On February 02, 2005, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has accepted an invitation to a summit with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Egypt next week. At the summit on February 08, 2005, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Tuesday proclaimed a formal end to fighting with Israel after more than four years of bloodshed.

Completion of Israel's unilateral disengagement plan. Israel removes all Jewish settlements, many Bedouin communities, and military equipment from the Gaza Strip. Although there is no permanent Israeli presence or jurisdiction in Gaza anymore, Israel retains control of certain elements (such as airspace, borders and ports), leading to a ongoing dispute as to whether or not Gaza is "occupied" or not.

January 10, 2005 - Mahmoud Abbas declared as a new president in victory by an advocate of non-violence in Palestinian presidential elections stirred hopes Monday for new peace talks, but Israel demanded the Palestinians move first by cracking down on militants.

January 21, 2005 - Palestinian security forces took up positions in northern Gaza on Friday under orders from President Mahmoud Abbas to curb attacks by militants on Israelis as part of his plan to end bloodshed and revive peacemaking.

February 02, 2005 - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has accepted an invitation to a summit with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Egypt next week.

February 08, 2005 - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Tuesday proclaimed a formal end to fighting with Israel after more than four years of bloodshed.

February 17, 2005 - Israel ordered a halt on Thursday to the demolition of Palestinian militants' family homes, a tactic decried internationally as collective punishment.

February 28, 2005 - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Monday he would not tolerate attacks like the Tel Aviv bombing that killed five Israelis, and Israel kept up pressure on him to crack down on militant groups.

March 14, 2005 - U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday and said the world was determined to nurture Middle East peace moves budding after years in deep freeze.

March 16, 2005 - Israel pulled back forces from Jericho Wednesday, a move likely to strengthen Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in his bid to commit militants to a formal cease-fire so he can talk peace with Israel.

March 22, 2005 - Israel completed its handover of the town of Tulkarm to Palestinian control on Tuesday, unlocking a gate and allowing traffic to flow freely to the rest of the West Bank for the first time in three years.

April 06, 2005 - Israel signaled on Wednesday it was sticking to a plan to extend its largest West Bank settlement to Jerusalem, despite President Bush's demand for a halt to all Jewish settlement expansion.

May 03, 2005 - Palestinian police, enforcing a ceasefire with Israel, arrested two men from a Hamas rocket squad after a gun battle in the Gaza Strip but freed the militants soon after.

May 25, 2005 - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas arrived in Washington on Tuesday for his first White House visit, to assure President Bush he is a serious partner for peace with Israel.

May 26, 2005 - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he will ask President Bush at a White House meeting on Thursday to fulfill his vision of a viable, sovereign Palestinian state living next to Israel in peace and security.

June 02, 2005 - Palestinian militants welcomed Jamil al-Aqra back to the fold on his release along with hundreds of other prisoners freed by Israel on Thursday, carrying him off on their shoulders and firing into the air.

June 09, 2005 - Israel's highest court on Thursday rejected a bid by Jewish settlers to overturn legislation underpinning Israel's planned withdrawal from Gaza, clearing the last major legal hurdle to a pullout in August.

June 21, 2005 - Israeli forces rounded up dozens of suspected West Bank militants in a sign of impatience with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas just hours before a summit on Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

July 04, 2005 - Israeli President Moshe Katsav said on Monday the vocal opposition of pro-settler rabbis to Israel's Gaza pullout could incite ultranationalists to try to assassinate Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

July 15, 2005 - Israeli helicopters pounded targets in Gaza on Friday after a deadly Palestinian rocket attack that sparked fierce internal fighting between militants and Palestinian police trying to stop further barrages.

July 18, 2005 - Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip kept up rocket and mortar fire on Israeli targets on Monday despite Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's vow to do his utmost to prevent further attacks.

July 20, 2005 - Israel's parliament on Wednesday voted against delaying a withdrawal from the occupied Gaza Strip, squashing a late attempt by settler allies to stall the plan due to start next month

July 21, 2005 - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's deputy raised the prospect on Thursday of bringing forward the start of Israel's withdrawal from Gaza to prevent opponents of the pullout from carrying out threats to disrupt it.

