A headline in a Lebanese newspaper: “President Frangieh — days before leaving the office of presidency — appoints Camille Chamoun as assistant to the prime minister, as minister of the interior, of post, telegraph and telephone, of water and electric resources, and of external affairs and aliens, of national education, of fine arts and of public planning.”
A slender young woman in military clothes, with her hair down over her shoulders, inspects several armed men and women, all bearing the insignia “Tigers of the Liberals”, Chamoun’s militia.
Gunmen bearing the same insignia jump in the air shouting an attack cry.
Narrow alleyways with uncovered drainage ditches running down the middle of them. In front of a tin-sheet shack stands a young man pouring water from a plastic bucket over another young man having a bath on the ground in front of him.
Sunset in the same place. Dozens of men of different ages wearing scruffy clothes appear in the backstreets, shuffling wearily as they return and enter the shacks and low-roofed houses.
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The Tel Zaatar camp is located in East Beirut, near the industrial zone. Most of its inhabitants are Palestinians and Lebanese, along with poor Kurds, Egyptians and Syrians, Muslims and Christians, in addition to political exiles from several Arab countries.
Maronite monasteries own the largest share of the land occupied by the camp. They were perennially trying to evict the camp in order to reclaim the land, the value of which had increased in recent years. At the same time, the location of the camp kept East Beirut from being entirely under Maronite control.
A general view of the Tel Zaatar camp. Armored cars carrying the “Tigers” emblem surround the camp on all sides. Missiles and rockets fly up over its houses. A mortar on top of an armored car in the fort rains down fire on the camp.
Chamoun, with his carefully-combed silver hair, and with his glasses in his hand, is sitting down, listening to the reports from the leaders of the Tigers, and smiling.
A headline in a Lebanese newspaper: “Jumblatt says: ‘The attack on Tel Zaatar is a contest for leadership of the Maronites between Chamoun and Gemayel.’”
Headlines from Lebanese newspapers: “Beirut without water, electricity and gasoline.” “Gas at 18 lira.” “Blockade of supplies by Syrian forces.” “Dollar rises to 330 Lebanese piastres; US and Canadian banks make billions in profits.”
A wooden donkey cart, with its back wagon filled with people. One of them carries a wide placard reading: “This is how our ancestors did it. We don’t need gasoline.”
A street in Beirut. A Palestinian gunman carrying the Fatah insignia distributes flour from a military truck. Hundreds of hands stretch out to him.
The power company building in East Beirut.
Title card:
After the warring factions cut off the thirteen power lines that fed electricity to both halves of the city, Fu’ad Bazri, president of the power company, who came to be known as “Mr Light”, succeeded in finalizing an agreement between Yasser Arafat and the Phalangists, on the basis of which the Palestinian leader sent two small seagoing transport vessels carrying heavy fuel to the electric power station in the Christian sector, a few kilometers distant from Beirut, so that it could supply the two parts of the city with current.
A newspaper headline: “Nationalist and Palestinian forces advance in the direction of Ain Remmaneh, with the aim of relieving pressure on Tel Zaatar.”
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On June 27, the Phalangists announced that they had entered the battle of Tel Zaatar.
A press conference with member of parliament Amin Gemayeclass="underline" “The Phalangists have joined in the assault on Tel Zaatar because those who planned and started the attack were incapable of seizing it.”
A poster carrying the insignia of the Tigers with a photo of a beautiful young woman. Below the photo in French: “Saada Khayyat: the first Lebanese woman to fall on the field of honor during the attack on Tel Zaatar.”
A press conference with Julud, prime minister of Libya: “The conspiracy is large-scale and international… The Syrian Army was drawn into the conspiracy so that it could control all the basic elements in the Lebanese public arena… Nationalist forces and people who believe in their Arab character, Christians and Muslims, and those who believe in their nationalist sense of belonging, and the Palestinians… My opinion is that they should march in file to Tel Zaatar until the isolationists run out of ammunition. If you start with a half-million Palestinians, and end up with only one hundred thousand, that doesn’t matter. This is our view, even toward Israel. If the Arabs weren’t afraid of dying, then Israel wouldn’t exist.”
A newspaper headline: “The resistance takes Bashir Gemayel prisoner after he killed several Palestinians with his own hands. 8 hours later, he was released, following the intervention of President Sarkis and the Deuxième Bureau.”
A headline in a newspaper: “Tel Zaatar repels 49th attack.”
A headline in the Phalangist newspaper, al-Amal: “Leaders of the Phalangists and Tigers follow the progress of the battles directly on the battlefield.”
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On the twentieth day of Tel Zaatar holding out…
A headline in a Lebanese newspaper: “PLO leadership to Tel Zaatar combatants: ‘The coming hours are fateful, your defiance is key.’”
A headline in a Lebanese newspaper: “Communications between Arafat, Gaddafi and Mahmoud Riyad, and between Jumblatt, King Khalid, Sadat, Boumedienne and al-Bakr, and between Assad and Hussein.”
A headline in a Lebanese newspaper: “Tel Zaatar repels 51st attack.”
A headline in a Lebanese newspaper: “New 7-hour-long assault against Tel Zaatar repelled.”
A headline in a Lebanese newspaper: “10-page Soviet diplomatic note warns Syria against further strikes against the Palestinian resistance and Lebanese National Movement.”
A headline in the Lebanese newspaper al-Anbaa: “Jumblatt to a conference of Arab foreign ministers: ‘You were duped by businessmen of the isolationist faction, who are very close to your kings and presidents.’ ”
A headline in a French newspaper: “Killing of William Hawi, president of the Phalangist military council, during the battles of Tel Zaatar. Foreign press bureaus in Beirut confirm that his killing was arranged by Bashir Gemayel, who took his place as the head of the Phalangist military council.”
In front of the Phalangist military council building. Bashir Gemayel in his military uniform surrounded by his aides.
Title card:
Bashir Gemayel graduated from Jesuit schools and the Jesuit University, where he studied law. But power was more enticing to him than the legal profession he was expected to enter.
Since his youth, he was notable for his hotheadness and his violent tendencies. He resorted quickly to his fists when confronted with a problem. These problems multiplied when he reached adolescence. His face was filled with pimples. He discovered that he was short, and his body not well-proportioned. Soon after, it became clear that the leadership positions within his family were limited to his powerful father and his older brother, Amin, who was distinguished by his slender physique, good looks and intellectual gifts. But he didn’t despair. He sought refuge in the street. For fifteen hours a day, during which time he never stopped eating pieces of chocolate, he would attend weddings, baptisms, funerals and masses, currying favor with the petit bourgeois, the semi-employed, minor functionaries, and all the other frustrated people, while waiting for the right opportunity.