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Casualty figures were sketchy, but at least several hundred guerrillas and civilians were killed and hundreds more wounded. The mayor and other local leaders pleaded with Arafat to halt the fighting, but they stopped short of publicly asking the P.L.O. chieftain to leave the city. The Gulf Cooperation Council, made up of Saudi Arabia and five other Persian Gulf states, dispatched a delegation to Damascus. A four-day cease-fire was worked out, promptly broke down, then was patched together again. Rashid Karami, a former Lebanese Prime Minister who lives in Tripoli, asked Arafat to quit the area and "leave with all his brothers." The P.L.O. leader flatly rejected the appeal amid reports that the rebels had made their final demand: surrender now and leave Lebanon, or face an all-out assault when the truce expires on Sunday. By week's end shells and rockets again pounded into Baddawi and Tripoli, though the attack was considerably less fierce than in previous days.
Arafat enjoyed one advantage: if fighting spreads, the powerful militia of the Islamic Unification Movement, which controls parts of the city, has vowed to come to his aid. Both sides, however, gave their word to spare Tripoli. Arafat apparently promised not to shell rebel positions from within the city, thus risking return fire, while Abu Mousa pledged not to invade. Nonetheless, rumors floated through the city all week that Arafat was about to flee. On Thursday, Italian Defense Minister Giovanni Spadolini announced that the missile launcher Orsa and the destroyer Intrepido stood ready off the Lebanese coast to evacuate Arafat.
Unless the P.L.O. leader is prepared to die, he will have to surrender or face expulsion from Tripoli, either as a condition for another cease-fire or at the anguished city's insistence. He could negotiate a slightly more dignified exit, perhaps by persuading an Arab leader to summon him for talks. Either way, Arafat will find it very difficult to turn flight into a semblance of victory, as he did when he was forced to leave Beirut last year.
The rest of Lebanon also seemed like one long battlefront. After the Tyre bombing, which killed 28 Israelis and 32 Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners, the Israeli army closed two bridges across the Awali River, its northern defense line in Lebanon, in effect sealing off the south from the rest of the country. Shi'ite Muslim leaders responded by calling a one-day general strike, shutting down nearly all stores and banks. The Israelis reopened the bridges after four days, but vehicles were inspected so painstakingly that traffic was reduced to a trickle.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Marines stationed at Beirut airport again came under fire. In the heaviest fighting in the capital since last September's ceasefire, a nightlong fusillade of mortars and grenades rained down on Alpha Company, stationed northeast of the airfield. The attack, which came from a predominantly Shi'ite Muslim suburb, closed the airport for two hours and hastened the redeployment of 150 to 200 Marines to offshore ships.