311 news for February, June, July
with the bookspage 1 of 8 next
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Antoine Khuraych headed the Maronite Church from his election on 3 February 1975 (enthronement 9 February) until 1986, styling himself the 'patriarch of dialogue'.
The new Cabinet included the following 6 members Rachid Karameh - Prime Minister, Minster of Finance, National Defense, and Information. Camille Chamoun - Minister of Interior, Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, and Hydraulic and Electric Resources. Adel Osseirane - Minster of Justice, Public Works, Economy and Trade Magid Arslane : Minster of Health, Agriculture, and Housing and Cooperatives. Philippe Takla - Minister of Foreign Affairs, National Education, and Plan. Ghassan Tueni - Minister of Labor and Social Affairs, Tourism, and Industry and Oil. This government aimed, in a climate of daily fights and extreme tension, at dismantling barricades, taking away heavy armaments, suppressing defense positions, and reopening the roads.
\_this day in full the books also date it 6 July 1975 \_on this day
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Hanf puts the cabinet's formation at the end of June and its announcement some two weeks before the 15 July confidence vote (83 for, none against, 16 Jumblatt supporters abstaining); Traboulsi's chronology gives 6 July. Neither the Kataeb nor Jumblatt was included. A cease-fire followed, which Traboulsi says was reached with Syrian mediators' help.
\_this day in full the books also date it 9 June 1976 \_on this day
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Historians date the entry of Syrian regular troops to 1 June 1976 (Ménargues gives 9 June). President Assad announced it in the presence of the visiting Soviet Prime Minister Kosygin, citing appeals from the Akkar villages of Qubayat and Andaqit, besieged since January and attacked by the Lebanese Arab Army on 27 May. Columns moved towards Akkar and Tripoli, Zahleh and the Bekaa, and Sidon by way of Jezzine. Estimates of the force range from 6,000 men at the start (with 260 armoured vehicles, according to Ménargues) to 12,000-15,000 within weeks, with 250-300 tanks (de Clerck and Malsagne).
\_this day in full the books also date it 14 November 1976 \_on this day
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In Beirut in early June, Hanf writes, Fatah and its allies turned on Saiqa, the PLA and the pro-Syrian parties and cleared them from the city within a few hours. Syria's regular army stayed outside the capital for now: on 7 June its troops got as far as Sofar on the Beirut-Damascus road and into Sidon, where an armoured column was wiped out. Syrian forces reached Beirut only in mid-November, within the Arab Deterrent Force.
\_this day in full the books also date it 9 June 1976 \_on this day
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Picard (2016) dates to 9 June 1976 the Arab League Council resolution, taken in Cairo, that created an Arab peace force. Hanf has some 2,000 Sudanese arriving first, then Libyans; Picard (2002) says Tripoli sent 500 men in June.
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Fisk reports that the bodies of Ambassador Francis Meloy, his economic counsellor Robert Waring and their Lebanese driver, abducted near the Museum crossing, were found that evening at Ramlet al-Baida, and that Arafat, once sure of the three Palestinians responsible, sent them to Tyre. De Clerck and Malsagne judge that the murders ended American efforts at a settlement through the Lebanese parties.
\_this day in full the books also date it 16 June 1976 \_on this day
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Barely a tenth of American and British residents accepted the evacuation, Fisk writes. The British went by road, the PLO escorting them through West Beirut and a Libyan officer on to the Syrian lines; a day later a US landing craft took evacuees off from a PLO-guarded bathing club on the Corniche.
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Sudan supplied the Arab peace force's first contingent, some 2,000 men, and Libya the next (Hanf).
\_this day in full the books also date it 22 June 1976 \_on this day
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Yara El Khoury dates the start of the final offensive on Jisr al-Basha and Tal al-Za'tar to 22 June 1976, and Hanf's account (Jisr al-Basha stormed eight days after the first assault, on 1 July) points to the same week. The camps had been blockaded since January. Hanf says Chamoun's Tigers and Christian units of the army led the attack, the Kataeb joining later; a joint command of Bashir Gemayel (Kataeb), Dany Chamoun and Nabil Karam (NLP), Fawzi Mahfouz (Tanzim) and Etienne Saqr (Guardians of the Cedar) coordinated it (de Clerck and Malsagne).
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Hanf dates Lebanese Front forces' capture of the Jisr al-Basha camp to this day; de Clerck and Malsagne give 29 June, Picard August.
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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.
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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 decree stipulated mainly that rent contracts remained operative, while backlogs will be staggered on 18 months with no interest for all rents under 5,000 Lebanese Pounds. As to destroyed properties, there were three possibilities: reconstruct, compensate the renters, or give them shares.
Intense diplomatic activity was carried on in Beirut. The French Minister of Foreign Affairs started an official visit. The American Secretary of State met, during a visit to the Middle East, with President Sarkis in Beirut reassuring him that the United States supports the independence, unity and territorial integrity of the country. He announced a 50 million dollars aid to Lebanon.
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APUR, the Atelier parisien d'urbanisme, drew up this 1977 plan, the earliest of three reconstruction studies made during the war.
Twelve armed men highjacked a Boeing 707 belonging to the Kuwait Airways company. 45 passengers, including the Kuwaiti ambassador in Lebanon and ten crewmembers, were on board. The highjackers claimed the liberation of 300 persons detained in six Arab countries. The next day, they set the hostages free and surrendered to the authorities
The technical four-party committee decided unanimously the following: -Approving the two plans of action for the execution of the Cairo agreement. -Entrusting the regular Lebanese forces and the Arab Strike Force with the supervision of their execution in all regions, including Southern Lebanon. -Starting the execution of the two plans of action on July 30, no armed elements will be allowed to circulate outside the camps. -Withdrawal of the Palestinian forces up to 15 kilometers north of the borderline with Israel.
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Syria, Hanf writes, had lost interest in disarming the Palestinians by autumn 1977, with Sadat's initiative under way, and the deal soon counted for nothing. It had bound the PLO to keep out of a ten-kilometre belt beside the Israeli frontier and, chiefly, to halt raids and shelling across it.
Lebanese Soldiers fought with elements of the Arab Strike Force. Shots were exchanged followed by heavy armaments shootings.
\_this day in full the books also date it 8 February 1978, 17 February 1978 \_on this day
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Historians date the Fayadiyeh incident to 7 February (de Clerck and Malsagne), 8 February (Hanf) or 17 February (Ménargues). It began when Syrian soldiers set up a roadblock in front of the Military Academy; officer cadets, led according to de Clerck and Malsagne by Captain Samir (Sami) al-Achkar, fought back and Syrian artillery shelled the barracks. Syrian losses are given as 13 dead and 36 wounded (de Clerck and Malsagne), over 30 dead (Ménargues) or 220 dead and 30 wounded (Hanf). As fighting spread into East Beirut, about a hundred people died when Syrian guns shelled Badaro, Ain el-Remmaneh and Karm el-Zeitoun. Sarkis and Damascus settled the affair with a joint Lebanese-Syrian military court. De Clerck and Malsagne date the Syria-Christian split to it.
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