lebanese war
chronology
1975/1990
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October 4, 1975saturday
Interior Security Forces held in check a land attack against the Beirut International Airport where 4 armed men tried to kidnap an airplane in order to go to Cairo.

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May 4, 1976tuesday
Air France suspended its flights. It was the last foreign airline that was still flying to Lebanon.

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September 4, 1976saturday
Bleeding continued in the ports. Massive emigration went on in the same intensity. Hundreds of families flew every day by sea escaping from hell.

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\_what the books add

Historians disagree on 1976: Haugbolle ranks it among the war's largest emigration waves, while de Clerck and Malsagne see many returning that year after nearly 400,000 Lebanese had left by 1975. Haugbolle notes that no official figures exist.

December 4, 1976saturday
A violent explosion hit the district of Mousseytbeh, where a bomb exploded next to Kamal Joumblatt's house, killing 4 persons and seriously injuring 20 others.

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February 4, 1977friday
The Government promulgated a decree concerning wartime conflicts between owners and renters.
The decree stipulated mainly that rent contracts remained operative, while backlogs will be staggered on 18 months with no interest for all rents under 5,000 Lebanese Pounds. As to destroyed properties, there were three possibilities: reconstruct, compensate the renters, or give them shares.

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June 4, 1977saturday
The election of Miss Lebanon was organized at the Santa Teresa in Maameltein.

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June 4, 1978sunday
A 19 years old Lebanese pianist, Abdel Rahman El Bacha, won the longest and toughest international contest: the Queen Elisabeth Music Prize.

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October 4, 1978wednesday
The bombardments reached Bikfaya and Beit-Mery while in East Beirut there was a shortage of food and medications. The Security Council called for the urgent ending of the combats.

\_this day in full the books also date it 6 October 1978 \_on this day

\_what the books add

According to de Clerck and Malsagne, the Security Council's call for a ceasefire came on 6 October.

November 4, 1978saturday
While the situation improved on the ground, Damascus liberated Ahmed Khatib, previously chief of the Army of Arab Lebanon.

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June 4, 1979monday
Pierre Gemayel, Chief of the Phalange Party, escaped a killing attack in Nahr el Kalb.
The explosion slightly injured his head and killed one person and wounded about 10.

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October 4, 1979thursday
A light earthquake shook the region of Saida without any victim.

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October 4, 1979thursday
The Minister of Foreign affairs, Fouad Boutros, called upon the United Nations to end Israeli aggressions in the South, to freeze the activities of the Fedayin, to reinforce the UNIFL, and to dissociate the Lebanese problem from the regional crisis.

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March 4, 1980tuesday
The mutilated body of Selim Laouzi was found in the forests of Aramoun ten days after his kidnapping.

\_this day in full the books also date it 5 March 1980 \_on this day

\_what the books add

Fisk reads the mutilation of al-Lawzi's body as a warning to the Lebanese press: the flesh of his writing hand had been removed, by knife or acid, and two shots fired into his neck from behind. A shepherd found him, half under snow, in the Aramoun woods on 5 March.

July 4, 1980friday
Artillery duels and armed confrontations continued between the Phalange Party and the NLP in the regions of Wadi-Chahrour, Betchay, Bsous,Kfarchima, and their surroundings. 16 persons were killed and 20 others wounded. The next day, the Lebanese army took in charge the areas of Wadi-Chahrour, Betchay, Bsous, Kfarchima, Bsaba, and Bleibel in the Southern-Metn, ending the conflict between the Phalange Party and the NLP in the region.

\_this day in full \_on this day

\_what the books add

De Clerck and Malsagne list Wadi Chahrour and Kfarchima among the National Liberals' bases in Beirut's south-eastern suburbs and end the wave of clashes between Christian militias on 2 July 1980. Ménargues describes near-daily fighting in the second half of June. Bashir Gemayel settled the rivalry by force on 7 July.

February 4, 1981wednesday
Four Lebanese militaries were killed in a helicopter accident. The Aircraft crashed on the hills of Sannine.

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April 4, 1981saturday
An intensive bombardment in Zahleh killed 20 and injured 100.

\_this day in full the books also date it 6 April 1981 \_on this day

\_what the books add

Ménargues dates a day of intensive shelling of Zahleh, with about twenty dead, to 6 April.

July 4, 1981saturday
The Arab Foreign Affairs Ministers met in Beiteddine. However, no concrete measure was taken, it was a total impasse.

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\_what the books add

Ménargues lists the participants as Syrian foreign minister Abdel Halim Khaddam, the Arab League's representative and the Saudi and Kuwaiti ambassadors, Ali Chaër and Abdel Hamid Bouayajane. That day a general strike against the Syrian presence shut down the Christian regions.

