01.03.2002, Israeli troops launched a major assault on two West Bank refugee camps, Balata and Jenin camps. Eight Palestinians were killed, and more than 90 Palestinians were wounded. The military strike came just hours after a Palestinian woman Dareen Abu Aisheh, a 21-year-old with an explosives belt strapped to her body blew herself up near an Israeli checkpoint late Wednesday.

02.03.2002, Israeli troops moved into a second Palestinian refugee camp, Since the operation began early Thursday, 15 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier have been killed. Dozens of Palestinians were injured. The latest violence comes a day after Saudi Arabia presented a new peace initiative at the United Nations. Under the proposal, the Arab world would make peace with Israel in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal from the territories it occupied in the 1967 war, including the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

04.03.2002, At least 17 Palestinians were killed in escalating violence, as the Israeli army stepped up its widespread operations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. An Israeli missile or tank shell killed six Palestinians in the el Amari refugee camp in Ramallah. It hit the car of a senior activist in the Hamas movement, Hussein Abu Kawaik, killing his wife and three children. Abu Kawaik himself was not hurt. Another Palestinian man and a woman who were either passing by or traveling in a second car were killed as well. At least seven Palestinians, including several women, were killed by heavy gunfire in the Jenin refugee camp, which erupted after Israeli troops stormed the camp for the second time in five days.

05.03.2002, Israel launched new air raids on the West Bank city of Ramallah. Helicopters fired and hit one police building in the city. Apache helicopters earlier fired six missiles at Palestinian Authority (PA) offices in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip. No one was injured in the Khan Younis strike.

06.03.2002, Israeli reprisal raids killed at least 17 Palestinians, including the wife and three children of a Hamas commander, as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared, "We are in a war." The attacks included missiles fired from helicopters at Yasser Arafat's headquarters compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah and an F-16 raid that flattened a security nerve center in Bethlehem. Arafat was unhurt. But in other bloodshed, at least six Palestinian civilians were killed, including a doctor with the Red Crescent. Palestinian sources said Dr. Khalil Suleiman and three medics were injured when the Israeli army opened fire on their ambulance near Jenin.

11.03.2002, A Palestinian bomber killed 11 people by blowing himself up in a crowded Jerusalem cafe near Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's residence, and Israel responded today by destroying Yasser Arafat's Gaza headquarters.

12.03.2002, Israeli troops backed by tanks raided several Palestinian towns Monday and early today, detaining hundreds of men and boys, even as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon loosened travel restrictions on Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat. The expanded military offensive left at least 23 Palestinians dead. The worst fighting occurred in the Gaza Strip at the crowded Jabaliya refugee camp, where Israel reportedly deployed about 2,000 troops after nightfall. Arafat has been confined to the city of Ramallah for the past three months, his compound surrounded by Israeli tanks. His partial release (he is allowed to travel within the West Bank and Gaza) came before the visit later this week of U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni. Vice President Dick Cheney also is scheduled to visit the Middle East.

13.03.2002, Enforcing a curfew, dozens of Israeli tanks patrolled the deserted streets of this West Bank town. A senior Palestinian officer and an Italian photographer were killed by Israeli machine gun fire. Seven Palestinians and a French journalist were wounded in other incidents. Israel said the circumstances of the shootings were not yet clear. Palestinian officials, meanwhile, welcomed a U.N. Security Council resolution that for the first time endorsed the idea of a Palestinian state, but said it needed to be backed up by action.

15.03.2002, The United Nations early passed a U.S.-sponsored resolution calling for the creation of a Palestinian state. The Security Council measure - its first ever supporting Palestinian statehood - also calls for an immediate cease-fire in the escalating 17-month Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Saying he was speaking on behalf of Arab nations, Syria's U.N. ambassador, Mikhail Wehbe, said the resolution was "very weak" and didn't deal with the roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, "the question of the Israeli occupation."

26.03.2002, Two men from a militia drove a bomb-laden car toward Jerusalem's largest mall, but were stopped by police and killed when the explosives went off.