A pro-Palestinian fighter poses by a poster of late Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser on the wall of the Holiday Inn in Beirut on March 24, 1976, days after pro-Palestinian militias dislodged Lebanese Christian forces from the 27-storey hotel. All photos: AFP
This picture taken in Beirut in the early 1970s shows people shopping in the old vegetable market that was destroyed in the 1975-90 civil war, when the city was split into two warring sectors.
Smoke rises during clashes between Palestinian fighters and members of a Lebanese Christian militia in Beirut, on April 15, 1975.
An armed man stands in a street in Lebanon's northern city of Tripoli, on October 21, 1975. The military had taken up positions in the buffer zone between Sunni-majority Tripoli and Zgharta, with orders to keep fighters from the cities apart.
Fighters from Lebanon's Christian Kataeb or Phalangist militia patrol the Christian Palestinian camp of Dbayeh, north of Beirut, on January 28, 1976.
Children play among the ruins of a destroyed building in Beirut on January 28, 1976, as the blockade of the two main Palestinian camps was lifted.
Palestinian fighters unfurl a Lebanese flag in Beirut's Holiday Inn on March 24, 1976, after Palestinian commando units dislodged Lebanese Christian forces from the hotel.
Students leave the Lebanese village of Kahaleh on April 3, 1976, the day after a 10-day truce began. This followed a blockade imposed by Palestinian and Lebanese left-wing fighters on the Christian stronghold in Mount Lebanon.
Members of the Beirut-based Sunni-majority Nasserist militia al-Murabitoun – Sentinels – take position in the capital, on April 12, 1976.
A Beirut street vendor selling goods on April 21, 1976, as some semblance of normal life resumed following a truce.
A Phalangist militiaman in the village of Kahaleh, a Christian stronghold in Mount Lebanon, near Beirut, on April 4, 1976, after an assault at the end of March by Palestinian and allied Lebanese fighters.
Loading flour on to vehicles in a food convoy travelling from the eastern neighbourhoods of Beirut, controlled by Christian conservatives, to western areas controlled by progressive and Palestinian forces, after the lifting of the food blockade.
The food convoy – laden with 35 tonnes of flour – enters western neighbourhoods of Beirut, after the lifting of the food blockade.
A Christian militia member poses amid the ruins of the Palestinian refugee camp of Tel Al Zaatar, on August 13, 1976, after right-wing forces launched an attack the previous day, following a 52-day siege.
Soldiers from the Syrian contingent of the Arab deterrent force in Lebanon – known as the Green Helmets – take position in Beirut, on November 15, 1976.
Soldiers from the Syrian contingent of the Green Helmets Arab deterrent force arrive in Beirut, on November 15, 1976.
A parade at the swearing-in ceremony of young supporters of Camille Chamoun, leader of the right-wing Christian NLP, at Hadath, in the Beirut suburbs, close to Baabda presidential palace, on October 14, 1977.
Palestinian fighters travel ahead of the motorcade of Palestine Liberation Organisation chairman Yasser Arafat, as he leaves Israeli-occupied Beirut for Tunis, on August 30 1982.
Lebanese army soldiers patrol the streets of the mountain village of Souk Al Gharb, south-east of Beirut, on September 26, 1983, after a ceasefire was established throughout Lebanon.