January 1975 saw heavy Israeli attacks on the South. Israeli forces razed Kfar Chouba, a border village, about a week after 7 January (Hanf), and Palestinian commandos shelled army positions in Tyre during border clashes with the Lebanese army (de Clerck and Malsagne). The figures for 3 January come from contemporary press reports.

Antoine Khuraych headed the Maronite Church from his election on 3 February 1975 (enthronement 9 February) until 1986, styling himself the 'patriarch of dialogue'.

De Clerck and Malsagne and Tegho Bou Nassif date Zahleh's entry into the war to 24 August 1975, when Palestinian fighters planted a bomb in its tourist district, Wadi al-Arayish. In Hanf's account, Zahleh's Christians and Shi'is of its outskirts and nearby villages, helped by Palestinian guerrillas, came to blows late in August after a non-political arcade quarrel. Three Zahleh men were executed at the end of August.

Dates differ between historians: 16 January (Ménargues), 18 January (de Clerck and Malsagne; consistent with Fisk), 19 January (Hanf), 20 or 22 January (Traboulsi). Maslakh, next door, fell at the same time. Most of the district's people were Shi'is, living alongside Palestinians, Kurds and Armenian Lebanese. Haugbolle estimates 150-500 dead, de Clerck and Malsagne 600-1,000; some 30,000 people were driven out to West Beirut and the southern suburbs.

Hanf and Ménargues count 66 votes for Sarkis out of 69 cast; de Clerck and Malsagne give 70. National Movement and PLO mortars fired as deputies, escorted by Saiqa, PLA or Syrian troops, met at the Villa Mansour on the demarcation line. Votes were reportedly bought, by Syria (de Clerck and Malsagne) or with Saudi and CIA money (Traboulsi). Sarkis was sworn in only on 23 September.

Barely a tenth of American and British residents accepted the evacuation, Fisk writes. The British went by road, the PLO escorting them through West Beirut and a Libyan officer on to the Syrian lines; a day later a US landing craft took evacuees off from a PLO-guarded bathing club on the Corniche.

Talks in France with the government and Mitterrand's opposition left Jumblatt sure that France could do nothing in Lebanon against Syrian and US opposition (Traboulsi). His tour, by boat from encircled West Beirut to Cyprus, then Cairo, Algiers and Paris, sought Arab contingents to offset the Syrians.

Vance's airport motorcade skirted Sabra and Chatila after a Beirut visit, dated by Fisk to autumn 1977, to hear the government's views on the Palestinians' future.

De Clerck and Malsagne date the end of the shelling to 7 October. On that day President Sarkis asked in public for the Arab Deterrent Force's mandate, due to lapse on 28 October, to be extended, and Syria maintained its blockade until the renewal.

Ménargues writes that when the Moukafaha, Johnny Abdo's own intervention unit, arrested Elie Hobeika for allegedly having the Saudi ambassador's helicopter fired on, Bashir Gemayel had about a hundred army officers abducted; they were traded for Hobeika three weeks later.

De Clerck and Malsagne and Picard agree that Haddad declared his 'State of Free Lebanon' at Marjayoun on 18 April 1979, in reaction to the army being sent towards the UNIFIL area under the March 1979 defence law; de Clerck and Malsagne put its size at 250 square kilometres and call it entirely reliant on Israel. Hanf has Haddad's troops stopping the battalion; de Clerck and Malsagne and Picard, Israeli aircraft bombing it; Fisk, Israel letting its militia shell it. Traboulsi dates Haddad's break to his Army of Free Lebanon of June 1976, Ménargues to a secession at the end of 1977. Hanf adds that once Haddad had lost his rank and been dismissed in disgrace, Israel paid his men.

Dalida also sang at the new Summerland hotel in Jnah in September 1979 (de Clerck and Malsagne). The Kataeb-Tashnag clashes of 11 September belong to a series: Hanf records hostilities in May and September 1979, settled amicably; de Clerck and Malsagne date fighting to November; Traboulsi says that in 1978-1979 the Phalange and Chamoun's Tigers gradually subdued the Armenian militias, which would not pay them taxes.

De Clerck and Malsagne put October 1979 abductions in the North at 500 to 1,000 people.

Historians describe the Syrian pull-back from Beirut in 1980 as a redeployment to the Bekaa and to mountain positions overlooking the capital, with a garrison kept in West Beirut (Hanf). The Lebanese army could not replace the departing Arab Deterrent Force everywhere (Picard).