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13 news for April, June 1985

with the books
April 1, 1985monday
The region of Saida was heavily bombarded. Artillery duels opposed the Lebanese Forces on the one hand, to local antigovernment militias and army units that don't follow the commandment of Yarzeh on the other.

\_this day in full the books also date it 24 April 1985 \_on this day

April 11, 1985thursday
The Israelis left Nabatyeh, followed by the Resistance.

\_this day in full \_on this day

April 16, 1985tuesday
West Beirut plunged back into panic and street combats, with the outburst of abrupt confrontations between Amal and the Mourabitun, killing 2 persons and wounding 16 others.

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\_what the books add

These clashes ended with the destruction of the Mourabitoun militia by Amal and the PSP. Fisk and Hanf date it to April 1985; Picard and de Clerck and Malsagne to May 1985.

April 24, 1985wednesday
After 40 days of combats, the Lebanese Forces fighters started to withdraw from Saida. The Israelis continued their withdrawal in the West of the Bekaa region; only 12% of the Lebanese territory remained under their control. The Lebanese Army settled in the evacuated areas but the PSP positioned in the Barouk while the South Lebanon Army took position in Jezzine.

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Hanf: Lahad's South Lebanon Army halted the Palestinian and Sunni advance at Kfar Falous, midway between Sidon and Jezzine, and on 24 April the Lebanese Forces' fighters from other regions shipped out to Beirut with their heavy artillery. De Clerck and Malsagne date Lahad's creation of the SLA to April 1985, after Israel left Tyre.

April 26, 1985friday
The Islamic-Progressive militias rushed into Christian villages next to Saida. Thousands of families were forced out of their homes. Tens of Christian villages in the Iqlim El Kharroub and East of Saida were looted, vandalized, and burned. The State was more powerless than ever, the Lebanese Army being unable to stop the massacres.

\_this day in full the books also date it 24 April 1985 \_on this day

\_what the books add

About fifty Christian villages east of Sidon and in the Iqlim al-Kharroub were taken. Estimates of the Christians displaced range from 70,000 (Picard) and 85,000-86,000 (Hanf) to 80,000-125,000 (de Clerck and Malsagne), many reaching East Beirut by sea; few have returned. Hanf writes that the Kharroub villages were razed with Transport Ministry equipment; Fisk describes Mieh Mieh looted and torn down, and a well filled with corpses at Jiyeh after the Druze took it.

April 29, 1985monday
The Israelis withdrew from Tyr and the Lebanese army replaced them.

\_this day in full \_on this day

\_what the books add

Fisk: once Israel had left Tyre, Shia militiamen called the Litani bridge the 'Khalil Jerardi bridge', after the resistance leader killed at Maarakeh.

April 30, 1985tuesday
It was hell in Beirut. Insane bombing continued in both sectors of the capital, crossing points had been closed illustrating the gravity of the situation, while 20,000 Christians from South Lebanon took refuge in the region of Marjeyoun.

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Israeli helicopters dropped leaflets urging the Christians who fled in 1985 to stay in the occupied zone; most went north to the Christian areas. Hanf counts 86,000 refugees in Jezzine and the zone.

June 6, 1985thursday
Israel officially completed its withdrawal from South Lebanon. Nevertheless, several Israeli soldiers continued to occupy the Security Zone. In reality, the last Israeli armored vehicle left Lebanon on June 10 after an accident in which Israel lost 654 deaths and 3890 injured, and four disappeared soldiers.

\_this day in full the books also date it 17 February 1985, 28 December 1985 \_on this day

\_what the books add

Israeli losses: de Clerck and Malsagne count 670 dead and nearly 3,000 wounded between June 1982 and June 1985 (and 721 dead and 3,890 wounded for the whole war); Traboulsi writes of some 500 dead. Israel kept a 'security zone' policed with Lahad's South Lebanon Army.

June 11, 1985tuesday
A Boeing of the Alia airlines was hijacked by a suicide commando called Moussa Sadr, requesting the evacuation of all Palestinian fighters from Beirut. The hostages were freed the next day and the airplane was dynamited at the Beirut International Airport.

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An American passenger was hijacked twice in a day, Fisk writes: moved from the Jordanian plane, which Amal gunmen set alight on the runway, onto an MEA Boeing that a Lebanese then seized in protest.

June 14, 1985friday
A car bomb exploded next to a checkpoint belonging to the sixth brigade in Jnah causing 13 dead and 36 injured.
A Boeing 727 from the TWA connecting Athena to Rome was hijacked over Beirut. The hijackers requested the liberation of all prisoners held in Israeli jails. One of the US passengers was shot. Nabih Berri negotiated with the hijackers, and around 40 American hostages were transferred to the Southern suburbs of Beirut. A US naval force headed to Lebanon on June 17. On June 24, Israel released 31 prisoners. On June 30, the US hostages were released. An International Red Cross convoy took them to Damascus where they boarded on a plane going to Frankfurt.

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Fisk identifies the TWA 847 hijackers as Hezbollah members operating as Islamic Jihad and names Imad Mughniyeh as the planner; the passenger they killed was Robert Stethem, a US Navy diver. Amal moved most of the passengers into the southern suburbs. In the end Syrian officers received the hostages and took them to Damascus, and Israel released its Lebanese Shia prisoners over the next two months.

June 17, 1985monday
The Damascus agreement put an end to the Camps War that caused, in four weeks, 700 deaths and 2,500 injured.

\_this day in full the books also date it 12 March 1985, 19 May 1985, 22 May 1985 \_on this day

\_what the books add

This ceasefire closed only the first round (May-June 1985) of the 'War of the Camps', also known as the 'Ramadan war'; by the time Syria imposed it, Fisk reports, 600 people had died. Sieges and fighting returned in 1986 and went on until 1987-1988; de Clerck and Malsagne count 2,000 to 3,000 victims in all.

June 20, 1985thursday
As part of the war between Sunni Islamists and the Arab Democratic Party, a car bomb exploded in Tripoli killing 50 persons and wounding 110 others.

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June 27, 1985thursday
Elias Sarkis, former President of the Lebanese Republic, died at 61 years old. He was suffering from a disease that paralyzed his lymphatic and nervous system. Grandiose funerals were organized in Mar Takla church in Hazmieh.

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Elias Sarkis died in Paris (de Clerck and Malsagne).