprisonment for "incite¬ment against the peace process," and therefore cannot be handed over to Israel.

7.9.95 A violent confrontation breaks out between Israeli right-wingers who have set up a "protest encampment" outside Orient House in Jerusalem, and local resi¬dents, who charge the demonstrators with causing disturbances and harassing them.
The Israeli police minister and PNA Minister of Planning and Interniltional Cooperation Nabil Sha'ath agree that refugees from Iraq, Iran, Egypt and Syria who have sought political asylum in Israel be handed over to the responsibility of the PNA, which has undertaken not to extradite them to the countries from which they fled.

10.9.95 Six civil authorities in the West Bank are transferred to the PNA: municipill administration, labor, commerce and industry, gas and fuel, insurance and statistics.
Israeli settlers physically assault teachers and children at the elementary school near the Jewish enclave in Hebron, and forcefully remove the Palestinian fbg from the roof of the school building. For a week, the settlers continue to cause distur¬bances in Hebron, harassing and insulting Palestinian residents and IDF soldiers who were not given clear instructions on how to deal with them.

28.9.95 The interim agreement is signed in Washington. It regulates the relations between Israel and the Palestinians for the interim period, until a permanent set¬tlement is agreed upon, a period not to exceed five years from the signing of the agreement on Gaza and Jericho (May 1994).
Main points of the agreement: arrangements for elections to the Palestiniiln Autonomy Council in the West Bank and Gilza Strip; principles for spheres of authority on the West Bank; security arrangements; and IDF withdrawal from areas of the West Bank ("redeployment"). The pace and procedures of the withdmwilj and the transfer of powers were determined by dividing the West Bank into three areas: A - the six large Palestinian towns (with Hebron to be dealt with as a spe¬cial case); B - the Palestinian rural areas; and C - Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and areas of strategic importilnce to Israel.

In this period, in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, eight Palestinian civiliilns, including one child, were killed by Israeli military forces; one Palestinian was killed by Israeli civilians. Two Israeli civilians and one member of the Israeli military were killed by Palestinians. Within the Green Line, nine Israeli civilians were killed by Palestinians. (All figures from B'Tselem.)