A suicide bomber blew himself up outside a Tel Aviv night club late Friday, killing at least 17 people including himself and injuring more than 90, according to initial reports.
It was the deadliest such attack since a series of blasts in 1997, and came amid faltering efforts to bring an end to the current Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.
Following is a chronology of bomb blasts and other attacks since 1994, when fundamentalist Palestinian groups began a bombing campaign to try to derail the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
2001
- June 1: Seventeen people are killed and some 75 injured in a suicide bombing outside a beach-front Tel Aviv nightclub
- May 30: A car bomb explodes near a high school in the coastal city of Netanya, injuring no one seriously.
- May 29: A Palestinian is killed near Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip after a bomb strapped to his body explodes near an army unit, injuring two soldiers.
- May 27: A car bomb explodes in west Jerusalem's shopping district, lightly injuring two people, in an attack claimed by Palestinian militant movement Islamic Jihad. It follows a similar attack overnight in the same area claimed by the Damascus-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. No-one was injured.
- May 25: Two bombers are killed when an explosives-laden car blows up in the northern Israeli town of Hadera in an attack claimed by the Islamic Jihad. At least 12 Israelis are wounded, most lightly.
- May 25: A Hamas militant blows himself up in an attack on an Israeli army position near the Jewish settlement of Netzarim, but there are no Israeli casualties. Hamas founder and spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin vows that suicide attacks against Israel will continue.
- May 18: Five Israelis are killed and around 100 injured when a suicide bomber blows himself up at the entrance to a shopping center in Netanya. The attack is claimed by Hamas.
- May 11: Two Polish tourists are lightly wounded when a small pipe bomb explodes outside Jerusalem's Old City.
- May 10: Two Romanian immigrant workers are killed and another injured in a bomb explosion near the Kissufim border crossing in the northern Gaza Strip.
- April 23: Four people are lightly injured when a car bomb explodes in a busy open-air market in Or Yehuda, south of Tel Aviv.
- April 22: Two are killed and some 40 others wounded when a suicide bomber blows up his explosive-packed belt at a bus stop in Kfar Saba, northeast of Tel Aviv and near the Green Line, the border with the West Bank.
- April 22: A policeman is lightly injured when a bomb explodes in the northern Israeli port city of Haifa.
- March 28: Two Israeli teenagers are killed along with a suicide bomber and four people injured in an attack at a service station by Kfar Saba.
- March 27: A bomber is killed and around 30 people are wounded when a bomb explodes near a bus in French Hill in occupied east Jerusalem. Three people are also lightly injured in a car-bomb explosion in the industrial area of Talpiot in southwest Jerusalem.
- March 4: Four people are killed, including the suspected bomber, during a rush hour bomb blast in the center of Netanya. More than 40 people are injured.
- March 1: A bomb explodes prematurely near the northern Israeli town of Umm el-Fahm, killing one person and wounding nine.
- February 14: Eight Israelis, including seven soldiers, are killed south of Tel Aviv when an Israeli public bus driven by a Palestinian ploughs into them at a bus stop.
- February 8: A car bomb explodes in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in west Jerusalem. One woman is injured.
- January 1: A car bomb explodes by a bus station in Netanya, leaving 20 people injured. The suspected bomber later dies.
2000
- December 28: Thirteen Israelis are injured, most of them lightly, when a bomb explodes on a bus in Tel Aviv.
- November 22: Two Israelis are killed and around 55 injured when a car bomb explodes near a bus during rush-hour in Hadera. The attack is claimed by the armed wing of Hamas.
- November 20: Two Jewish settlers are killed and nine injured by a roadside bomb targeting a school bus near a settlement in the Gaza Strip.
- November 2: Two Israelis are killed when a car bomb explodes near a busy market in the heart of west Jerusalem in an attack claimed by Islamic Jihad.
- October 26: An explosives-laden militant from Islamic Jihad is blown up when he rams his bicycle into an army post on a road near a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip. An Israeli soldier is slightly injured.
1999
- November 7: Three simultaneous bomb blasts injure 34 people in Netanya on the eve of the launch of final status peace talks with the Palestinians.
- September 5: Three Arab Israelis with suspected links to Hamas are blown apart in twin car bomb explosions in the Galilee resort of Tiberias and the northern port of Haifa less than 24 hours after Israel and the Palestinians sign the Sharm el-Sheikh interim peace accord.
1998
- November 6: Double bombing in Jerusalem kills the two bombers -- members of Islamic Jihad -- and injures 24 Israelis.
1997
- September 4: Triple bombing in west Jerusalem kills eight, including the three bombers, and injures more than 170.
- July 30: A double bombing in Jerusalem's Jewish market kills 15 Israelis and the two unidentified bombers, and leaves scores of people injured.
- March 21: A bombing at a sidewalk cafe in Tel Aviv kills the Palestinian bomber, three Israeli women and wounds 46 others.
- March 13: A Jordanian soldier shoots dead seven Israeli schoolgirls on a field trip in Bakura, Jordan.
- January 9: A double bombing in Tel Aviv wounds 13 people.
1996
- March 4: A bomb attack in Tel Aviv kills 13 Israelis, including a soldier.
- March 3: A suicide bombing on a Jerusalem bus kills 19 people.
- February 25: A double suicide bombing, claimed by Hamas, kills 26 people. Twenty-five people die in the first attack against a bus in Jerusalem: 22 Israelis, including eight soldiers; two Americans and a Palestinian. The second bombing, in Ashkelon, kills an Israeli soldier.
1995
- August 21: An unidentified attacker sets off a bomb on a Jerusalem bus, killing five people, including an American, and wounding 89 others.
- July 24: An unidentified suicide bomber activates a bomb aboard a bus in Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv, killing six passengers.
- April 9: An Islamic Jihad suicide bomber strikes in the middle of an Israeli military convoy near the Kfar Darom settlement in the Gaza Strip, killing seven soldiers and a US tourist.
- January 22: Two Islamic Jihad militants blow themselves up amid a group of Israeli troops at the Beit Lid crossing near Netanya, killing 21 soldiers.
1994
- November 11: An Islamic Jihad member detonates a bomb near an Israeli military position in Netzarim, killing three officers.
- October 19: A Hamas militant sets off a bomb on a Tel Aviv bus, killing 23 passengers.
- April 6 and 13: Hamas strikes twice in a week. The first blast is a car bomb attack on a bus in Afula in the north that kills eight Israelis and injures 44. Hamas says the attack is to avenge the massacre of 29 Palestinians by an extremist Jewish settler in Hebron in February.
The second attack in Hadera kills five Israelis and injures 30 more – (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
