lebanese war
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1975/1990
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104 news for the 5th, 23rd 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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February 5, 1975wednesday
The Arab Defense Committee gathered in Cairo, voted 90 million dollars for the defense of Lebanon.

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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.

August 5, 1975tuesday
Israel launched air, land and sea attacks against Tyr, killing 18 persons and injuring 29.

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January 5, 1976monday
After a delay of three months, the American University of Beirut inaugurated its academic year 1975-1976.

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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.

July 5, 1976monday
The PLO and their allies launched a massive offensive against the Kura and the Christian town of Chekka north of Beirut.

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Hanf writes that once Jisr al-Pasha fell on 1 July the Palestinians struck in the north, taking coastal Chekka from Tripoli by way of the Koura, with massacres, looting and arson. A Lebanese Front counter-attack with army tanks reached Tripoli's outskirts.

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).

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

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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.

April 5, 1977tuesday
The officials were satisfied with the ongoing excavations in the heart of the city where the most damaged sectors were located, for they exhumed valuable Phoenician, Roman and Byzantine vestiges.

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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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November 5, 1977saturday
An odious murder was committed against Abdel-Hamid Ahdab. He was a strong defender of an inter-Lebanese dialogue in favor of an absolute allegiance to the country. The powerful explosion placed in Ahdab's residence killed his daughter and seriously injured him and his spouse. This criminal act was perpetrated against democracy, freedom of speech and reconciliation between the Lebanese.

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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.

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 5, 1978monday
Ghassan Tueini proposed, at the UN General Assembly, an 'international neutrality to protect Lebanon, because this country has no longer any other future besides explosion or invasion'. A UN force would take in charge the protection of the territory, while the army would devote its efforts to internal security and reconstruction.

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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.

December 5, 1978tuesday
The Arab tripartite committee including Saudi and Kuwaiti ambassadors and a Syrian general, met in Baabda in presence of the chief of State. The committee excluded any immediate resort to the army.

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January 5, 1979friday
Lebanon entered a complacency phase.
All sides seemed decided to wait for important regional developments to unfold in order to re-evaluate the situation and define the course of action. The situation was very tense in the South where the Israelis were shelling the Hasbaya region.

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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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February 5, 1979monday
New identity cards bearing no mention of religion, were also due to be released soon.

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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.

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 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

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

February 5, 1980tuesday
Mgr Elias Audeh was elected the Greek Orthodox Metropolite of Beirut.

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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 5, 1980wednesday
In a message addressed to the Nation, the President of the Republic proclaimed the State's Arab and internal options. He rejected the Camp David agreements, and underlined the coordination between Lebanon and Syria wile respecting the sovereignty of both countries. Furthermore, he refused the idea of creating mini-states and reassured his attachment to freedom.

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Probably the text Picard lists as President Sarkis's 'Fourteen Points' (March 1980), one of the drafts that fed into the Taif Accord. Traboulsi notes that in that same month an American spokesman called on Lebanon to sign up to the Camp David accords.

March 5, 1980wednesday
Seven Zghortiotes were released in exchange of eleven Phalangists. The exchange of hostages took place after 5 months of detention.

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May 23, 1980friday
Shells fell on the center of Saida killing 4 persons and wounding 14 others.

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May 23, 1980friday
The Northern Lebanese front flared up again. Militiamen from the Marada launched an attack against the Phalangist positions. In the jurd of the Batroun region, five persons were killed and 20 others wounded.

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July 23, 1980wednesday
Riad Taha, a 53 years old well known journalist, and President of the Press Syndicate for 13 years, was cowardly shot at Chourane by professional killers who opened fire on his car; 7 bullets hit him. The Press Syndicate claimed damages for a criminal act.

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Syrian troops guarded Riad Taha's and al-Lawzi's funerals, Fisk notes; the government condemned both killings but claimed not to know the culprits. Fisk counts both among journalists who crossed Syria.

August 5, 1980tuesday
A Shiite Ulema, Sheikh Ali Badreddine, was found dead in the region of Zahrani.

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August 23, 1980saturday
Heavy armament combats were signaled in Tripoli between local militias, causing 16 deaths and 40 injuries.

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October 5, 1980sunday
While the war was raging between Iraq and Iran, assaults continued against several embassies in Beirut. After the US, the Iraqi, and the Iranian chancelleries, a load of dynamite was thrown on the Saudi embassy in Bliss Street at Ras-Beirut.

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October 23, 1980thursday
A dialog government was formed. The new team included 22 Ministers of which 5 were State Ministers. Chafic Wazzan: Prime Minister, Minister of Interior Fouad Boutros: Vice-President of the Council, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants Joseph Skaff: Minister of Defense Nazih Bizri: Minister of Health Khatchig Babikian: Minister of Health Rene Moawad : Minister of National Education and Fine Arts Khaled Joumblatt: Minister of Economy and Commerce Joseph Aboukhater: Minister of State Michel Murr: Minister of Posts and Telecommunications Anouar Sabbah: Minister of Hydraulic and Electric Resources Ali El Khalil: Minister of Finance Mahmoud Ammar: Minister of State Elias Hraoui: Minister of Public Works and Transports Mounir Aboufadel: Minister of State Mohammed Youssef Beydoun: Minister of Industry and Oil Cesar Nasr : Minister of State Sami Younes: Minister of State Selim Jahel : Minister of Housing and Cooperatives Abdel Rahman Labban: Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Mostapha Dernayka: Minister of Agriculture Marwan Hamade : Minister of Tourism

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Ménargues: the Housing and Cooperatives portfolio went to Selim Jahel, a law professor who drafted Bashir Gemayel's main French letters and speeches. When Amine Gemayel pressed for his ally Samy Maroun as well, Bashir insisted on one or the other, and Sarkis chose Jahel.

November 5, 1980wednesday
After Bechir Obeid and Kamal Kheir Beik, two leaders from the Social National Syrian Party, were killed in West Beirut, as well as a civilian called Mounir Fatha, bloody confrontations opposed the Mourabitoun to the SNSP.

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November 23, 1980sunday
The short movie made by the Lebanese Randa Chahal, Autrefois, won the special prize of the Seventh Carthage Cinematographic Days.

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January 5, 1981monday
Militiamen led by the dissident officer Saad Haddad bombarded the locality of Hasbaya, causing important damages.

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