[1]: 39–40  Bands of Jews from Jerusalem, Tiberias, Galilee, Damascus, and even from Cyprus, united and undertook an incursion against Tyre, having been invited by the 4,000 Jewish inhabitants of that city to surprise and massacre the Christians on Easter night.

The besiegers, to save the remaining prisoners, withdrew,[2] having had to suffer the humiliation of watching the heads of the Jewish captives as they were thrown over the walls.

The Maronite community clung to its religion and managed to maintain a large degree of autonomy despite the succession of rulers over the Levant.

Whoever dies while stationed on the frontier will be protected from the trial of the grave, and his good deeds will continue to be recorded until the Day of Judgment.

Ibn Asaker adds in his "History of Damascus" details that confirm the story, which he transmitted with his chain of transmission on the authority of Abu Muti' Mu'awiyah bin Yahya al-Tarabulsi[b] (died after 170 AH, 786/787 AD) on the authority of a Sheikh from Tripoli that Sufyan bin Mujib camped with his great army in Marj al-Silsilah (Beddawi), which is five miles from Tripoli.

On the basis of this historical text of Abu Al-Muti' al-Tarabulsi, the historian Omar Tadmouri said that the Sufyan fortress is now located at the now-known Tripoli Citadel.

[12] When the siege intensified upon them, they gathered in one of the city's fortresses and wrote to the Roman Emperor Constans II asking him to supply them or to send them boats to escape to.