Word: truceful
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...allies-and a constant issue in the nine-month-old civil war. Arafat is anxious to preserve the status quo, and helped arrange several of Lebanon's short-lived ceasefires. Until recently, the well-armed P.L.O. guerrillas stayed out of the fighting and even served as a truce-keeping force. Last week, however, rightist militants blockaded Palestinian refugee camps at Tal al Zaatar and Jisr al Basha, preventing food from reaching their 27,000 residents. To break the blockade, the P.L.O. mobilized and attacked rightist strongholds...
...Leftists refused to budge from their commanding perch in the nearby 30-story, unfinished Murr Tower. Public cynicism about the cease-fire deepened when Karami's attempt to collect heavy weapons from both sides produced nothing. Kidnaping continued, and snipers killed ten on the third day of the truce...
Clean-up efforts began, but schools and most banks did not reopen, and most civil servants ignored Premier Karami's order to return to work. One suspicion was that the lull was only a "paycheck truce" during which the soldiers of the private militias involved would collect back salaries from local political bosses or other employers, get food for their families and rebuild their own supply of arms and ammunition...
Each time embattled Beirut tries to pick up the pieces after a makeshift truce dampens political sectarian violence, something happens to rekindle the fighting and paralyze the city. Last week, only four days after the start of another ceasefire, the multifactional civil war between right-wing Christian Phalangists and left-wing Moslems raged anew. In one day there were at least 200 kidnapings. Two of the victims were Americans: Charles Gallagher and William Dykes, the director and deputy director of the regional center of the U.S. Information Service. The first foreigners to be kidnaped during the latest troubles, they were...
...psychological roller coaster for the past six months. Their hopes for peace have soared when it seemed that the factional, sectarian fighting between left-wing Moslems and right-wing Christians might halt; they have plunged when violence again erupted. Last week was typical. As yet another attempt at a truce seemed to be taking hold at the start of the week, some of the sand and cement barricades in Beirut were pulled down. Militiamen from both sides poured out of their strongholds; some embraced and even kissed one another. Banks reopened, shopkeepers unshuttered their windows, and traffic soon clogged streets...