Historians date the start of Operation Litani to 14 March (de Clerck and Malsagne, Traboulsi, Quéméner; de Clerck's chronology gives 15 March) and its end to 21 March. Up to 25,000 Israeli soldiers and 120 tanks took part (de Clerck and Malsagne). Estimates of the dead range from about 300 Palestinian fighters (de Clerck and Malsagne) to about 2,000 people, mostly civilians (Fisk; de Clerck and Malsagne; Picard). Estimates of the displaced range from 150,000 (Hanf's refugee table) and more than 200,000 (de Clerck and Malsagne, Picard) to 285,000 (Lebanese government figure cited by Fisk). On 15 March Israeli aircraft bombed the Palestinian camps of Beirut, Tyre and Damour.

Hanf writes that Major Haddad's forces fired at Kaukaba on the units sent south in early August, men of the 'vanguard' Syria trusted, and drove them into retreat. Haddad later rebelled openly against the army command, and Israel took over paying his men.

De Clerck and Malsagne date Lebanese Forces control of East Beirut to this day; Ménargues dates the final takeover of Ain el-Remmaneh to late November. See the note on 27 October.

De Clerck and Malsagne, drawing on Ronen Bergman, attribute to Ariel Sharon a series of car bombings from October 1981, carried out under the name 'Front for the Liberation of Lebanon from Foreigners' and aimed chiefly at Palestinians, to provoke retaliation that could justify an invasion. They list no individual attacks, so this bombing cannot be matched to their account.

Bashir Gemayel was killed at about 4 p.m. during his weekly visit to the Kataeb office in Ashrafieh, nine days before taking office. The bomb, about 35 kilos of explosive, had been placed two days earlier in the flat above by Habib Tanios Chartouni, a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, arrested on 16 September (Ménargues). Prime Minister Wazzan announced the death at midnight. Hanf counts 26 dead.

Early in 1983 the Eighth Brigade went into all of Beirut, the east included, under a plan to collect light arms in the city and clear heavy weapons and gunmen from Greater Beirut. The Lebanese Forces resisted, then on 1 March 1983 agreed to return East Beirut and the port's fifth basin to the state.

De Clerck and Malsagne say the deputies were told of the text at a closed session on 15 May; Prime Minister Wazzan approved it and sent it to the president, and that month 70 of the 91 deputies still in office backed the government.

Counts differ: Hanf has 64 for, 2 against and 4 abstentions among 70 deputies present (40 of 50 Christian and 24 of 41 Muslim members in favour); Traboulsi has 65 for, 2 against and 4 abstentions; Fisk puts the vote on 15 June. Traboulsi says the government formally renounced the agreement on 5 March 1984, Amine Gemayel never having signed it.

The conference sat from 31 October to 4 November (Picard has 1 to 8 November), with Syria's foreign minister Khaddam present and Prime Minister Wazzan kept out by a Syrian veto. Amine Gemayel chaired; Camille Chamoun and Pierre Gemayel spoke for the Lebanese Front, Frangieh, Jumblatt and Karami for the opposition, Saeb Salam for the Sunnis, Adel Osseiran for the Shi'is.

The New Jersey fired shells, not bombs: one-ton 16-inch rounds, according to Fisk. De Clerck and Malsagne say its rounds often missed, by up to 9,000 metres, and killed civilians; Christians called it 'New Jersa', a new shame.

De Clerck and Malsagne give 14 February 1984 for the PSP's capture of the Chahhar district, part of a week-long uprising in Beirut and the mountain.

The withdrawal was unilateral and staged. Antoine Lahad's militia, renamed the South Lebanon Army and backed by Israel, was to police the 'security zone' Israel kept. Historians date the departure from Sidon to 17 February (Traboulsi), and the fall-back to the security zone to May-June 1985 (de Clerck and Malsagne).

Fisk identifies the TWA 847 hijackers as Hezbollah members operating as Islamic Jihad and names Imad Mughniyeh as the planner; the passenger they killed was Robert Stethem, a US Navy diver. Amal moved most of the passengers into the southern suburbs. In the end Syrian officers received the hostages and took them to Damascus, and Israel released its Lebanese Shia prisoners over the next two months.

For Gemayel, says Traboulsi, the accord robbed the presidency of its arbitrating role; they last met on 13-14 January 1986.