Formed in September 1975 through Syria's foreign minister Abdel Halim Khaddam, the National Dialogue Committee of some twenty leaders debated secularism and ending sectarian quotas; Hanf says it broke up empty-handed.

The bodies of four young Kataeb members were found on 6 December 1975, while Pierre Gemayel was in Damascus; Muslims seized at makeshift checkpoints by the port were killed in reprisal. Accounts place the bodies in the Metn (Hanf), near Tal al-Za'tar (Haugbolle) or outside the electricity company offices (Fisk). De Clerck and Malsagne blame Joseph Saadeh, whose son was among the four. Only Fisk puts Bashir Gemayel in Damascus and cites Phalangist officers saying he ordered the reprisal. The Muslim dead number about 200 (Hanf, Traboulsi, de Clerck and Malsagne) or several dozen (Picard); Fisk gives at least 300 Muslims, and probably as many Christians, in the reprisals.

Parliament used the truce to amend Article 73 of the constitution so that Frangieh's successor could be elected early: on 9 April according to Hanf, 10 April according to Yara El Khoury. The truce had coincided with the arrival on 31 March of the US envoy Dean Brown.

Ménargues names only Sami al-Khatib. Traboulsi confirms that the Arab Deterrent Force's first Lebanese commander was Ahmad al-Hajj, who did not gain Syria's favour and was quickly replaced by al-Khatib.

Fisk: Kahhaleh showed white flags and Hazmiyeh's Christians threw rice and rose water at the crews as at least 20 miles of Syrian tanks, guns and troop carriers came down on Beirut from dawn on 10 November.

Its members were technocrats and businessmen; the one politician, Fouad Boutros, held both foreign affairs and defence (Traboulsi). Early on, at Syria's behest, it brought in press censorship (Hanf, Fisk); Traboulsi also mentions an order for militias to surrender their arms.

Once canonised, Saint Charbel stood for 'Maronite identity' and for the protection of a predominantly Christian Lebanon.

Hanf notes that in December 1977 Menachem Begin, Israel's prime minister, had excluded any return of the Palestinian refugees in neighbouring countries.

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.

Colonel Jean Germain Salvan was badly hurt in both legs in early May, Fisk writes, when dissident PLO gunmen fired on the Fatah jeep carrying him, killing a French soldier and his Palestinian driver; Arafat called it a crime. Hanf adds that such losses made the French unit much more careful.

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.

Hanf: clashes among the Christian militias grew more frequent after the partial Syrian withdrawal, which removed Syrian checkpoints on the roads into East Beirut and between Achrafieh and the Christian suburbs and gave the militias one unbroken territory for the first time since 1976.