September 4, 1981friday
The French ambassador, Louis Delamare, was cowardly assassinated 100 meters away from the Résidence des Pins.

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\_what the books add

The 59-year-old ambassador was shot in his locked car at about 1.55 p.m., some 60 metres from a Syrian checkpoint (Malsagne), while heading home near the Résidence des Pins. Malsagne blames a pro-Syrian Shiite commando; the next ambassador, Paul-Marc Henry, saw a botched kidnapping ordered by Iranian intelligence. France was then moving closer to the PLO.

January 4, 1982monday
The confrontations between Amal militiamen and 'Partisans of the Communist Organization in Lebanon' caused 11 deaths and 4 injuries in West Beirut. These fights resumed on January 6 didn't end until the intervention of the Arab Strike Force.

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\_what the books add

Hanf describes the Shi'i Amal movement fighting the Iraqi-backed Arab Liberation Front and small communist organisations in West Beirut in the first months of 1982.

February 4, 1982thursday
The investigation conducted in Italy on the vanishing of the Shiite Imam Moussa Sadr ended. The Italians were convinced that the Imam never left Libya.

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June 4, 1982friday
Within an hour, the Israeli airplanes inflicted on Beirut the toughest bombing since the Fakahani attack in seven successive rounds. Sixty persons were killed and 270 injured in these air raids against the sectors of the Sports City, Sabra, Chatila, and Bourj Brajneh.

\_this day in full the books also date it 17 July 1981, 3 June 1982 \_on this day

\_what the books add

Abu Nidal's group, an enemy of the PLO leadership, had shot Shlomo Argov, Israel's ambassador in London, on the night of 3 June; Israel answered with the raids. Robert Fisk notes that the bombs hit a PLO arms dump in the old stadium near Fakhani and a Palestinian children's hospital by Sabra; Palestinian sources gave 50 dead, Lebanese officials 210 civilians. The original's 'Fakhani attack' is the Israeli raid of 17 July 1981.

July 4, 1982sunday
Without renouncing to the diplomatic option, Israel toughened the pressure on Beirut, by depriving its inhabitants of water and electricity.

\_this day in full the books also date it 5 July 1982, 26 July 1982 \_on this day

\_what the books add

A US-backed Security Council resolution demanded that West Beirut's water and power be restored; Lebanon's minister of hydroelectric resources called the Israeli step 'inhuman'. Fisk dates the cut to early on 5 July, when Israel switched off electricity and water and barred food, having reduced power since the third week of June. Ménargues describes a further cut on 26 July.

August 4, 1982wednesday
West Beirut was violently bombed. President Elias Sarkis addressed a protest letter to the US President Ronald Reagan.

\_this day in full \_on this day

\_what the books add

Fisk: on 4 August Israeli tanks crossed at the museum and 13 Israeli soldiers died by shellfire near the airport. Israeli shells and bombs hit the Wadi Abu Jamil synagogue, refugees in Sanayeh park, the prime minister's office, hotels, newspaper offices and hospitals.

September 4, 1982saturday
The Internal Security Forces deployed in the Southern suburbs.

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October 4, 1982monday
An assault was perpetrated against an Israeli bus in Aley killing seven persons.

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February 4, 1983friday
The situation went out of control in the mountain as bombs fell on East Beirut.

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March 4, 1983friday
A Lebanese Army convoy was attacked near Baalbeck. 6 militaries were killed and 13 injured. The assailants were pro-Iranians fighters.

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April 4, 1983monday
Shiite leaders called for a sit-in South Lebanon.

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September 4, 1983sunday
Taking the Lebanese authorities by surprise, the Israeli Army began its withdrawal from the Chouf and Aley leaving face to face the militia of the PSP and the LF in a merciless battle. The combats raged mainly around Bhamdoun, Souk El Gharb and Kabr Chmoun. A dramatic situation unfolded in the mountain where thousands of people were forced out of their homes. 30 000 people found temporary shelter in Deir El Kamar. The rehousing of the displaced persons caused a complicated problem for the officials.

\_this day in full the books also date it 3 September 1983 \_on this day

\_what the books add

The Lebanese army had under 24 hours' warning, Fisk writes, before Israeli troops began leaving Aley and the Chouf on the evening of 3 September; by the morning of the 4th they had gone. De Clerck and Malsagne count more than 10,000 Christians from over 60 villages sheltering in Deir el-Qamar.

November 4, 1983friday
Participants in the Geneva conference asked President Gemayel to undertake an Arab and occidental tour in order to attempt solving the problem of the May 17 agreement.

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November 4, 1983friday
A car bomb exploded next to the Israeli headquarters in Tyr causing 29 deaths and 29 injured. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for this killing attempt.

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\_what the books add

Fisk puts the Tyre bombing's dead at 60, Israelis and Shin Bet prisoners together, and says some Israeli intelligence officers had known of plans against the building at least eleven months earlier.

