Fisk reports that a suicide bomber, claimed by 'Islamic Jihad', blew up the new US embassy, wounding the American and British ambassadors; a British security man had shot the driver first. Sohmor he dates to late September 1984: Druze SLA men, avenging three Druze comrades shot in an ambush, opened fire on the men of the village assembled in its square, killing 13 and wounding 30. This entry's 24 dead and 96 injured may be a copying error, since 96 injured is also the embassy figure.

De Clerck and Malsagne give 8.7 pounds to the dollar for 1984, without a month.

Fisk counts a hundred attacks on Israeli forces in December 1984, when the Sayeret Matkal commandos searched villages east of Tyre on foot and Shin Bet men beat youths each time. De Clerck and Malsagne date the complete sealing-off of the Israeli-held zone from the rest of Lebanon to autumn 1984.

Hanf dates the army's advance into the Sidon region to 9 January 1985, as Israel began pulling back. Some of the 15 December deployment may have been north of the Awali, which he does not detail. The southern strike is not in the books.

Fisk's figures for December 1984 alone: some hundred attacks on Israeli forces in the south, with three Israeli soldiers, seventeen of Lahad's militiamen and eight collaborators killed.

Picard dates the end of President Gemayel's talks with Israel to January 1985.

Hanf dates the army's advance to 9 January 1985, the day he says the Israelis began to pull back. In his account the plan, agreed with Walid Jumblatt, the Sidon Nasserites and the region's Christian deputies, sent a mainly Muslim battalion into the Iqlim al-Kharroub and the Sidon hinterland.

De Clerck and Malsagne say Edmond Naim succeeded Michel el-Khoury at the Central Bank because both the militia chiefs and the unity cabinet could accept him.

The withdrawal was unilateral and staged. Antoine Lahad's militia, renamed the South Lebanon Army and backed by Israel, was to police the 'security zone' Israel kept. Historians date the departure from Sidon to 17 February (Traboulsi), and the fall-back to the security zone to May-June 1985 (de Clerck and Malsagne).

Saad survived, nearly blind, but was absent when Israel left Sidon. The UN spokesman told Fisk Israel had held up clearance by half an hour for the UN helicopter flying him to the American University hospital.

Picard dates the end of the talks with Israel to January 1985 and links it to the Lebanese Forces' revolt two months later.

Annual figures: the pound fell to about 16 to the dollar in 1985 against 6.5 in 1984, with retail inflation of about 70 per cent (Hanf, citing Abou Rjaily and Labaki); de Clerck and Malsagne put the 1985 devaluation at 150 per cent. Hanf notes that rumours of large PLO deposits briefly strengthened the pound in early 1985.

Traboulsi dates Israel's exit from Sidon to 17 February 1985. Fisk describes Christians and Muslims briefly celebrating together when Lebanese troops arrived.

Prime Minister Rashid Karami travelled with Gemayel. Hanf records kidnappings of Christians and counter-kidnappings after several thousand Islamists from Beirut rallied in Sidon next day for an Islamic republic while the army stood aside.

A passenger died on the runway, flung there by the jets' blast, because the hijacker, Fisk writes, made the Larnaca plane take off with its doors open.

Dates differ: 9 May (de Clerck and Malsagne), 12 May (Hanf, who describes a meeting of the LF command council after Geagea had signed a declaration of loyalty to state institutions), 9 September (Traboulsi). Geagea kept the post of chief of staff.

Amal, with the army's mainly Shia Sixth Brigade, attacked Sabra, Chatila and Bourj al-Barajneh on 19 or 20 May. Bourj al-Barajneh held out under siege, Chatila's defenders kept a small area, and Sabra was overrun and razed. Hanf reports massacres when Sabra and Chatila fell, with estimates of 800 to 2,000 Palestinians killed by Shia militiamen in 1985.