lebanese war
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1975/1990
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40 news for the 2nd, 7th of January, July, September, November, December

with the books
January 7, 1975tuesday
Teachers went on strike
25,000 private school teachers went on an open strike. The movement hit approximately 200,000 students. Strikers were claiming the amendment of their salary scale and of the teachers' dismissal law. Their actual minimum salary amounted for 250 Lebanese pounds.

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July 7, 1975monday
New coins equivalent to one Lebanese pound were issued

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July 7, 1975monday
An Israeli aggression against Rachidieh and Bourghoulieh camps in South Lebanon killed 12 persons and wounded 20 others. A Lebanese complaint was lodged at the United Nations.

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September 7, 1975sunday
Tripoli was in fire and blood
Exceptionally violent fights opposed Tripolitans to Zghortiotes, causing fires, kidnappings and street fights.

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Historians describe the Tripoli-Zgharta round as following the Zahleh fighting of late August: kidnappings on both sides, the killing of twelve Muslim bus passengers on the Beirut-Tripoli road, attacks on Christian villages in Akkar and the flight of Christians from Tripoli and Akkar. It ended when the army created a buffer zone between the two towns.

November 2, 1975sunday
Chuchu, the famous actor died from a hart attack. His real name was Hassan Alaeddine, the friend of younger and older kids was the most popular comedian on stage and on TV.

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January 7, 1976wednesday
The Palestinian camps of Tell El Zaatar and Jisr El Bacha being under a blockade, 1200 armed elements attacked the region of Horsh Tabet. Pitched battles opposed Phalangist and Fedayin activists.

\_this day in full the books also date it 4 January 1976 \_on this day

\_what the books add

De Clerck and Malsagne date the siege of Tal al-Za'tar from 4 January 1976 to the camp's fall on 12 August. According to Hanf, Interior Minister Camille Chamoun had Internal Security Forces units join the assault.

January 7, 1977friday
Regular Palestinian forces will have to leave Lebanon before January 13', announced a press release issued by the presidency of the Republic.

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July 2, 1978sunday
Achrafieh was bombed. 130 shells hit the H™tel-Dieu hospital where 20 rooms were destroyed. At the same time, a huge fire ravaged the dock number 6 in the port.

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November 7, 1978tuesday
The residence of General Victor Khoury in Amchit was dynamited.

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July 2, 1979monday
President Elias Sarkis asked Selim El Hoss to form the government.

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September 7, 1979friday
Three commandos hijacked an Alitalia airplane. Their objective was to denounce Kadhafi in front of the international opinion. 141 passengers out of 175 were released at the airport of Rome. The air pirates surrendered to the Iranians the next day.

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December 7, 1979friday
For the first time in Lebanon, a particularly delicate surgical intervention was successfully undertaken. Professor Wafic Sinno performed an implantation of an artificial crystalline at the Hotel-Dieu hospital.

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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.

November 7, 1980friday
An agreement was reached between Camille Chamoun and Pierre Gemayel to unify the Lebanese Forces.

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Hanf records the Lebanese Front's formula as 'political pluralism, military unity'. Traboulsi describes an eight-member executive committee under Bashir Gemayel running the Lebanese Forces: three Phalange seats, two each for the National Liberals and the Tanzim, one for the Guardians of the Cedars. Ménargues notes that after Ain el-Remmaneh Bashir had every unit swap its militia badges for one common insignia.

July 2, 1981thursday
The Sodeco crossing way was officially opened to traffic. But the calm didn't last for more than 2 days, as snipers were back into action.

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November 2, 1981monday
The Arab Strike Force launched a security operation in the West of the capital where Palestinian, Libyan and Iranian influence multiplied lately.

\_this day in full the books also date it 11 September 1981 \_on this day

December 7, 1981monday
A Sadrist commando hijacked a Libyan airplane at the Beirut International Airport. The air pirates who held 43 hostages, injured a passenger and threatened to execute him in order to have the plane refueled. The aggressors called upon Khadafi to liberate the Imam.

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July 2, 1982friday
In a press conference held at the Alexander hotel, the Israeli Defense Minister, Ariel Sharon, invited the Lebanese to fight against the Palestinians.

