According to Ménargues, Syria's foreign minister Abdel Halim Khaddam brought a five-page paper to Baabda on 5 May. In effect a Lebanese–Syrian accord on institutions, politics, the economy and culture, down to school curricula, it was rejected by the Kataeb leader Pierre Gemayel.

In Ménargues, the 'red line' between Sohmor and Yohmor in the southern Bekaa was occupied on 7 May by 7,000 Syrian troops: two brigades backed by tanks and heavy guns.

Ménargues writes that Habib came from Damascus by road on the evening of 7 May, Beirut airport being closed. De Clerck and Malsagne date Reagan's dispatch of Habib to 4 May.

For 8 May, a day of shelling throughout Habib's meetings, Ménargues gives the US embassy toll: 21 dead and 98 wounded.

Ménargues's run of drone losses begins on 14 May, when a Syrian SAM-6 downed an Israeli reconnaissance drone over the Bekaa; more were lost on 19, 22 (two) and 25 May.

The meeting was called after Begin told the Knesset on 4 June of his promises to Lebanon's Christians. The Arab envoys asked Bashir Gemayel to break with Israel; he demanded guarantees in return (Hanf, Ménargues).

Ménargues has some 600 Internal Security Forces gendarmes entering Zahleh on 30 June, ending the siege, and the 95 fighters from outside the town leaving by bus over a mountain road behind a Syrian colonel's car, past Syrian troops posted along it; Hanf says they left under Saudi escort. Siege toll: 200 dead and over 2,000 wounded (Ménargues), over 200 and 2,000 (de Clerck and Malsagne), 300 and 3,000 by the Phalange's count (Fisk).