December 4, 1983sunday
The Syrian anti-air defense shut down two American airplanes and a pilot was captured. The positions of the Marines at the Beirut International Airport were bombarded. Eight Marines were killed. The American President was angry: 'We will retaliate if we are attacked again'.

\_this day in full \_on this day

\_what the books add

US aircraft struck Syrian positions on 4 December. Fisk counts one plane brought down, with the pilot dead and the co-pilot taken prisoner (Jesse Jackson obtained his release in January 1984); Hanf counts two planes lost. Hanf also places, without a date, the deaths of eight Marines from Syrian artillery fire in the same episode.

January 4, 1984wednesday
A double Israeli raid in the region of Baalbeck caused tens of victims and buried many persons under the debris. In Beirut, the electric power was severely rationed by the EDL due to damaged installations in the Iqlim El Kharroub. The acts of resistance against the Israeli occupation continued in South Lebanon. Until the end of 1984, not a single day passed without one, two or three killing attempts perpetrated against Israeli troops or the local militias that they created.

\_this day in full \_on this day

\_what the books add

Counts of attacks on the Israeli army vary by source and period: Fisk reports 15 ambushes a week on average by February 1984 and a hundred attacks in December 1984; de Clerck and Malsagne put suicide attacks at about a hundred a month in 1984.

April 4, 1984wednesday
The retired General Antoine Lahd took his functions as head of the South Lebanon Army (SLA) created and financed by Israel. This new militia replaced Saad Haddad's Army of Free Lebanon. Artillery duels continued in Beirut and in the mountain, making the month of April one of the worst months in the Lebanese crisis. In Tripoli, the confrontations between the Islamic Unification Movement and the Arab Democratic Party continued violently for several months.

\_this day in full \_on this day

\_what the books add

De Clerck and Malsagne date the name 'South Lebanon Army' to April 1985; in 1984 Lahad took over Haddad's existing militia. Hanf says he was a Maronite general from the Chouf, close to Chamoun; de Clerck and Malsagne say he came from Kfar Qatra and had headed army intelligence. Hanf confirms that fighting in Tripoli flared again in 1984.

July 4, 1984wednesday
The Army was deployed in Greater Beirut. The crossing points were reopened, thus unifying the Eastern and Western sectors of the Capital.

\_this day in full the books also date it 3 July 1984 \_on this day

\_what the books add

Hanf gives 3 July 1984 for the security plan's entry into force; this entry and entry 725 use 4 July. Hanf adds that the Green Line barricades were cleared at the end of July.

September 4, 1984tuesday
Joseph Hachem was appointed Minister of Health and Posts and Telecommunications in replacement of Pierre Gemayel. Malek Salam was appointed president of the Council for Development and Reconstruction. The mandate of Michel El Khoury, Governor of the Central Bank, was extended.

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January 4, 1985friday
A commission was created, including the Lebanese Front, the Progressive Socialist Party, Amal, the Syrian Nationalist Party, and parents of the hostages. The crossing points between the two sectors of the capital were reopened while the plan for the Iqlim was halted because of the conflict between the Progressive Socialist Party and the Lebanese Front.

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February 4, 1985monday
Nothing could stop the dollar from rising. For the first time, the green bill was exchanged for over 15 Pounds on the Beirut stock market while the French Franc was quoted at 1.55 Pounds. The Lebanese authorities requested help from Saudi Arabia and asked Rafic Hariri to intercede with King Fahd to grant Lebanon 500 million dollars to boost the economy.

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\_what the books add

Annual figures: the pound fell to about 16 to the dollar in 1985 against 6.5 in 1984, with retail inflation of about 70 per cent (Hanf, citing Abou Rjaily and Labaki); de Clerck and Malsagne put the 1985 devaluation at 150 per cent. Hanf notes that rumours of large PLO deposits briefly strengthened the pound in early 1985.

March 4, 1985monday
A bomb attack against the Husseiniyeh in Maarakeh killed 11 persons, including two leaders of the Amal movement, and wounded 28 others.

\_this day in full \_on this day

\_what the books add

On 4 March 1985, a day after an Israeli raid, a bomb on the roof of the resistance office above Maarakeh's mosque killed Khalil Jerardi, nominally Amal but a Hezbollah supporter, and Mohammed Saad, an Amal commander in the south. French UN officers who examined it believed the departing Israelis had left it (Fisk's report, not an established finding).

September 4, 1985wednesday
14 dead and 74 injured persons were reported in Zahleh as a result of a car bomb explosion. Three days later, the Syrians invaded the town.

\_this day in full the books also date it 11 August 1985 \_on this day

\_what the books add

Syrian troops entered Zahleh on 7 September after the Lebanese Forces' withdrawal (Hanf).

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