De Clerck and Malsagne call 1987's currency crisis the gravest since independence, the pound losing up to 90 percent of its value; on Banque du Liban figures (Hanf), it fell from about 35 to the dollar in 1986 to some 520.

By late 1986, say de Clerck and Malsagne, Chatila was 90 percent destroyed, yet 500 to 1,000 Palestinians held out inside. In the winter of 1987, Picard writes, many Palestinians in the besieged Beirut camps died of hunger.

Hanf has the PSP and its leftist allies overrunning Amal's Murr Tower headquarters and taking Hamra after five days of what he calls West Beirut's worst fighting, its destruction on the scale of the 1982 siege. The size of the Syrian force differs by source: 12,000 soldiers plus Special Forces (de Clerck and Malsagne), 8,000 (Quéméner), two brigades (Hanf), the re-formed 85th Brigade (Fisk). The troops entered on 22 February according to most sources (see addition 1987-02-22).

Karami had announced his resignation on 4 May. Who was responsible is disputed: Hanf (1993) writes that it was never established who planted the bomb in the army helicopter; de Clerck and Malsagne report that it was attributed to Samir Geagea's Lebanese Forces, and Picard notes that Geagea was later tried for it. Selim al-Hoss, Minister of Education, became acting prime minister; the cabinet never met again and governed by circulated decrees.

The numbers differ: about 800 PSP fighters (de Clerck and Malsagne, after the Washington Post of 21 September 1987) or about 1,000 Druze militiamen and 300 fighters of leftist organisations (Hanf). Hanf adds that the parties received a share of their pay and sees the episode as a sign of resignation after the Syrian return.

Not long before he was killed, Masse remarked that the foreign press passed over much of Lebanon's cultural, economic and political life; Picard quotes him.

Hanf: the union-backed peace movement peaked in November 1987. Police estimated 60,000 people from East and West Beirut at the Museum crossing, its largest rally; others took place in Tripoli, Jbeil, Sidon and Tyre (see addition 1987-11-museum-demonstration).

The statement that hospitals had never before been attacked needs qualifying: Fisk records Israeli artillery hitting Beirut's main hospitals, the American University Hospital among them, in the 1982 siege, and Hanf reports pro-Iranian groups attacking vehicles bound for the American University and its clinic.

Hanf (p. 315) dates the lifting of Amal's blockade of the camps to 18 January 1988. The sources disagree on when the war of the camps ended: September 1987 (Picard's chronology), January 1988 (Picard, Hanf, de Clerck) or late 1988 (Hanf, p. 304).

According to de Clerck and Malsagne (pp. 204-205), inflation peaked in 1987: the pound was devalued by 485% and Beirut consumer prices went up 450%.