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December 11, 1984tuesday
The dollar exceeded 9 Lebanese Pounds.
\_this day in full \_on this day
\_what the books add
De Clerck and Malsagne give 8.7 pounds to the dollar for 1984, without a month.
December 13, 1984thursday
The Israelis launched a wide repression operation in South Lebanon. 3,000 men searched the region for members of the Resistance and arrested several of them.
\_this day in full \_on this day
\_what the books add
Fisk counts a hundred attacks on Israeli forces in December 1984, when the Sayeret Matkal commandos searched villages east of Tyre on foot and Shin Bet men beat youths each time. De Clerck and Malsagne date the complete sealing-off of the Israeli-held zone from the rest of Lebanon to autumn 1984.
December 15, 1984saturday
The Army's deployment plan between Madfoun and the Awali river as well as in the Iqlim El Kharroub was finally executed. The entire population went on strike in South Lebanon to protest against the military operation of December 13.
\_this day in full the books also date it 9 January 1985 \_on this day
\_what the books add
Hanf dates the army's advance into the Sidon region to 9 January 1985, as Israel began pulling back. Some of the 15 December deployment may have been north of the Awali, which he does not detail. The southern strike is not in the books.
December 20, 1984thursday
December 29, 1984saturday
December 3, 1985tuesday
For the first time since the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, the Israeli Army carried out an important military operation outside the Security Zone. A base belonging to Ahmed Jibril's Popular Palestinian Liberation Front was destroyed in the Region of Rachaya El Wadi.
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December 11, 1985wednesday
A new security plan was executed in West Beirut. The army and the Internal Security Forces were controlling the public order, with the help of the Amal-PSP military police.
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December 28, 1985saturday
The Lebanese Forces, the PSP and Amal signed an agreement in Damascus, putting an end to the Lebanese war.
The year ended with some hope for the Lebanese, following the signature of the tripartite agreement, while the economy was agonizing and hundreds of Lebanese and foreign hostages were living in horrifying daily conditions.
\_this day in full the books also date it 12 March 1985 \_on this day
\_what the books add
Signed in Damascus by Elie Hobeika (Lebanese Forces), Nabih Berri (Amal) and Walid Jumblatt (PSP) under Syrian sponsorship. It provided for Christian-Muslim parity during a transition towards the end of political sectarianism, a stronger prime minister and cabinet, a senate, and 'strategic complementarity' with Syria. It did not end the war: President Gemayel refused it and, in January 1986, Samir Geagea's forces drove Hobeika out of East Beirut. Its provisions were largely taken up in the Taif Agreement of 1989.
December 2, 1986tuesday
A general strike paralyzed the country. The Lebanese were unable to cope with the increase in prices. The leaders couldn't find any solution to the crisis. The popular discontent was on the rise.
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December 5, 1986friday
Abou Melhem died. The great TV comedian, whose real name was Adib Haddad, became famous for playing, for many years, the character of a villager famous for his common sense. The grandfather of all the Lebanese had disappeared.
\_this day in full \_on this day
December 13, 1986saturday
The Camps Car continued. After ten hours of violent combats, the Chatila camp was 90% destroyed and tens of deaths were reported.
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\_what the books add
Typhoid broke out in besieged Chatila during this third camps war.
December 19, 1986friday
Violent combats opposed in Tripoli the Syrian Army to Islamist militiamen. The fights made 12 dead and 35 injuries. The Syrian Army launched an Islamists hunting at the end of which one of the major leaders of the Islamic Unification Movement was arrested.
\_this day in full \_on this day
\_what the books add
Picard puts the toll of the December 1986 Syrian bombardment of Tripoli at more than 100 dead.
December 24, 1986wednesday
Aurel Cornea, one of the Antenne 2 journalists kidnapped on June 21, was released by the Organization of Revolutionary Justice.
\_this day in full the books also date it 8 March 1986 \_on this day
\_what the books add
The Antenne 2 crew was kidnapped on 8 March 1986 (de Clerck and Malsagne), not on 21 June.
December 26, 1986friday
The dollar crossed the 80 Lebanese Pounds threshold. It continued its rise to reach the fateful three digit numbers. According to statistics, consumer products had increased by 204% in a year and the Lebanese Pound had depreciated by 365%.
\_this day in full \_on this day
\_what the books add
Historians give lower figures for 1986: retail inflation of 162 per cent (Hanf, after the central bank) or a 95 per cent rise in Beirut consumer prices, and a 134 per cent devaluation of the pound (de Clerck and Malsagne).
