The siege of Damour had begun on 9 January, before the fall of Karantina; the main massacre began on 20 January (Hanf, Ménargues, Fisk, de Clerck and Malsagne; Traboulsi gives 22 or 24 January). Jiyeh fell the same day. The attackers were mainly PLA, Saiqa and Fatah units, with Lebanese leftist parties. Estimates of the dead range from about 150 bodies found plus 200 missing (Fisk) and 300-584 (de Clerck and Malsagne) to about 900 (Ménargues); some 5,000 people fled by land and sea.

Ménargues names only Sami al-Khatib. Traboulsi confirms that the Arab Deterrent Force's first Lebanese commander was Ahmad al-Hajj, who did not gain Syria's favour and was quickly replaced by al-Khatib.

Fisk: Kahhaleh showed white flags and Hazmiyeh's Christians threw rice and rose water at the crews as at least 20 miles of Syrian tanks, guns and troop carriers came down on Beirut from dawn on 10 November.

Israel, Hanf notes, would accept no Arab troops south of the 'red line', Syrian ones least of all. When a Syrian unit entered Nabatiyeh in January 1977, an Israeli protest got it withdrawn and the Palestinians kept the town.

Its members were technocrats and businessmen; the one politician, Fouad Boutros, held both foreign affairs and defence (Traboulsi). Early on, at Syria's behest, it brought in press censorship (Hanf, Fisk); Traboulsi also mentions an order for militias to surrender their arms.

Its unprecedented powers spanned planning, funding and running reconstruction. It replaced the Planning Ministry in 1977; Picard calls it the economy's 'superministry'.

Robert Fisk, who reported from the area, saw Israeli tanks on Lebanese soil near Ibl al-Saqi and Israeli shelling of Christian villages such as Rachaya al-Fukhar, where Palestinian guerrillas had dug in.

Once canonised, Saint Charbel stood for 'Maronite identity' and for the protection of a predominantly Christian Lebanon.

Officially no killer was named, but al-Lawzi's murder was widely blamed on his criticism of Syrian rule (Fisk; Picard). Fisk: he was seized near a Syrian army checkpoint heading for the airport.

In Ménargues's account Damascus rejected Takieddine Solh, finding him too lukewarm about Lebanese–Syrian friendship, and offered three names instead, Selim Hoss's among them.

Ménargues attributes Solh's failure to a Syrian veto.