Barrapunto

Second, Israel's continued military occupation and confiscation of privately owned land in the West Bank, and control over Gaza, are being resisted by Palestinian inhabitants. It is these occupied territories that, according to the Oslo peace accords of 1993, were going to become a Palestinian state. However, when Israel continued to confiscate land in these areas and to move its citizens onto it, the Palestinian population rebelled. (The Barak offer, widely reputed to be generous, was anything but.) This uprising, called the "Intifada" (Arabic for "shaking off") began in the fall of 2000.

There have been more than 70 Palestinian bomb attacks aimed at Israelis since the current conflict erupted in September 2000. Below are some of the most deadly.

2005

25 February: Four people are killed and at least 30 people are injured in a bomb blast outside a night club in Tel Aviv, weeks after Israeli and Palestinian leaders declare a truce.

2004

1 November: A teenage suicide bomber kills at least three people in the crowded Carmel market in Tel Aviv.

31 August: At least 16 people are killed and dozens are injured in two near-simultaneous suicide bombings on two buses in the southern city of Beersheba.

11 July: One person is killed and 21 are wounded by a bomb packed with metal bolts, which explodes near a bus stop in Tel Aviv.

14 March: A double suicide bombing kills 10 Israelis in the port of Ashdod on the Mediterranean coast.

22 February: A Palestinian suicide bomber kills eight people and injures dozens in an attack on an Israeli bus in Jerusalem.

29 January: A suicide bomber kills 11 people and injures around 50 on a bus in Jerusalem.

14 January: Hamas female suicide bomber kills four Israelis on the border with Gaza and injures seven.

2003

4 October: A suicide bomber blows herself up in a packed Haifa restaurant, killing at least 19 people including three children.

9 September: Two separate suicide attacks leave at least 15 people dead and scores wounded in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

In the first attack, at least eight people were killed - including the bomber - at the entrance to the Tzrifin Israeli Defence Force base, near Tel Aviv.

Hours later, a bomb attack outside a popular cafe in west Jerusalem left at least seven dead.

19 August: A suicide bomber wrecks a bus in Jerusalem, killing at least 20 people and injuring up to 100 others, in a serious blow to peace efforts. Hours later, Israel halts the handover of West Bank towns and cuts off contacts with Palestinians officials.

12 August: At least four people are killed and dozens injured in two suicide attacks by Palestinian bombers in Israel and the West Bank.

In the first attack, an explosion rips through a shopping centre in the central Israeli town of Rosh Haayin near Tel Aviv, killing two people and injuring at least 10 others.

Shortly afterwards, another suicide bomber blows himself up among a group of Israeli soldiers at a bus stop outside the Jewish settlement of Ariel, in the West Bank.

19 June: A suicide bomber kills himself and an Israeli man, owner of a grocery shop in Sde Trumot, a small village a few kilometres from the West Bank in northern Israel.

11 June: Sixteen people are killed in a bus bomb in Jerusalem, in the first suicide attack since US President Bush's peace summit a week before. It follows an Israeli air strike on 10 June aimed at killing Hamas leader Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi in Gaza.

Within an hour of the bus attack, Israeli helicopters launch another attack in Gaza, killing several people, reportedly including a top militant.

19 May: At least three people are killed and 18 injured in a suicide attack on a shopping mall in the nor