August 03, 2005 - Thousands of Israeli ultrarightists rallying against an impending Gaza withdrawal planned to march over the border to Jewish settlements in the occupied land Wednesday, a procession police vowed to block.

August 04, 2005 - Around 10,000 Palestinians danced and sang, some firing rifles in the air, in early celebrations on Thursday of Israel's coming withdrawal from occupied Gaza and part of the West Bank.

August 05, 2005 - Israel went on alert on Friday for a possible wave of Arab unrest after a Jewish militant shot dead four Israeli Arabs .

August 09, 2005 - President Mahmoud Abbas urged the Palestinians on Tuesday to ensure calm for Israel's evacuation of its Gaza settlements, saying an orderly transfer of control would boost the Palestinian quest for statehood.

August 15, 2005 - Defiant Jewish settlers blocked the gates of Gaza's most hardline settlements on Monday, preventing soldiers from delivering 48-hour eviction notices as Israel began its pullout from the coastal territory.

August 17, 2005 - Israeli troops began the forced evacuation on Wednesday of thousands of Jewish settlers gripped by rage and anguish over their expulsion from the Gaza Strip after nearly four decades of occupation.

August 18, 2005 - Israeli troops dragged weeping Jewish settlers from their homes in a hardline enclave on Thursday and surrounded bastions of resistance impeding Israel's pullout from Gaza after decades of occupation.

August 19, 2005 - Israeli troops pushed through burning barricades and dragged screaming protesters from a settlement synagogue on Friday in an assault on one of the last pockets of resistance to evacuation from the Gaza Strip.

August 22, 2005 - President Mahmoud Abbas said on Monday he hoped to persuade Palestinians peaceful dialogue was the way to statehood after an Israeli pullout from Gaza that militants claimed as a victory for armed struggle.

August 23, 2005 - Israeli forces smashed their way into two West Bank settlements on Tuesday and dragged away ultrarightist Jews dug in for a last stand against evacuation after failing to foil a pullout from occupied Gaza.

August 24, 2005 - Now that Jewish settlers have been pulled out of the occupied Gaza Strip, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon could face a "disengagement" of his own.

September 12, 2005 - There was little echo in the occupied West Bank on Monday of the joy that swept Gaza over Israel's pullout from the coastal strip.

September 14, 2005 - Palestinian security forces took control in abandoned Jewish settlements in Gaza on Wednesday, ending two days of anarchy following Israel's withdrawal from the territory.

September 26, 2005 - Israel launched multiple missile strikes in Gaza on Monday in response to Palestinian rocket fire as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon battled to fend off a rightist leadership challenge in his Likud party.

September 27, 2005 - Islamic Jihad said on Tuesday it and other Palestinian militant groups had renewed a commitment to a truce after days of Israeli air strikes prompted by Palestinian rocket fire from Gaza into Israel.

September 27, 2005 - Israel widened an offensive against Palestinian militants on Wednesday, launching several predawn air raids that knocked out electricity in Gaza City and sweeping into two West Bank cities.

September 29, 2005 - Israeli forces killed three Palestinian gunmen in the occupied West Bank on Friday, pressing ahead with raids against militants despite a halt to cross-border rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip.

October 27, 2005 - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon vowed an open-ended offensive against Palestinian militants and Israeli aircraft struck the Gaza Strip on Thursday after a Palestinian bomber killed five Israelis.

November 03, 2005 - Israeli soldiers shot and critically wounded a 13-year-old Palestinian during a raid in the West Bank on Thursday.

November 14, 2005 - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Monday there was an "agreement in sight" for freedom of movement for Palestinians to and from Gaza following Israel's pullout from the territory in September.

November 22, 2005 - Ariel Sharon is on course to win Israel's coming election, opinion polls showed on Tuesday in an initial boost for the prime minister a day after he quit his rebellious right-wing Likud to form a centrist party.

December 05, 2005 - A Palestinian bomber killed five people and wounded at least 40 outside a shopping mall in the Israeli coastal town of Netanya on Monday in the first attack of its kind in six weeks.

December 20, 2005 - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon left hospital on Tuesday after a minor stroke and vowed to return to work quickly to pursue his battle for re-election on a platform of ending conflict with the Palestinians.