Early in 1983 the Eighth Brigade went into all of Beirut, the east included, under a plan to collect light arms in the city and clear heavy weapons and gunmen from Greater Beirut. The Lebanese Forces resisted, then on 1 March 1983 agreed to return East Beirut and the port's fifth basin to the state.

De Clerck and Malsagne date the Lebanese Forces' return of the fifth basin to the state to 1 March 1983. Until then its customs receipts, put at 5 million dollars a month, supplied 20% of the militia's revenue. The army held it until 1985, when Samir Geagea took it back.

A caller claimed the attacks for 'Islamic Jihad', then an unknown name; the same voice later claimed the embassy bombing (Fisk). He counts ten Italians, two critically, and five US Marines wounded within 48 hours. De Clerck and Malsagne date these first Islamic Jihad attacks to 17 March.

Hanf dates Amal's first fighting with the army to March 1983, after soldiers had arrested large numbers of Shi'is on dubious charges.

Counts differ: Hanf has 64 for, 2 against and 4 abstentions among 70 deputies present (40 of 50 Christian and 24 of 41 Muslim members in favour); Traboulsi has 65 for, 2 against and 4 abstentions; Fisk puts the vote on 15 June. Traboulsi says the government formally renounced the agreement on 5 March 1984, Amine Gemayel never having signed it.

Israel's announcement on 20 July of an early pull-out from the Chouf mountains, made while Gemayel was in Washington, alarmed Western ambassadors in Beirut (Fisk).

Fisk writes that Dodge was held for months in Iran, though Lebanese reporters put part of his captivity in a Revolutionary Guards house at Zabadani, Syria. Reagan publicly thanked Hafez and Rifaat Assad for their help.

Hanf lists Frangieh, Karami, Jumblatt and the left-wing parties as members and says Amal and the Islamic groups did not formally join; Traboulsi counts Amal among the forces that rallied to the Front.

US aircraft struck Syrian positions on 4 December. Fisk counts one plane brought down, with the pilot dead and the co-pilot taken prisoner (Jesse Jackson obtained his release in January 1984); Hanf counts two planes lost. Hanf also places, without a date, the deaths of eight Marines from Syrian artillery fire in the same episode.

The New Jersey fired shells, not bombs: one-ton 16-inch rounds, according to Fisk. De Clerck and Malsagne say its rounds often missed, by up to 9,000 metres, and killed civilians; Christians called it 'New Jersa', a new shame.

On 15 December, after 102 days, the siege of Deir el-Qamar ended. Israel brokered the departure of Samir Geagea's Lebanese Forces and most refugees for East Beirut; the town was left mainly to its elderly.

Escorted by five French warships, Greek ships including the Odysseus carried Arafat and some 4,000 men from Tripoli to Tunis, the PLO's second evacuation from Lebanon after Beirut in 1982.