Word: gemayel
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Tensions in Beirut rose at week's end when a parked automobile exploded near the passing car of Bashir Gemayel, military commander of the Christian Phalangists. Gemayel was not in his car; but the blast, apparently the work of a rival Christian faction, killed his two-year-old daughter and seven others...
Israel, too, was building up its Christian allies: the "Tigers" commanded by former President Camille Chamoun and the Phalangist fighters under Pierre Gemayel. By night, Israeli ships brought in arms, medical supplies and food to Jounieh, twelve miles north of Beirut. About 150 Israeli advisers - distinguishable from their Christian clients because they do not wear the pearl-handled revolvers and outsize crosses favored by the swaggering militiamen - were providing counsel and logistical support. Christian officers of the Lebanese armed forces turned over to the militiamen an arsenal of U.S. weapons that had been destined for the country's moribund...
Affection very quickly turned to estrangement after the Syrian peace keepers ordered the Maronites to lay down their arms, while making no similar demands on the Palestinians. Chamoun and Gemayel began laying the groundwork for partitioning Lebanon and creating a pro-Israeli Maronite state along Syria's border. When Gemayel's Phalangists murdered the son of Assad's friend Franjieh and more than 35 other pro-Syrian Christians in June, Syria became convinced that the plot was already in motion. Assad was further alarmed when the Camp David talks foreshadowed a separate Israeli-Egyptian peace, thereby tipping...
...calm to the country, where clashes two weeks ago between Syrian peace-keeping forces and Christian militiamen left 200 dead, most of them civilians. Both sides used the lull to bring heavy reinforcements into Beirut. Israel continued to supply military equipment to the rightist Christian armies of Pierre Gemayel and Camille Chamoun, who have been engaged in a bloodletting feud with forces loyal to former Lebanese President Suleiman Franjieh, also a Christian. Although most observers believed that the supplies would be the only Israeli help, Damascus nonetheless warned that any overt intervention by Israel could mean a new Arab-Israeli...
Angered by this attack on his old friend, Assad decided it was time to crush the obstreperous Phalange. Using heavy artillery and rocket barrages, Syrian forces last week bombarded towns and installations controlled by Phalangist and National Liberal militiamen. The heaviest fire was concentrated on East Beirut, where both Gemayel's and Chamoun's headquarters went up in flames. "This is genocide against the Christians of Lebanon," protested Chamoun. Lebanese Foreign Minister Fuad Butros rushed to Damascus in a vain attempt to arrange a ceasefire. But Syria's tough Defense Minister Mustafa Tlas responded: "The Syrian army...