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1975
April - Phalangist gunmen ambush a bus in the Ayn-al-Rummanah district of Beirut, killing 27 of its mainly Palestinian passengers. The Phalangists claim that guerrillas had previously attacked a church in the same district. These clashes start the civil war. -
Period: to
Lebanon
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2nd
1976 June - Syrian troops enter Lebanon to restore peace but also to curb the Palestinians, thousands of whom are killed in a siege of the Tel al-Zaatar camp by Syrian-allied Christian militias in Beirut. Arab states approve of the Syrian presence as an Arab Deterrent Force in October. -
3rd
1978 - In reprisal for a Palestinian attack, Israel launches a major invasion of southern Lebanon. It withdraws from all but a narrow border strip, which it hands over not to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) but to its proxy South Lebanon Army mainly Christian militia. -
Israel invades
1982 June - Following the attempted assassination of the Israeli ambassador to Britain by a Palestinian splinter group, Israel launches a full-scale invasion of Lebanon. -
Israel invades
1982 September - Pro-Israeli president-elect Bachir Gemayel is assassinated. Israel occupies West Beirut, where the Phalangist militia kills thousands of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila camps. Bachir's elder brother Amine is elected president. Mainly US, French and Italian peacekeeping force arrives in Beirut. -
Israel invades
1983 - Suicide attack on US embassy kills 63 people in April, and another in October on the headquarters of the peacekeepers kills 241 US and 58 French troops. US troops withdraw in 1984. -
Israel invades
1985 - Most Israeli troops withdraw apart from the SLA "security zone" in the south. -
Two governments, one country
1988 - Outgoing President Amine Gemayel appoints an interim military government under Maronite Commander-in-Chief Michel Aoun in East Beirut when presidential elections fail to produce a successor. Prime Minister Selim el-Hoss forms a mainly Muslim rival administration in West Beirut. -
Two governments, one country
1989 - Parliament meets in Taif, Saudi Arabia, to endorse a Charter of National Reconciliation transfeering much of the authority of the president to the cabinet and boosting the number of Muslim MPs. -
Two governments, one country
Parliament meets in Taif, Saudi Arabia, to endorse a Charter of National Reconciliation transfeering much of the authority of the president to the cabinet and boosting the number of Muslim MPs. -
Civil War ends
1990 October - The Syrian air force attacks the Presidential Palace at Baabda and Aoun flees. This formally ends the civil war.
