42 entries on 41 dates · the books disagree on 12
February 1998
February 1998: day not established
After the war · From the books
Two agreements open trade between Lebanon and Syria.
Duties on agricultural goods were to fall by 50 percent a year from October 1999, and those on industrial goods by 25 percent a year from that January.
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March 1998
March 1998: day not established
After the war · From the books
Israel's prime minister accepts Resolution 425.
Netanyahu's unexpected acceptance of Resolution 425 exposed, in Picard's analysis, a paradox: Lebanon still demanded the resolution officially, but Syria's veto on separate Israeli-Lebanese talks meant it in fact opposed it.
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November 1998
Tuesday, 24 November 1998
After the war · From the books
Army commander Emile Lahoud becomes president.
Backed by Bashar al-Assad, who had taken charge of the Lebanese file, Lahoud promised to fight corruption. He soon broke with Hariri.
Sources differ: September 1998 and October 1998 (both in Picard 2002), November (Picard 2016, 33 jours) and 24 November (de Clerck). The later dates may be the start of the term rather than the vote.
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December 1998
December 1998: day not established
After the war · From the books
Hariri leaves office; Salim al-Hoss forms a government.
Soon after Hariri left office, dozens of his administration's senior officials faced corruption inquiries. Hoss governed until October 2000.
Sources differ: Hariri stepped down in November (Picard p. 166) or December 1998 (Picard p. 177).
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1998
1998: day not established
After the war · From the books
The first municipal elections since 1963 are held after a civic campaign.
Newly formed associations drove the campaign and gathered a million signatures; Picard calls it post-war civil society's first major win.
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January 2002
January 2002: day not established
After the war · From the books
Elie Hobeika is killed by a car bomb near Beirut.
The former Lebanese Forces intelligence chief, widely held responsible for Sabra and Shatila and a minister after the war, died shortly before he was to testify in the Belgian case against Ariel Sharon.
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February 2002
Thursday, 14 February 2002
After the war · From the books range
Assaad Shaftari's war confessions appear in al-Hayat.
In three interviews with Hazim al-Amin, Hobeika's former aide described his militia years, including orders to execute captives, and called for the truth to be told so that the next generation might forgive.
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March 2002
Sunday, 31 March 2002
After the war · From the books
Israel threatens to strike Syria over its support for Hezbollah.
On 14 April, two weeks after that threat, Ariel Sharon charged Syria and Iran with supporting Hezbollah's attacks.
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April 2002
Wednesday, 3 April 2002
After the war · From the books
The government announces Syrian troop withdrawals from parts of Mount Lebanon.
The move was presented as an application of the Taif Agreement.
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May 2002
Saturday, 25 May 2002
After the war · From the books
On Liberation Day Nasrallah declares Hezbollah's support for the Palestinian intifada.
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August 2002
August 2002: day not established
After the war · From the books
Sharon calls a Lebanese water pump on the Wazzani a cause for war.
A war over the Council of the South's plan to supply some fifty villages from the Wazzani, a Hasbani tributary, was averted by American, Russian and European mediation.
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November 2002
November 2002: day not established
After the war · From the books
Before-and-after photographs of downtown go on show in Place de l'Étoile.
Haugbolle calls the book version, 'Beirut's Memory', propaganda: a Solidere-linked bank published it in the name of Hariri's photographer Ayman Traoui. On site, paired 1990 and 2002 views ringed the clock tower.
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December 2002
December 2002: day not established
After the war · From the books
Rustom Ghazaleh replaces Ghazi Kanaan as Syria's intelligence chief in Lebanon.
Kanaan had ruled from Anjar since 1982, vetting candidates and shaping the 2000 electoral map; his recall signalled Bashar al-Assad's tighter grip on Lebanon. Ghazaleh, his replacement, was implicated in Al-Madina bank's 2003 collapse.
Sources differ: Farewell ceremony 9 October 2002 versus replacement in December 2002.
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2002
summer 2002: day not established
After the war · From the books
Much of rebuilt downtown Beirut is inaugurated as 'Beirut reborn'.
Posters ('Le Liban vit'), full-page press advertisements and television spots hailed the completion, with no reference to the war.
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January 2004
Saturday, 31 January 2004
After the war · From the books
Lebanese prisoners freed from Israeli jails return in a Hezbollah exchange.
Hezbollah ran the welcome alone and barred leftist parties, though thirty of the fifty men who came home were leftists; the left replied by recalling its role in the resistance from 1982.
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February 2004
Friday, 6 February 2004
After the war · From the books
Reformist communists announce a 'Democratic Left' movement.
Its founding al-Nahar statement urged the left to reform and unite against the Syrian-backed order, calling it a duty to learn from past mistakes. Members included Elias Khoury, Samir Kassir, Ziad Majed, George Hawi and Elias Atallah.
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March 2004
Monday, 22 March 2004
After the war · From the books
Hezbollah attacks six Israeli positions after the killing of Sheikh Yassin.
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April 2004
Friday, 16 April 2004
After the war · From the books
A press campaign reveals how little the young know of the war.
Al-Nahar marked the April 2004 anniversary with interviews of ex-militiamen and a feature on the young: most said they knew only bits of the war, and that parents blamed 'the others'.
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August 2004
Thursday, 26 August 2004
After the war · From the books
Hariri is called to Damascus, where Bashar al-Assad insists that Lahoud's term be extended.
Hariri had come to plead against prolonging Lahoud's term. Walid Jumblatt, interviewed by Nicholas Blanford in 2005, related that Assad told Hariri that Lahoud and Assad were one and the same.
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September 2004
Thursday, 2 September 2004
After the war · From the books
UN Security Council Resolution 1559 demands the withdrawal of foreign forces.
