Word: beirutization
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...Lebanon's warring factions sought desperately to concoct a truce, the roar of tanks and the thump of artillery fire threatened to make a mockery of their efforts. The 60,000-strong Israeli force, still trying to consolidate its control over southern Lebanon, advanced to the outskirts of Beirut. There the Israelis linked up with Christian Phalangist allies to impose a stranglehold over 6,000 Palestinian guerrillas and 1,500 Syrian soldiers trapped inside the western part of the city...
...encirclement began when a tentative cease-fire between the P.L.O. and Israel broke down only nine hours after taking effect. As Israeli gunboats bombarded the mainland and F-15 and F-16 jets resumed their raids over Palestinian camps near Beirut, Israeli armored columns successfully challenged P.L.O. guerrillas and Lebanese Muslim militias for control of an important road junction at Khalde, six miles south of the capital's international airport. An Israeli convoy then rolled northeast through twisting mountain passages toward the strategic Beirut-Damascus highway...
Within hours, dozens of Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers were parked a few hundred yards from the Presidential Palace in Baabda, five miles southeast of Beirut. Looking dazed but delighted, Israeli troops were hailed as heroic liberators by the Christian residents, who showered them with rice, flowers and candy. Local merchants calculated a rate of exchange between Israeli shekels and Lebanese pounds (4.3 to 1) as the arriving soldiers queued up to buy souvenirs or get haircuts. One Israeli admired the local begonias and explained how just a few days earlier he was cultivating his own garden...
After discussing strategy with Phalangist leaders over tea at Baabda's town hall, Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon issued a call for Syria's 85th Brigade to withdraw from the Beirut vicinity and join the bulk of Syrian forces in the Bekaa Valley to the east. Damascus abruptly rejected the demand, insisting that unlike the Israeli occupation troops, Syrian forces had been dispatched to Lebanon as part of an Arab peace-keeping contingent in 1976 with the approval of the local government. Sputtered an angry Syrian official: "We do not, I repeat, do not tolerate ultimatums from that...
...Syrian rebuff effectively ended a tenuous four-day truce between the two armies. Heading north from their fortified positions in Baabda, Israeli armor cut the Beirut-Damascus highway just west of Jamhur, less than a mile from Syrian tank and infantry posts. By seizing Beirut's surrounding hilltops, the Israelis choked off all main supply and exit routes for the Syrian and Palestinian units remaining in the capital...