75 news for the 6th, 13th of every month
with the bookspage 1 of 2 next
The army succeeded, after a tense day of occasional shootings, to invest and control the old town of Tripoli where many outlaws have been hiding for the past 6 months. Two civilians died, 12 were wounded, and 75 persons were arrested.
These people were on board of a bus bringing back from Tell El Zaatar members of Palestinian Organizations who had just participated in a Resistance meeting. Because of the incident, tension rose in the Palestinian camp and in many surrounding towns. Authorities and mediators were trying to calm the waters and ask the Phalange Party leader, Pierre Gemayel, to hand over those responsible of the incident to the Lebanese Justice.
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The day began with shootings near the church in Ain al-Rummaneh, where Pierre Gemayel was attending a consecration; his bodyguard Joseph Bou Assi was killed. In the early afternoon Kataeb militiamen fired on a bus returning to Tal al-Za'tar from a rally of the Arab Liberation Front. Most historians count 27 dead (Hanf, Fisk, de Clerck and Malsagne: 27 of 35 passengers); Traboulsi gives 21 and Ménargues 31. According to de Clerck and Malsagne the bus carried Palestinians and Lebanese in equal numbers, all men. Fighting spread that evening across the suburbs of Beirut.
The capital was rapidly set ablaze. It was the apocalypse. Militias launched street fights resulting in tens of innocent victims. Violence was at its peek and nothing seemed to end this thirst for blood.
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The bodies of four young Kataeb members were found on 6 December 1975, while Pierre Gemayel was in Damascus; Muslims seized at makeshift checkpoints by the port were killed in reprisal. Accounts place the bodies in the Metn (Hanf), near Tal al-Za'tar (Haugbolle) or outside the electricity company offices (Fisk). De Clerck and Malsagne blame Joseph Saadeh, whose son was among the four. Only Fisk puts Bashir Gemayel in Damascus and cites Phalangist officers saying he ordered the reprisal. The Muslim dead number about 200 (Hanf, Traboulsi, de Clerck and Malsagne) or several dozen (Picard); Fisk gives at least 300 Muslims, and probably as many Christians, in the reprisals.
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Ménargues has William Hawi shot by a Palestinian sniper in June 1976, at the end of the Tal al-Za'tar siege; Traboulsi places it during the siege. Bashir Gemayel succeeded him as Kataeb militia chief.
The Lebanese reacted with firmness and indignation to the conspiracy initiated by foreign countries. According to Salim El Hoss, 'Every project expecting the settlement of Palestinians outside of their land is rejected.' The President of the Republic also rejected any project stipulating the permanent settlement of Palestinians in Lebanon. 'Our country should determine itself what it is able to offer. It is unfair to solve the Palestinian question by creating a Lebanese problem. We will make every effort to let our right prevail', he said.
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Hanf notes that in December 1977 Menachem Begin, Israel's prime minister, had excluded any return of the Palestinian refugees in neighbouring countries.
It considered that the Palestinian Resistance did not have its place in Lebanon anymore. The Front proclaimed that all the agreements with the PLO were null and void. The Front hoped that the Lebanese army replaces the primarily Syrian Arab Strike Force. President Sarkis was determined to dispatch the army to the South.
\_this day in full the books also date it 14 June 1978 \_on this day
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Historians date the Ehden killings to 13 June (de Clerck and Malsagne) or 14 June (Hanf). A unit of some 200 men (Traboulsi) led by Samir Geagea attacked the Frangieh residence; besides Tony Frangieh, his wife and their three-year-old daughter, about thirty relatives and supporters were killed. The Phalange presented the raid as retaliation for the killing of their local leader Jud al-Bayeh in early June; Bashir Gemayel denied ordering the killing of the family. The raid also turned on control of the Chekka cement works. Syrian troops then occupied Ehden and much of the north.
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Hanf: clashes among the Christian militias grew more frequent after the partial Syrian withdrawal, which removed Syrian checkpoints on the roads into East Beirut and between Achrafieh and the Christian suburbs and gave the militias one unbroken territory for the first time since 1976.
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Hanf: early in 1980 Amal fought the Iraqi-backed Arab Liberation Front in Beirut's suburbs while Fatah tried to mediate, as relations between Shi'is and Palestinians grew worse; the fighting later reached the south.
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Ménargues dates the resignation to March 1980, after repeated deadlock between Hoss and Sarkis over the army; Hoss stayed on as caretaker until Shafiq Wazzan's appointment in late October.
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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.
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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.
The Security Council adopted immediately a resolution requesting the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all Israeli forces up to the internationally recognized borderlines. However, this did not stop Israel from reaching Saida and Tyr.
\_this day in full the books also date it 5 June 1982 \_on this day
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The invasion, called 'Operation Peace for Galilee', began on Sunday 6 June: Israeli commandos crossed the border at 1.30 a.m. to attack Beaufort castle (Ménargues), and up to 25,000 troops moved along the coast, through Tibnin and across the eastern sector (Fisk). The government declared a limited aim of a 40-kilometre zone, but Defence Minister Ariel Sharon and Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan kept advancing (Hanf). One overview in de Clerck and Malsagne and Picard's chronology give 5 June.
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On 13 June Israeli forces reached Baabda and Yarze, seats of the presidency and the army command, and joined the Lebanese Forces' lines (Hanf, Ménargues); Fisk dates the arrival of Sharon and his forward troops at Baabda to just before midnight.
\_this day in full the books also date it 5 August 1982 \_on this day
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In rue Aussi near Sanayeh park a car bomb exploded among rescuers minutes after Israeli bombs levelled two five-storey blocks, says Robert Fisk's dispatch datelined West Beirut, 5 August; a neighbour put over 100 people, mostly squatters from the camps and the south, beneath the rubble. Arafat had reportedly met there just before.
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After the Israeli advance, Lebanese Forces militiamen set up checkpoints in the Chouf and Aley; clashes with Druze fighters followed and the Israelis often mediated (Hanf). De Clerck and Malsagne date the 'Mountain War' from summer 1982, the Lebanese Forces fighting first the SSNP's Druze and then the PSP.
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