30 news for the 1st, 2nd of January, February, September, December
with the booksDecember 1, 1975monday
Israelis attacked villages in the South
Israeli raids against Beddawi, Nahr El Bared, and Nabatyeh were more violent then ever. The attacks killed 111 persons and injured 140 others. Lebanon requested an urgent meeting of the Security Council, which met on December 5 and strongly condemned the raids against Lebanon.
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January 1, 1976thursday
The explosion of the MEA Boeing in Saudi Arabia killed 82 persons, 40 of which were Lebanese.
This airplane flying from Beirut to Masqat via Dubai did not explode in the air, but while in the airport. An investigation was opened to determine the causes of the accident. The hypothesis of sabotage was not excluded.
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February 1, 1978wednesday
December 1, 1979saturday
A total shortage of fuel paralyzed the capital, as well as the mountain and the South; the reasons for this shortage remained unknown.
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January 2, 1980wednesday
The chief of the 'Iranian volunteers', Hodjatolislam Mohammed Montazeri, held a press conference in Beirut during which he reasserted his men's determination to go to South Lebanon to 'fight imperialism and Zionism.' And he added: 'We will come by thousands.'
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De Clerck and Malsagne have Iranian clerics and activists settling in the Bekaa, and then in Tyre, from 1980, before 500 to 2,000 Revolutionary Guards entered Lebanon in June 1982.
February 1, 1982monday
The inflow of heavy Israeli weapons on the Lebanese territory continued. These weapons were installed in the borderline enclave controlled by Saad Haddad.
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September 1, 1982wednesday
The last Palestinian fighters left Lebanon. In 12 days, 10,876 Fedayin and 2,700 Syrian soldiers had left the Lebanese territory.
\_this day in full the books also date it 21 August 1982, 30 August 1982 \_on this day
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Counts of those evacuated between 21 August and 1 September differ: 14,398 Palestinians and Syrians, including 664 women and children of PLO cadres (de Clerck and Malsagne); 14,938 Palestinians by 30 August (Ménargues); about 15,000 by sea plus 6,500 Syrian and PLA soldiers by land (Hanf). On 1 September President Reagan announced his peace plan.
September 2, 1982thursday
December 1, 1982wednesday
The leader of the Progressive Socialist Party, Walid Joumblatt escaped a killing attempt that resulted in 3 dead and 42 injuries.
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The attempt on Walid Jumblatt left him only slightly hurt. Hanf sees it as one more spur to Druze mobilisation, which put about 30,000 men under arms.
December 2, 1982thursday
A wide meeting in Baabda reached an agreement on the creation of a Lebanese strike force in charge of reestablishing order and security in Aley and the Chouf.
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February 2, 1983wednesday
The aggressions didn't spare the Multinational Force. Reacting to the anti-French attacks, the President of the French Republic, Francois Mitterand, ordered the reinforcement of the French contingent in Lebanon.
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September 1, 1983thursday
During the month of September, atrocious massacres were perpetrated against Christian and Druze civilians in the Chouf.
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Massacres were committed on both sides: Druze fighters killed Christians at Bmaryam, Bhamdoun, Ma'asir al-Chouf and many other villages, and Lebanese Forces fighters killed Druze at Kfarmatta and in villages on their line of retreat. For September to December 1983 de Clerck and Malsagne give more than 1,500 Christians and 207 Druze massacred, 324 PSP and 368 Lebanese Forces fighters dead, and over 163,000 Christians driven from the region. Traboulsi gives 62 villages destroyed, Hanf about sixty.
December 1, 1983thursday
Sheikh Halim Takieddine, Chief of the Druze religious law courts was assassinated; this triggered great emotions in political and religious spheres in Beirut.
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January 2, 1984monday
The year started like the previous one ended : everyone was talking about a new security plan for the mountain and the Southern suburbs of Beirut. Nevertheless, the fights continued intermittently in these regions between the Army and the Lebanese Forces on one side and the Progressive Socialist Party and Amal on the other.
\_this day in full the books also date it 29 January 1984 \_on this day
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On 29 January the Druze resumed attacking the army at Souk al-Gharb, after Shi'i militia sniping at the army and French troops from mid-January, Hanf's next escalation.
February 2, 1984thursday
The schools closed their doors in the Eastern sector of the capital due to the blind shelling of Beirut and its suburbs.
\_this day in full the books also date it 1 February 1984 \_on this day
January 1, 1985tuesday
It is a bad beginning of the year for the Lebanese. Beirut was still divided in two, the problem of kidnapped and disappeared persons was unsolved, the fighting continued in the mountain between the Army and the PSP. In South Lebanon, the assault-reprisal cycle continued.
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Fisk's figures for December 1984 alone: some hundred attacks on Israeli forces in the south, with three Israeli soldiers, seventeen of Lahad's militiamen and eight collaborators killed.
January 1, 1986wednesday
It is a bad beginning of the year for the Lebanese Forces. A conflict emerged within the party, causing exchanges of rockets and gunshots in Zalka and Nahr El Mott. Ten persons were killed or wounded. The signature by Elie Hobeika of the tripartite agreement in Damascus, triggered the fight.
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Hanf says that once the Tripartite Agreement had been signed, on 28 December 1985, Hobeika turned Lebanese Forces units against militias loyal to President Gemayel and the Kataeb.
February 1, 1986saturday
A delegation from the Union of Independent Maronite Deputies visited Damascus in an effort to reestablish the dialogue between the Christians and Syria.
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September 2, 1986tuesday
The first meeting of the Dialog Committee was held at the Beirut racecourse. The ten members of the government met for the first time since November 1985. The Ministers decided to elaborate a new National Pact.
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The meetings produced no agreement (Hanf).
December 2, 1986tuesday
A general strike paralyzed the country. The Lebanese were unable to cope with the increase in prices. The leaders couldn't find any solution to the crisis. The popular discontent was on the rise.
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January 2, 1987friday
The Minister of Labor Selim El Hoss signed a decree raising the minimum wage to 3,200 LBP. This decision was a timid ray of light in the heavy economic sky.
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Historians describe the collapse of real wages behind such decrees: against 1974, the statutory minimum wage kept 13 percent of its buying power at the end of 1986 (Hanf, after Abou Rjaily and Labaki).
February 1, 1987sunday
The MEA suspended its flights therefore causing a de facto closing of the Beirut International Airport, while the few companies that were still flying into the airport (Soviet, Czech, and Bulgarian) decided to cancel their flights.
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September 1, 1987tuesday
President Gemayel arrives in Quebec to request, in front of the Francophony Summit, the creapour demander, the creation of Special Support Funds in Lebanon.
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December 2, 1987wednesday
While credits are unblocked to buy fuel and service stations are reopened, Victor Cassir, Minister of Industry and Oil, authorizes private companies to import fuel subject to a previous authorization by the Ministry of Oil.
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February 2, 1988tuesday
Jacques Merrin, a Frenchman working for the DGSE, is killed by unknown persons in the neighborhood of the Palace of Justice.
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February 1, 1989wednesday
Presidents Hoss, Husseini, and General Aoun did not come up with an agreement in Tunis.
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Hanf: Aoun told the Tunis meeting he could settle Lebanese differences himself once Syria withdrew; Hoss and Husseini put reform first.
