December 24:The Welfare Party wins a plurality in Turkey’s parliamentary elections,
marking the best showing yet for an Islamist party in Turkey.
1996
January 20:Palestinians go to the polls to elect a president for the first time and give
Arafat an overwhelming victory with 88 percent of the vote. Arafat’s Fatah Party wins
all but 20 seats in parallel elections for the 88-member Palestinian Legislative Council.
February 25:A Hamas suicide bomber attacks a bus in downtown Jerusalem, killing
22 people in the first of a series of such attacks that kill several dozen people and
appear to be aimed at influencing Israeli elections scheduled for May 29. The Israeli
government declares war on Hamas and pressures the Palestinian Authority to arrest
more than 100 Hamas activists.
April 11:Israel launches Operation Grapes of Wrath into Lebanon. The fighting will
continue for more than two weeks, forcing several hundred thousand Lebanese from
their homes.
April 18:Israeli artillery hit a UN refugee camp in Qana, killing 107 people and
wounding more than 100 others. Israel says the attack was a mistake, but a later
investigation by the UN will assert that the attack was deliberate.
April 21–24:Meeting for the first time in Gaza, the Palestine National Council votes
to endorse the Oslo peace accords and to remove language from the Palestinian
national charter that runs counter to the accords.
May:Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and an entourage of supporters arrive in Jalal-
abad, Afghanistan, after Sudan expels them as a result of U.S. pressure.
May 22:Iraq accepts the UN oil-for-food program established under Security Coun-
cil Resolution 986 in April 1995.
May 29:The Likud Party, under Binyamin Netanyahu, wins a narrow victory in Israeli
elections. Netanyahu collects 50.4 percent of the vote against acting prime minis-
ter Shimon Peres in Israel’s first-ever direct election of a prime minister. The Labor
Party wins a tiny plurality of 33 seats in parliamentary elections, but Netanyahu
assembles a coalition of religious and right-wing parties for a majority.
June 6:Welfare Party leader Necmettin Erbakan becomes prime minister of Turkey
after the collapse of a minority coalition government. He is the first Islamist to hold
that post since the creation of the Turkish republic in 1923.
June 25:A truck bomb explodes outside the Khobar Towers military housing com-
plex near Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 19 U.S. airmen and wounding about 400
others. U.S. officials will later blame the attack on Shiite Muslims from Saudi Ara-
bia who had been trained in Lebanon and financed by Iran.
June 26:An attempted coup against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein fails. Dozens of
alleged coup plotters will be executed in subsequent days. The coup was sponsored
by the Iraqi National Accord, an exile group, allegedly with help from the CIA.
August 31:Iraq intervenes militarily in the ongoing conflict between the two main
Kurdish factions in northern Iraq. The government supports the Kurdistan Demo-
cratic Party of Massoud Barzani against the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, headed
by Jalal Talabani, which had received support from Iran. The Iraqi army briefly
takes over Irbil and attacks Talbani’s forces.
September 24:Israel reopens an ancient tunnel in the Old City of Jerusalem near
the al-Aqsa Mosque, setting off violent protests by Palestinians. More than sixty
CHRONOLOGY OF THE MIDDLE EAST, 1914–2007 681