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10 news for the 23rd of February, March

with the books
February 23, 1976monday
A forty-five years old fanatic locked up 35 persons at the Canadian embassy. This situation lasted 8 hours and immersed Lebanon in a torrid suspense. The hostages were then liberated in a happy ending.

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March 23, 1976tuesday
The ' Beirut Battle ' continued amid shelling.
The past 48 hours resulted in 150 deaths and 300 injuries. The control of downtown was at stake. Moslem-Progressive forces backed by Palestinian organizations were determined to eliminate any Phalangist presence West of the Martyrs Square. The new front was established on the axis Starco Hilton, while Phalangist militiamen faced assaults launched from the Riad El Solh and the Nejmeh Squares towards the Port area. In the Mountain where artillery duels continued, a common Palestinian Progressive breakthrough attempt was turned down in Mansourieh.

\_this day in full the books also date it 22 March 1976 \_on this day

\_what the books add

Hanf traces the line that went on dividing the city along the Damascus road and across Martyrs Square to the harbour. It was set once the Kataeb, losing the Holiday Inn, had no positions left in West Beirut.

March 23, 1978thursday
General Gour, from the Israeli army, affirmed that Israeli withdrawal from the South of Lebanon would start within a few days.

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Fisk adds that during the invasion Gur declared that Israel would fall back to the Christian enclaves as a border 'security belt': the strip that became Major Haddad's.

March 23, 1979friday
Finally, 600 Lebanese soldiers replaced the Saudis in East Beirut in an atmosphere of popular emotion.

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Ménargues: once the Saudis said in March 1979 they would hand their positions to the army, an army–militia clash looked inevitable; intelligence chief Johnny Abdo reopened contact with Bashir.

February 23, 1980saturday
Criminal madness was unleashed in Lebanon. An odious assault was reported in the Sursock district. A car bomb killed 8 persons including Maya, Bechir Gemayel's 20 months old daughter, and injured 20 others. This explosion was aimed at the chief commander of the Lebanese Forces.

\_this day in full the books also date it 21 February 1980 \_on this day

\_what the books add

Ménargues writes that Bashir Gemayel usually took Maya to her grandmother's on Saturdays but, sick after the sea crossing from Jerusalem the day before, had her governess and his bodyguards take her in his car, which was blown up less than a kilometre from his home. He blames the Palestinians there; later he says an inquiry into Aman el-Mandoubine, a network run by a Fatah intelligence officer, led to the arrest of two Christians who planted the bomb. One annex dates the attack 21 February.

March 23, 1981monday
Violent confrontations burst in Baalbeck between Amal and the Iraqi Baas.

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February 23, 1982tuesday
Two car bombs killed 4 persons and injured 54 others in Raoucheh.

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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.

February 23, 1983wednesday
The American envoy Philip Habib returned to Beirut to speed up the withdrawal process.

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February 23, 1985saturday
A security inspector hijacked a Beirut-Paris MEA flight. A passenger was killed and 13 others were injured. The hijacker had wage claims.

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A passenger died on the runway, flung there by the jets' blast, because the hijacker, Fisk writes, made the Larnaca plane take off with its doors open.

February 23, 1989thursday
The fifth basin of Beirut harbor, controlled by the L.F. is closed and the tax checkpoints of Berbara are dismantled.

\_this day in full \_on this day

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Hanf reports that within a week the dollar dropped from LL502 to LL450 and that state customs income rose quickly, though the Lebanese Forces honoured their February 1989 undertaking only in part. The army received Dock Five, the country's main customs post, and the Barbara checkpoint (Hanf spells it 'Bourbara').