Hanf puts the entry of about 6,000 Syrian soldiers, in the peace force's green helmets, into East and West Beirut on 14 November. Fisk's report in The Times of 16 November dated their occupation of the whole city to the previous morning, with 6,000 men and hundreds of tanks; the last firing, near the port, ended on 16 November, Fisk recounts.

Hanf counts some 15,000 Christian civilians leaving the coastal Chouf for Israeli-occupied territory; Mechref is not named.

Hanf has the PSP and its leftist allies overrunning Amal's Murr Tower headquarters and taking Hamra after five days of what he calls West Beirut's worst fighting, its destruction on the scale of the 1982 siege. The size of the Syrian force differs by source: 12,000 soldiers plus Special Forces (de Clerck and Malsagne), 8,000 (Quéméner), two brigades (Hanf), the re-formed 85th Brigade (Fisk). The troops entered on 22 February according to most sources (see addition 1987-02-22).

Hanf: after the army took Ain al-Rummaneh on 16 February 1990, having attacked the eastern suburbs on the 11th, the Lebanese Forces fell back to Ashrafieh through West Beirut. A Reuters reporter with the troops said it was 'like an earthquake had hit it'.