The Franco-American resolution, passed by nine votes with six abstentions, required every foreign force to leave, every militia to disarm and the presidential election to proceed free of outside interference. Walid Jumblatt sided with the opposition, most of it Christian.
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Friday, 3 September 2004
After the war · From the books
Parliament extends President Lahoud's term by three years.
Under Syrian pressure the constitutional amendment passed by 96 votes to 29; Jumblatt's deputies voted against.
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Tuesday, 7 September 2004
After the war · From the books
Four ministers, including Marwan Hamadeh, resign in protest.
Sources differ: Hamadeh is called economy minister (Abirached) or health minister (Khayat).
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September 2004: day not established
After the war · From the books
Riots shake Majdel Anjar after the arrest of an Islamist leader.
Rioting broke out in the Sunni Bekaa town the day after a presumed al-Qaeda-linked Islamist leader was detained in Beirut.
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October 2004
Friday, 1 October 2004
After the war · From the books
Marwan Hamadeh survives a car bomb.
The car bomb that wounded Marwan Hamadeh, a Jumblatt adviser who had resigned from the cabinet, opened a series of attacks on opponents of Syria (Picard); the Special Tribunal for Lebanon later took on his case as legally linked to Hariri's. Kofi Annan's report on Resolution 1559 came out that day.
Sources differ: Picard (2016) places the attack 'a few days' after 3 September; the others give 1 October.
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Sunday, 3 October 2004
After the war · From the books
Hariri hands his resignation to Lahoud.
Hariri took the 1 October attack that wounded Marwan Hamadeh as a breach of the assurances he had been given, and resigned two days later. Lahoud waited more than two weeks before accepting.
Sources differ: See 20 October: Abirached dates the resignation then.
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Saturday, 9 October 2004
After the war · From the books
Bashar al-Assad derides the charge that Syria invaded Lebanon in 1976.
Assad asked Lebanon's Christians, and Resolution 1559's sponsors, the US and France, where they were when Lebanese were massacred. Haugbolle reads him as calling the war internal and Syria its rescuer.
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Sunday, 17 October 2004
After the war · From the books
The Democratic Left Movement is formally founded.
By December it had joined Christian and Druze parties in signing the Bristol Declaration.
Sources differ: Picard dates a 'Gauche démocratique' to 1997, possibly an earlier group or a slip.
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Wednesday, 20 October 2004
After the war · From the books
Rafiq Hariri's resignation takes effect.
He then moved openly towards the anti-Syrian opposition.
Sources differ: Presented 3 October (Khayat), effective 20 October (Abirached).
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Thursday, 21 October 2004
After the war · From the books
Omar Karami is asked to form a pro-Syrian government.
In protest at Lahoud's extended term, one deputy in four stayed away from the consultations.
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December 2004
Wednesday, 1 December 2004
After the war · From the books
Thousands demonstrate in Beirut for the Syrian presence and against 1559.
Sources differ: The book chronology extracted to JSON reads this as 'December' only; the PDF shows 1 December.
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Wednesday, 15 December 2004
After the war · From the books
The opposition unites in the Bristol Declaration.
The Bristol Hotel declaration of Christian and Druze parties, Hariri loyalists and leftists demanded independence and democracy, accepted a Lebanese share in the war, and blamed the postwar crisis on a corrupt state ruling by fear.
Sources differ: 15 December (Haugbolle's text) or 12 December (his own note): the declaration may have been published before the formal meeting, or one date is a slip.
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December 2004: day not established
After the war · From the books
Students, women's groups and lawyers take to the streets.
Civic protest against Syrian tutelage grew, and reprisals followed.
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2004
2004: day not established
After the war · From the books
The bullet-scarred Martyrs' statue returns to downtown Beirut.
Issam Khairallah, who restored the statue at Kaslik's Holy Spirit University, kept almost half its bullet and shrapnel marks and left the young man's arm missing. It was put back about a hundred metres north, nearer the sea.
After the war · From the books
UMAM Documentation and Research starts collecting the war's archives.
Founded by Lokman Slim and Monika Borgmann in Haret Hreik, it built an archive of war memories; their film 'Massaker', interviewing six men who took part in Sabra and Shatila, was shot between 2001 and 2004.
Sources differ: Founded 2004 (Ismail-Allouche) or active since 2002 (Haugbolle).
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January 2018
January 2018: day not established
Since 2005 · From the books
The United States returns five antiquities looted from Eshmoun.
One of the returned pieces was a life-size white marble bull's head from the Eshmoun sanctuary north of Sidon, plundered during the war.
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May 2018
Sunday, 6 May 2018
Since 2005 · From the books
First parliamentary elections in nine years.
Postponed for five years, the vote drew low turnout amid mistrust. Activists from the waste protests ran on independent lists; one unaffiliated candidate won a seat.
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November 2018
Monday, 12 November 2018
Since 2005 · From the books
Parliament adopts Law 105 on the missing and forcibly disappeared.
Wadad Halwani, head of the committee of families of the kidnapped and disappeared, whose husband was taken in 1982, broke down as deputies applauded. The law created a commission to trace detainees believed alive in Syria, identify remains in mass graves and investigate wartime forced disappearances.
Sources differ: Estimates differ. The most quoted figure, 17,415, comes from the Committee of the Kidnapped and Disappeared (founded 1982); NGOs count 5,000 to 8,000 forced disappearances (Hassoun Abou Jaoudé; de Clerck & Malsagne p. 419).
Art and memory- testimony Wadad Halwani founded the Committee of the Families of the Kidnapped and Disappeared after her husband was abducted in 1982. He is still missing; the vote renewed her hope.
- film De Clerck and Malsagne cite Daniele Rugo's documentary The Soil and the Sea (2023), co-produced with Carmen Hassoun Abou Jaoudé, among war-memory works inspired by the missing.
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