lebanese war
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1975/1990
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594 news for February, March, May–July, December

with the books

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June 27, 1976sunday
The Phalange Party, the NLP, and the Guardians of the Cedar launched the 'Camps Battle'.

\_this day in full the books also date it 22 June 1976 \_on this day

\_what the books add

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).

July 1, 1976thursday
While Palestinian camps were under attack and all fronts were on fire, Beirut was short of water, electricity, and medications. The situation was intolerable.

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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.

July 5, 1976monday
The PLO and their allies launched a massive offensive against the Kura and the Christian town of Chekka north of Beirut.

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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.

July 8, 1976thursday
The leftists opened new fronts in the port and business districts, hoping to draw the rightists away from Tel El Zaatar, but the assaults were quickly repulsed by local defenders.

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July 11, 1976sunday
The National Union Front was created. Its founding members were Saeb Salam , Raymond Eddeh , Mikhael Daher , Rachid El Solh , Hassan Rifai , Albert Mansour, and Ali El Khalil

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July 13, 1976tuesday
William Hawi, commnander of the Kataeb military forces was shot and killed by a sniper whilst he was inspecting his forces on the edge of the Tel el Zaatar camp.

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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.

December 4, 1976saturday
A violent explosion hit the district of Mousseytbeh, where a bomb exploded next to Kamal Joumblatt's house, killing 4 persons and seriously injuring 20 others.

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December 9, 1976thursday
President Sarkis asked Salim El Hoss to form the Government.
The new Cabinet included: Salim El Hoss: Prime Minister, Minister of Economy and Trade, Industry and Oil, and Information. Fouad Boutros: Vice-President of the Council, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants, and National Defense. Salah Salman: Minister of Interior, and Housing and Cooperatives. Ibrahim Cheaito: Minister of Health and Hydraulic and Electric Resources. Amine Bizri: Minister of Public Works, Transportation, and Tourism. Michel Doumit: Minister of Plan Assaad Risk: Minster of Social Affairs, National Education and Fine Arts, and Agriculture. Farid Raphael: Minister of Justice, Finance, and Posts and Telecommunications.

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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.

February 4, 1977friday
The Government promulgated a decree concerning wartime conflicts between owners and renters.
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.

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February 8, 1977tuesday
Kurt Waldheim, Secretary General of the United Nations, arrived to Beirut. He declared that the United Nations would substantially help Lebanon and that the future of this country was closely linked the comprehensive solution in the Middle East.

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February 14, 1977monday
The ambassador of the United States returned to Lebanon.
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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February 28, 1977monday
A master plan for the souks of the old Beirut was submitted to the Council of Ministers. This project included the creation of a green front, an opening to the sea from the Saint George to Bahri, the construction of a port district around the first basin, the opening of avenues towards the sea, and the reconstruction of the souks.

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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.

March 10, 1977thursday
The cost of living had substantially increased in Lebanon. Meat, sugar, cheese, oil and chicken tripled since before 1975. Fares varied from a region to another due to the lack of control.

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March 16, 1977wednesday
Kamal Joumblatt was assassinated
He was leaving Moukhtara when he and two other passengers were killed. An ambush was set up not far from an Arab Strike Force control post. This assassination aroused a huge wave of disapproval. A call for a strike was immediately issued. The country was in mourning. Chief of the Lebanese left wing, leader of the Druze community, author of several political books, coming from a famous family in the Chouf, Kamal Joumblatt was born in 1917 in Moukhtara, with essentially an eclectic spirit. After he graduated from the Law school in Saint Joseph University in Beirut, he went into politics very young. In 1946 he was elected for the first time Deputy of the Chouf in the Parliament and three years later he was appointed Minister of Economy and Agriculture. In 1949, he founded the Lebanese Progressive Socialist Party (PSP). Three months before his assassination, he had given up politics.

\_this day in full the books also date it 17 March 1977 \_on this day

\_what the books add

Jumblatt was ambushed near a Syrian checkpoint of the Arab Deterrent Force; Fisk places it on the mountain road near Baaqlin. Most historians give 16 March 1977 (Traboulsi, de Clerck and Malsagne, the Confluences authors, and Hanf on one page); Hanf elsewhere and Ménargues give 17 March, which Ménargues ties to the burial. His son Walid took over, and Christians were killed in reprisal in Chouf villages. Hanf writes that most politicians, Muslims above all, took the murder as a warning against defying Syria openly, and that Jumblatt had attacked the Syrian presence in speech and print, in Lebanon and abroad.

March 19, 1977saturday
An airplane was hijacked between Turkey and Lebanon.
The operation began 50 minutes after a Boeing 727 on the Diarbakin-Ankara route took off with 182 passengers aboard and 6 crewmembers. Two hijackers forced the airplane to head towards Beirut where it landed at 4pm. The Lebanese authorities took charge of the situation and began negotiations with the hijackers. Ultimately, the passengers were released and the police arrested the hijackers.

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March 27, 1977sunday
The Arab League decided to renew the mandate of the Arab Strike Force for another six months.

\_this day in full the books also date it 18 October 1976 \_on this day

\_what the books add

The force is usually called the Arab Deterrent Force (ADF) in English.

March 27, 1977sunday
A powerful plastic charge, deposited in the elevator of the Minister of Defense, Fouad Boutros, exploded destroying the upper floor of the apartment.

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The bombing came the evening the government chose a new army commander, a change arranged by Boutros, who held foreign affairs and defence, and regarded by the Christian parties as cause for war.