December 2, 1987wednesday
While credits are unblocked to buy fuel and service stations are reopened, Victor Cassir, Minister of Industry and Oil, authorizes private companies to import fuel subject to a previous authorization by the Ministry of Oil.
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December 8, 1987tuesday
The storm is raging in the country. Floods provoke important damages and kill 5 persons. On the other hand, electric power becomes rare.
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December 28, 1987monday
Charles Malek dies at the age of 82 ans following a long period of illness. The news of the death of the former Council's Vice-President and Minister of Foreign Affairs saddens the political, as well as the academic and intellectual sets. The American President Ronald Reagan addresses an emotional tribute to the memory of the academic, the philosopher and the politician.
\_this day in full \_on this day
December 7, 1988wednesday
On the fifth day of a blockade imposed by the closure of the Museum-Berbir junction, the only supply road for fuel and food products, the bank of Lebanon gives up to the pressures and unfreezes credits for the West Beirut sector for direct importation of flour.
\_this day in full \_on this day
December 13, 1988tuesday
An agreement takes place between the employers and the General Confederation of Lebanese Workers. The minimum wage is thus increased to 25,000 LBP.
\_this day in full \_on this day
December 20, 1988tuesday
Four days after the liberation of the R.C.I.C. Swiss delegate, Peter Winkler, kidnapped in Southern Lebanon on November 17 and released on December 16, the Red Cross International Committee decides to suspend its operations in Lebanon immediately and to repatriate its delegates.
\_this day in full \_on this day
December 29, 1988thursday
Two French little girls (Marie-Laure and Virginie Valente) kidnapped 13 months earlier are delivered by the Libyan authorities to a French government emissary. The year ends in a very tense climate. The Lebanese are wondering about their future.
\_this day in full \_on this day
December 4, 1989monday
Violent combats between Amal and the Hezbollah in the West of the Bekaa end with the expulsion of Amal from the villages in the region.
\_this day in full \_on this day
\_what the books add
The books place the renewed Amal-Hezbollah fighting of December 1989 in Iqlim al-Touffah, east of Sidon. Hanf says it started after Hezbollah fighters from the Bekaa crossed the zone held by the South Lebanon Army.
December 3, 1990monday
The Lebanese Forces achieve the evacuation of their heavy armaments. Great Beirut has become a reality.
\_this day in full \_on this day
\_what the books add
Hanf: on 4 December 1990 soldiers started clearing the Green Line barricades, the Lebanese Forces having left Beirut on 3 December except for 300 men at their Karantina headquarters and in the port.
December 5, 1990wednesday
The Lebanese Army controls the port of Beirut and the 5th dock is closed to the maritime traffic.
\_this day in full the books also date it 3 December 1990, 11 March 1991 \_on this day
\_what the books add
Hanf says 300 Lebanese Forces militiamen stayed at Karantina and the port after the December 1990 withdrawal, and dates the army's entry into the Fifth Basin and other militia ports to 11 March 1991.
December 10, 1990monday
The Fouad Chehab avenue, known under the name of the ring, was finally reopened to the circulation in both directions. This passage, closed since 1984, was completely cleaned up and free of mines.
\_this day in full the books also date it 4 December 1990 \_on this day
December 13, 1990thursday
December 19, 1990wednesday
President Hoss resigns and Omar Karame is designated Prime Minster. His task is to put together a New Government of National Union.
\_this day in full \_on this day
\_what the books add
Hanf: Omar Karami was asked on 20 December 1990 to form a government after Hoss quit on the 19th; Hrawi had settled its make-up with the Syrians in Damascus on 15 December, excluding Hoss and Speaker Husseini.
December 24, 1990monday
The Karame Government is composed of 30 Ministers including 9 Ministers of State, but the Lebanese Forces and the Kataeb refuse to be part of it.
\_this day in full \_on this day
\_what the books add
Hanf lists the parties left out of the Karami cabinet of 24 December 1990: Hezbollah, the National Liberals, Aoun's supporters and the Communists. With 30 ministers it was Lebanon's largest. Berri, Jumblatt, Geagea, Hobeika, Suleiman Frangieh, Abdallah el-Amin and Assad Hardan, seven militia chiefs, joined as ministers of state without portfolio. After the Lebanese Forces protested at its make-up, Geagea urged the Christian ministers to resign; only his two colleagues followed. It won confidence on 9 January 1991.
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