Word: palestinians
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...bombings were almost anticlimactic. Earlier in the week, Lebanese Army units had battled Shi'ite militiamen for control of positions near the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps, on the southern rim of Beirut. Though Nabih Berri, leader of Amal, the main Shi'ite militia group, agreed to let government troops take over the sites, the Lebanese soldiers moved in with guns blazing. By the time an uneasy truce had settled over the area, officials estimated, the death toll was 50; unofficially the total was put as high...
Meanwhile, two Israeli soldiers died in guerrilla ambushes in southern Lebanon. Israeli Chief of Staff Lieut. General Moshe Levy blamed Palestinian fighters for the attacks. But the gunmen might also have been local Shi'ites, whose poor relations with the Israeli occupiers have steadily worsened since September, when Jerusalem redeployed its troops 17 miles south of Beirut. Since then, 39 Israelis have fallen victim to violence in southern Lebanon. Several weeks ago, the Israelis talked about pulling back ten to 15 more miles, to the Zahrani River, but U.S. officials persuaded them to delay the move at Lebanese President...
...support-and appeared to find it in Cairo. As he arrived by helicopter from Ismailia on the Suez Canal, the P.L.O. chairman received a warm embrace from Mubarak. Later, after a conversation that lasted almost two hours, Mubarak hailed his guest as a "moderate leader of the Palestinian people." Arafat, for his part, expressed the hope that one day he and Mubarak would be able to pray together at the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem...
...Mubarak, the encounter with Arafat was a step toward an Egyptian reconciliation with much of the Arab world. Palestinian hard-liners called Arafat's move "treason," and Syria denounced him as "the new Sadat," but Arab moderates were delighted. As further indication that the Arabs' isolation of Egypt is ending, Jordan said that it would resume full-scale trading with Egypt for the first time in five years...
Assad had long been looking for ways to clip Arafat, and the opportunity arrived last May: the P.L.O. chief unwisely elevated several unpopular commanders within Fatah, the paramilitary group that he established and that still accounts for about 80% of the P.L.O.'s military strength. Palestinian fighters, outraged by Arafat's appointments and by his growing preference for negotiation over combat, rose up in revolt. Encouraged by Syria, and in some cases backed by Syrian troops and artillery, the rebels gained strength through the summer and eventually forced the loyalists out of Lebanon's Bekaa Valley and into Tripoli. When...