The first book about the 1982 war in Lebanon, Operation Peace for Galilee is based on hundreds of interviews with the soldiers of both sides, the guerrillas who fought in it, and the civilians caught in the middle.
Much of the detail is drawn from in-depth conversations with the major Israeli commanders who planned and fought the battles. Author and former soldier Richard Gabriel traveled every major route of advance taken by the Israeli army, and visited the sites of important battles, including Tyre, Sidon, the Beirut-Damascus highway, the Bekaa Valley, and Beirut. Materials, notes, and articles dealing with matters of national security are routinely submitted to Israeli censors, but Gabriel was able to circumvent this process. His is therefore the only analysis which considers the Israeli Defense Force's successes and failures in the war in Lebanon and the problems resulting from the major expansion of the IDF since the 1973 war.