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Bashir Gemayel, back from Saudi Arabia on 2 July, said the PLO did not mean to leave. Two hours earlier, at the Alexandre Hotel, Sharon had told reporters, Robert Fisk among them, that Israel's only aim was to destroy the PLO and it wanted not 'one square inch' of Lebanon.

September 2, 1982thursday
The normalization continued. The Sodeco crossing way was opened to traffic.

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September 7, 1982tuesday
According to a United Nations report, between the 6th of June 1982 and the 15th of August 1982, 6,775 persons had been killed and 30,000 others wounded. Over 80% of these victims were civilians form West Beirut. According to the same source, 2,094 seriously injured persons had been burned by phosphor bombs.

\_this day in full the books also date it 4 June 1982 \_on this day

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Figures differ by source and cut-off date. De Clerck and Malsagne cite a Lebanese police report of November 1982 covering 4 June to 21 August: 19,085 dead, 6,775 of them in Beirut and 84% of them civilians, and 30,302 wounded. Ménargues, citing police reports, gives 17,825 dead and 30,103 wounded from 4 June; Fisk gives almost 17,825 dead from 4 June to the end of September. Picard cites UNICEF: 29,506 dead and wounded between 4 June and 15 August, 80% of them civilians in Beirut and its suburbs. The 6,775 dead in the original therefore appear to be Beirut's share only.

November 2, 1982tuesday
Sister Theresa arrived in Beirut for a short visit of several days. She offered housing to 37 young Lebanese, providing them with everything they needed.

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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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July 7, 1983thursday
Prime Minister Chaffic Wazzan escaped from a killing attempt. A car bomb exploded on his way to his office in Sanayeh.

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November 2, 1983wednesday
At the Geneva conference, the Mai 17 agreement was the main subject of debates. A Gemayel-Frangieh reconciliation took place.

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Geneva's leaders agreed on Lebanon's 'Arab identity'. Fisk saw two reconciliations: Camille Chamoun ended five years of silence with Suleiman Frangieh, and Frangieh's public embrace of Amin Gemayel seemed to close their families' feud.

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.

July 2, 1984monday
A rocket attack hit the offices of l'Orient-Le-Jour causing serious damages.

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July 7, 1984saturday
The parents of kidnapped and disappeared persons demonstrated and blocked the Museum axis.

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November 7, 1984wednesday
A new round of Lebanese-Israeli negotiations started in Nakoura, 8 months after the abrogation of the May 17 agreement. These negotiations resumed on November 15. But deep disagreements appeared regarding the roles of the Lebanese Army, the South Lebanon Army and the UNIFL.

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The original entries do not agree with each other: entry 792 says the talks were to open on 5 November, this entry says 7 November.

December 7, 1984friday
Fights were reported downtown causing the Ring to close.

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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).

November 2, 1986sunday
An American, David Jacobsen, detained by the Islamic Jihad since the 27th of May 1985, was finally released.

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Fisk's account puts the kidnapping on 28 May 1985.

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).

January 7, 1987wednesday
President Camille Chamoun escaped by miracle from a killing attempt. A car bomb exploded on the River cornice when his convoy was passing by. 4 persons were killed and 37 others were wounded. The President was injured in his arm.

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Hanf mentions the failed attempt on Chamoun's life early in 1987 and notes that he died in August of that year.

July 2, 1987thursday
Lebanon has just lost in Kesrouan, Labaki, one of its best journalists and most fervent defenders.

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September 7, 1987monday
Alfred Schmidt, a West-German hostage, is released.

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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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November 7, 1988monday
General Antoine Lahd, Chief of the 'Army of Southern Lebanon', escapes an assassination attempt by a communist militant, Souha Bechara. She is arrested.

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De Clerck (p. 104) says Soha Bechara was then tortured and jailed for ten years at Khiam. Hanf (p. 321) dates the attempt to December 1988.

December 2, 1988friday
General Aoun orders the closure of the Museum-Berbir junction; the passage will be re-opened 17 days later.

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December 7, 1988wednesday
On the fifth day of a blockade imposed by the closure of the Museum-Berbir junction, the only supply road for fuel and food products, the bank of Lebanon gives up to the pressures and unfreezes credits for the West Beirut sector for direct importation of flour.

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