May 4 – Former Finance Minister Avraham Hirschson is indicted with a string of crimes including breach of trust, aggravated fraud, theft, forgery of corporate documents and money laundering.
July 30 – Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announces that he would not seek re-election as party leader and that he would resign from his position as Prime Minister immediately after a new Kadima leader was named. One reason for resignation is the corruption scandal in which Olmert is embattled.[9]
December 16 – 24 Russian tourists are killed when their bus plummets into a ravine near Eilat in southern Israel, making this road accident the deadliest in the state's history.[12]
December 27 – Population Census: 7,465,500 inhabitants in Israel. 75.5% of them are registered as Jewish (about 5,634,300 people), 20.3% of them are registered as Arabs (about 1,513,200 people), while the remaining 4.2% (about 318,000 people) are registered as "others".[13]
January 24 – Two Palestinian Arabs infiltrate a religious seminary and stab three students in the West Bank settlement of Kfar Etzion before being shot dead.[15]
January 24 – Palestinian Arab gunmen open fire on Israelis outside the Shuafatrefugee camp on the outskirts of Jerusalem, killing a border police officer and seriously wounding a female officer.[16]
February 4 – 2008 Dimona suicide bombing: A suicide attack carried out by Hamas at a shopping centre in Dimona, Israel. One Israeli elderly woman is killed in the attack while nine other people are wounded (one of them critically). Hamas claims responsibility for the attack.[17]
February 27 – Over 46 Qassam rockets are fired by Palestinian Arab militants into the Western Negev and Israel's Southern Mediterranean coast, many of them hit the city of Ashkelon and the town of Sderot, among other Israeli towns and villages in the area. One of the rockets that lands in a parking lot at the Sapir Academic College killing 47-year-old Israeli student, Ronni Yechia.[18]
April 19 – Kerem Shalom suicide bombing: Three Palestinian Arab car suicide bombers used two jeeps and an APC to break through the border fence to attack the Kerem Shalom IDF post, blowing themselves up and wounding several Israeli soldiers. Hamas claims responsibility.[20]
May 14 – A Katyusha rocket is fired at the Israeli city of Ashqelon striking a clinic on the third floor of the Huzot shopping mall, serious wounding three people, moderately wounding two and with eleven other people suffering minor wounds. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claims responsibility.[21]
June 6 – An Israeli man is killed and four other people are wounded when Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip fire a mortar shell at kibbutz Nirim in the western Negev desert.[22]
September 22 – Jerusalem BMW attack: At least 19 people are wounded when a Palestinian Arab drives his car into a crowd of IDF soldiers at a busy intersection in Jerusalem.[24] The driver is shot and killed at the scene by an Israeli soldier.[25]
Notable Israeli military operations against Palestinian militancy targets
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (October 2010)
February 5 – Israel launches an attack on Palestinian militant targets in the Gaza Strip, killing eight Hamas members, after Hamas claimed responsibility for the Dimona attack.[26]
December 27, 2008 – January 18, 2009 – Operation Cast Lead: A large-scale three-week IDF military campaign in the Gaza Strip seriously damages the paramilitary infrastructure of Hamas. Israel claims that the strikes are a response to frequent Qassam rocket and mortar fire from the Strip on Israel's southern civilian communities. The conflict resulted in between 1,166 and 1,417 Palestinian and 13 Israeli deaths (4 from friendly fire).
January 8 – Moshe Levi (born 1936), Israeli Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (1983–1987) – stroke.[29]
January 18 – Uzi Cohen (born 1952), Israeli Likud politician – heart attack.[30]
February 26 – Dan Shomron (born 1937), Israeli general, Chief of the Israel Defense Forces (1987–1991) – stroke.[31]
February 26 – Aharon Amir (born 1923), Russian (Lithuania)-born Israeli author and translator – natural causes.[32]
April 1 – Mosko Alkalai (born 1931), Romanian-born Israeli actor – respiratory failure.[33]
April 1 – Shosh Atari (born 1949), Israeli radio presenter and actress – heart attack.[34]
April 20 – Nissan Nativ (born 1922), Dutch-born Israeli director, actor and acting teacher.[35]
April 26 – Yossi Harel (born 1918), Israeli Haganah member, a commander of many illegal immigrants ships headed towards Palestine during the Mandate period, including the ship SS Exodus – cardiac arrest.[36]
May 9 – Shmuel Katz (born 1914), South African-born Israeli writer, historian and journalist.[37]
May 24 – Adam Baruch (born 1945), Israeli journalist, writer and art critic – diabetes complications.[38]
June 1 – Tommy Lapid (born 1931), Yugoslav (Vojvodina, Serbia)-born Israeli journalist and politician, deputy prime minister (2003–2004) – cancer.[39]
August 7 – Ralph Klein (born 1931), German-born Israeli basketball player and coach – intestinal cancer.[40]
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