✸Haddad's militia takes Khiyam

On 17 February 1977 the militia of Major Saad Haddad, based in Marjayoun and Qlaiaa, attacked the town of Khiyam with direct support from Israeli artillery and tanks across the border, and took control of the town and its barracks after fierce fighting with the Palestinian–Lebanese joint forces. Khiyam, with its position overlooking the Marjayoun plain and its closeness to Metula, was the most important Shia town in the border enclave Israel had begun building since 1976 through the "Good Fence" policy, so controlling it was a condition for linking Qlaiaa and Marjayoun to the border. Most of the town's people fled to Nabatieh and Tyre and returned only in part; this was the first time Haddad's militia was used as an offensive force under Israeli cover, in the model that later became the South Lebanon Army.