March 28, 1977monday
The Council of Ministers appointed Colonel Victor Khoury at the head of the army replacing General Hanna Said.

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Muslim leaders accused Hanna Saïd, commander since September 1975, of leniency towards the Lebanese Front (Traboulsi: of closeness to the dissident troops in the south). His replacement, Victor Khoury, a Constitutional Bloc sympathiser committed to Christian-Muslim coexistence, ran the army and its rebuilding from March 1977 to December 1982.

May 3, 1977tuesday
Lebanon received about 110 million Lebanese Pounds from the EEC.

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May 13, 1977friday
An Antonov-12 air freighter belonging to the Polish company LOT crashed in the forest of Aramoun. The airplane that was returning from Warsaw carried a shipment of meat and seven crewmembers who perished in the accident.

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May 26, 1977thursday
The mandate of the Arab four-party committee in charge of the execution of the Palestinian-Lebanese Cairo agreement had expired, while the agreement had not been executed yet.

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June 4, 1977saturday
The election of Miss Lebanon was organized at the Santa Teresa in Maameltein.

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June 15, 1977wednesday
Charles Aznavour was the first star to come to Lebanon during the war. He sang in Byblos in front of a Lebanese audience trying to forget the nightmare of the last two years.

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June 19, 1977sunday
After a 19-month interruption, horse races resumed in Beirut hippodrome where 10,000 turfists gathered.

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June 30, 1977thursday
On the last day of its full-powers, the Council of Ministers published a series of decree-laws. The most important ones stipulated the revision of certain laws relative to the Lebanese University, the amendment of some press censorship laws, and the adoption of the mandatory car insurance.

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July 8, 1977friday
An armed group took control of a Boeing connecting Beirut to Kuwait.
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

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July 13, 1977wednesday
Dalida sang in Byblos and charmed the Lebanese.

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July 21, 1977thursday
The ' technical Palestinian-Syrian-Lebanese committee ' met in Chtaura, trying to put an end to the hostilities in South Lebanon and find a settlement for the Palestinian armed presence in the country, as suggested by the Cairo agreement. This meeting was the first between Lebanese, Syrians, and Palestinians since fights stopped last November. It resulted from the recent meetings between leaders of these three countries.

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July 24, 1977sunday
340 tourists made a brief stopover in Beirut. The Sol Phryne, a boat achieving a Mediterranean cruise, made a stopover in Beirut and its 340 passengers visited the capital for a few hours.

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July 25, 1977monday
An agreement was signed in Chtaura.
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.

July 30, 1977saturday
The Arab Strike Force deployed around the camps in Beirut, Tripoli, Saida and in the Bekaa region.

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February 1, 1978wednesday
An explosion injured 18 persons in Bourj. It was caused by a grenade hidden in a parked car.

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February 2, 1978thursday
Michel Sardou caused the walls at the Casino du Liban to vibrate.

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February 7, 1978tuesday
A serious incident occurred in Fayadieh.
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

\_what the books add

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.

February 25, 1978saturday
It is the first night, at the Casino du Liban theater, of the ' Akhwat Loubnan ' show written and interpreted by Nabih Aboulhosn.

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February 27, 1978monday
Diverse shows were scheduled in Lebanon. 'We Belnesba la bokra chou?' by Ziad Rahbani was a triumph at the Orly Theater.

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De Clerck and Malsagne and Haugbolle list this 1978 play first among Ziad Rahbani's comedies, which satirised the war from West Beirut.

March 8, 1978wednesday
The US government agreed on granting Lebanon an agricultural loan of the amount of 8,800,000 dollars.

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March 14, 1978tuesday
Israel invaded the South, after an operation executed by the Fedayin on March 11 at Tel Aviv.
25,000 men backed by the aviation, armored vehicles and artillery invaded, within 2 hours, a tenth of Lebanon and forced Palestinians to withdraw to the North of the Litani. A first estimate reported 700 deaths and 160,000 displaced persons. Refugees rushed to Beirut causing a serious social problem. Air raids bombarded Damour, Ouzaï, and Tyr.

\_this day in full the books also date it 15 March 1978 \_on this day

\_what the books add

Historians date the start of Operation Litani to 14 March (de Clerck and Malsagne, Traboulsi, Quéméner; de Clerck's chronology gives 15 March) and its end to 21 March. Up to 25,000 Israeli soldiers and 120 tanks took part (de Clerck and Malsagne). Estimates of the dead range from about 300 Palestinian fighters (de Clerck and Malsagne) to about 2,000 people, mostly civilians (Fisk; de Clerck and Malsagne; Picard). Estimates of the displaced range from 150,000 (Hanf's refugee table) and more than 200,000 (de Clerck and Malsagne, Picard) to 285,000 (Lebanese government figure cited by Fisk). On 15 March Israeli aircraft bombed the Palestinian camps of Beirut, Tyre and Damour.

March 15, 1978wednesday
According to a report issued by the Ministry of Finance, the losses in the public sector were estimated at 7.5 billion Lebanese Pounds.

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March 19, 1978sunday
The Security council adopted the 425 Resolution which stipulated the expedition of 4,000 blue helmets to confirm the withdrawal of the Israeli forces. They had also to assist the Lebanese government in the restoration of its authority in the region.

\_this day in full the books also date it 18 March 1978 \_on this day

\_what the books add

Resolution 425 was adopted with Resolution 426, which set up the force; the USSR abstained (de Clerck and Malsagne). UNIFIL later numbered about 6,000 soldiers, with France providing the largest first contingent (1,290 men).

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