lebanese war
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1975/1990
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133 news for the 4th, 23rd, 30th of every month

with the books

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January 23, 1975thursday
Dalida sang in Lebanon, at the Picadilly theatre. It was a triumph.

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January 30, 1975thursday
15,000 persons demonstrated in Beirut to express their solidarity with South Lebanon, which had been regularly bombed by Israel.

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Traboulsi counts this among the early-1975 protests, a southern general strike and Beirut demonstrations, over the Palestinian presence and the south's defence.

May 23, 1975friday
Following the resignation of the Government of Rachid El Solh, Sleiman Frangieh, President of the Republic, put together a military government.
The new government was headed by Noureddine Rifai, a retired Corporal, and included only one civilian, Lucien Dahdah. This Government was in charge of reestablishing the peace in the country caused by bloody clashes between the Phalange Party and the Resistance. These clashes were still going on in Beirut and its surroundings.

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Nureddine al-Rifai was a retired Sunni officer: a general according to Hanf, a brigadier-general according to Traboulsi, an officer of the gendarmerie according to de Clerck and Malsagne.

September 30, 1975tuesday
A Tupolev 154 belonging to the Hungarian company Malev exploded in the air at 10 kilometers from Beirut, killing 60 persons, 34 of which were Lebanese.

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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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January 30, 1976friday
While the normalization process continued, the Superior Military Committee decided to dispatch the Lebanese Army to Damour, Mkalles, and Dbayeh, as well as to the road leading to the Beirut International Airport.

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January 30, 1976friday
Lieutenant Ahmed Khatib left the Hasbaya barracks and announced the creation, in the Bekaa, of the Army of Arab Lebanon.

\_this day in full the books also date it 21 January 1976, 22 January 1976 \_on this day

\_what the books add

Historians date Lieutenant Ahmad al-Khatib's breakaway to 21 January (de Clerck and Malsagne, in the Bekaa) or 22 January (Julie Tegho Bou Nassif, from the diary of the Greek Catholic bishop of Zahleh); Hanf places the mutiny in the south. About 300-400 Muslim soldiers followed him at first. The entry of 30 January may record a later step.

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

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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.

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

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May 30, 1976sunday
An avalanche of missiles and shells hit Beirut while combats continued on all fronts. The bombings reached the airport, imposing the closure of runways to air traffic at night.

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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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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.

September 23, 1976thursday
Elias Sarkis, sixth President of the Republic, took the constitutional oath at the Park Hotel in Chtaura, in presence of 67 deputies.

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Syrian helicopters and armoured limousines carried the 67 deputies to the Park Hotel in Chtaura, in the Syrian-held Bekaa, where 2,000 Syrian soldiers and 40 tanks guarded the ceremony (Fisk). Sarkis used his address to declare that Lebanon itself had invited the Syrian army in (Hanf).

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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January 23, 1977sunday
In Broumana and in presence of 25 delegates, the week of the Lebanese Forces was held under the sign of coexistence.
This three-day seminar adopted the principle of diversity in respect of heritage and cultures. The seminar emphasized the need to solve Lebanon's economic problem using modern solutions.

\_this day in full the books also date it 21 January 1977 \_on this day

\_what the books add

De Clerck and Malsagne put the Lebanese Front's seminar at the Sayyidat al-Bir convent, not Broumana, on 21 January 1977. Its leaders, they report, judged the independence-era institutions obsolete, raised partition and defined a 'plurality of civilisational groups'. The body was the Lebanese Front, the Christian leaders' coalition, not the Lebanese Forces militia.

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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April 23, 1977saturday
The integrity of Southern Lebanon will be jointly guaranteed by Syria and the Soviet Union . This was the message that President Assad transmitted to President Sarkis, following recent meetings between Assad and Brejnev. He also said that a Lebanese force should insure security in Southern Lebanon.

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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 30, 1977thursday
On the last day of its full-powers, the Council of Ministers published a series of decree-laws. The most important ones stipulated the revision of certain laws relative to the Lebanese University, the amendment of some press censorship laws, and the adoption of the mandatory car insurance.

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July 30, 1977saturday
The Arab Strike Force deployed around the camps in Beirut, Tripoli, Saida and in the Bekaa region.

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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 30, 1978thursday
A little bit of cheerfulness in the midst of despair ! The Boney M gave a flamboyant show to a heartbroken Lebanese audience.

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April 23, 1978sunday
At the Villa Mansour, the committee of the ' Thirteen ', that included leaders from all parliamentary blocks, adopted a blueprint claiming the end of the Palestinian armed action on the entire Lebanese territory. The Parliament unanimously approved the resolution on the 27th of April.

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Neither parliament nor president could enforce the resolution, Hanf notes. The 74 deputies in attendance passed it without dissent: it reserved arms to the legitimate Lebanese forces, told the Palestinians and 'other parties' to end armed action, and applied Lebanese law to all on Lebanese soil.

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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July 23, 1978sunday
Hadeth was savagely bombed.

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September 23, 1978saturday
After President Sarkis delivered a speech underlining the necessity to maintain the Arab Strike Force and guarantee the forthcoming withdrawal of Syrian forces, about 200 shells hit Achrafieh. The population panicked.

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Schools, hospitals and factories were destroyed in the new bombardment, and Lebanese gendarmes logged 2,000 impacts a day in Achrafieh. Hanf links it to the Camp David agreement reached a few days before.

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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January 23, 1979tuesday
Considering the inflation and the depreciation of the Lebanese pound, new 250 LP bills were put in circulation starting February 1.

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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.

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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June 30, 1979saturday
The 'race for peace' organized by the Lebanese Federation of Athletics under the patronage of L'orient-Le Jour was a manifestation of the Lebanese sportsmen in favor of national unity. Departed from Achrafieh, the 66 participants representing 18 clubs from all the Lebanese regions met in Manara after having crossed the Fouad Chehab Ring.

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July 23, 1979monday
A Lebanese cargo airplane from the freight company 'Trans Mediterranean Airway' crashed on one of the Beirut Airport runways. The six occupants of the four engine aircraft died.

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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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October 23, 1979tuesday
Phalangist elements and the LNP fought in Beit Mery.

\_this day in full the books also date it 12 May 1979 \_on this day

November 23, 1979friday
The Tunis summit was disappointing. Lebanon received only a solemn proclamation of support doubled by a financial assistance up to 2 billion dollars, but the Southern Lebanon problem remained unsolved, the summit having just called the State and the resistance to get along.

\_this day in full the books also date it 20 November 1979 \_on this day

\_what the books add

The Arab summit met in Tunis from 20 to 22 November 1979.

January 30, 1980wednesday
The situation worsened in Ehmej. Some sources reported 4 dead and 10 injured persons.

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See the note on the entry of 25 January 1980.

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

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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 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.

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