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1999 May: Ehud Barak of the Labour Party is elected prime minister under the One Israel banner. 2000 July: The Camp David summit between Barak, and Yasser Arafat, the president of the Palestinian Authority, aimed at reaching a "final status" agreement, fails after Arafat refuses to accept a proposal drafted by the US and Israeli negotiators. September: Second initifada begins after Ariel Sharon, the Israeli opposition leader, visits the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. 2001 February 6: Sharon is elected the leader of the Likud party and refuses to continue negotiations with Arafat. June 1: A Hamas suicide bomber attacks a nightclub, killing 21 Israelis, mainly teenagers, and injuring more than 100. December: Sharon sends troops into Ramallah, shelling and surrounding the Palestinian Authority's West Bank headquarters; Arafat is unable to leave. 2002 March: Israeli army launches Operation Defensive Shield, the country's biggest military operation in the West Bank sinc...

US President Barack Obama has urged Israeli and Palestinian leaders not to let the chance of a permanent peace deal "slip away". "This moment of opportunity may not soon come again," he said, pledging US support for the new negotiations. Mr Obama spoke the day before a new round of direct talks between Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas was due to begin. Mr Obama spoke at the White House on Wednesday evening after meetings with Mr Netanyahu, Mr Abbas, Jordan's King Abdullah II and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. His remarks came on the eve of the first direct negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in 20 months, which he said were "intended to resolve all final status issues". Mr Obama said the goal of the talks, which are expected to last a year, was a permanent settlement that ended the Israeli occupation that began in 1967 and resulted in an independent, democratic  Palestinian state existing peace...