User:Ihamzae/sandbox

Lebanese Civil War

The Lebanese Civil War of 1975-1990 (Arabic: الحرب الأهلية اللبنانية‎ – Al-Ḥarb al-Ahliyyah al-Libnāniyyah) was a multifaceted protracted conflict, primarily between the nation's major sectarian communities, attributing to “the breakdown of government authority and the outbreak of civil strife”. One day after the Ain el-Rammaneh Bus Massacre on April 13th 1975, violence soured throughout the country. Essentially, "it was a matter of suburb against suburb. Maronite district against Palestinian refugee camp". Lebanon's capital city Beirut had become geographically divided. What became commonly referred to as the “Green Line”, East Beirut, largely a Christian region, was separated from the predominately Muslim, West Beirut. Throughout this civil conflict, neighbouring countries such as Israel and Syria became directly involved as they both fought alongside different factions. Furthermore, international organisations such as the Multinational Force in Lebanon and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon were also notable actors during this epoch. Whether directly or indirectly, the Lebanese Civil War affected every major religious and ethnic community in Lebanon, as the country slowly became engulfed by a “series of horrors rather than battles”.

According to Samir Khalaf, "Lebanon was besieged and beleaguered by every possible form of brutality and collective terror known to human history", ranging from massacres, bodily mutilations, artillery attacks, targeted assassinations, kidnappings, explosive traps, car bombs, manhunts, and interrogations. Moreover, throughout the Lebanese Civil War, there had been a number of “episodic massacres” coinciding with the mass expulsion of the region’s inhabitants. The actors involved ranged from the Lebanese National Movement, the Progressive Socialist Party, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, Fatah, As-Sa'iqa, the Lebanese Front, the Kataeb Party, the Tigers Militia, the Guardians of the Cedars, and lastly, the Lebanese Youth Movement.

The well documented massacres committed during the Lebanese civil war ranged from the Ain el-Rammaneh bus massacre (April 13th, 1975) the Karantina massacre (18th January, 1976), the Damour massacre (January 20th, 1976), the Tel el-Zaatar massacre (August 12th, 1976), the Aishiyeh massacre (October 19th-21st, 1976), the Edhen massacre (June 13th, 1978), the Safra massacre (July 7th, 1980), the Sabra and Shatila massacre (September 16th, 1982), the Mountain War (31st August - 13th September, 1983) and lastly, the October 13th massacre (October 13th, 1990). The Taif Agreement was signed in October 1989 and was ratified within the same year, on November 5th, initiating the end of the Lebanese Civil war.

By 1990, over one-hundred and eighty thousand people had died and around fifteen thousand were missing,. Roughly seventy percent of the victims were under twenty years old. Moreover, over one-fifth of the total population had been evicted from their homes and districts, five-hundred thousand being either Lebanese or Palestinian Muslims.

Demographic Tensions

Tensions between Lebanon's Maronite and Palestinian Communities

Main article: Palestinians in Lebanon

See also: Palestinian refugees

From the mid-twentieth century onwards, Lebanon increasingly became a host for Palestinian refugees. After the Nakba in 1948, over one hundred thousand Palestinian refugees had emigrated into Lebanon. By 1975, this number had increased threefold, with one-third living in refugee camps around the country, as a result of the Six-Day War. For a number of reasons, “the Palestinian presence led to a deterioration in Christian-Muslim relations and a revival of sectarian rivalry”. As a large number of Palestinians arriving into Lebanon had been Sunni Muslims, the Maronite community suspected that overtime, the demographic balance of power in society would tilt towards Lebanon's Muslim population, threatening the political authority retained by the Maronite elites, granted by the 1943 National Pact. These notions were confirmed in 1969. As Muslims grew to be the demographic majority in the country, Kamal Jumblatt used this leverage to established the Lebanese National Movement (Arabic: الحركة الوطنية اللبنانية‎), a leftist-Muslim coalition that comprised of the Lebanese communists, Baathists, Nasserites and also pan-Syrian nationalist, that publicly supported the Palestinian liberation campaign.

After the establishment of the Lebanese National Movement, Kamal Jumblatt begun to openly challenge the sectarian character of the Lebanese state, through advocating to transform the nation into a liberal, democratic country. As Muslims had become the demographic majority in the country, Kamal Jumblatt suggested to make Friday, the Muslim holy day as the country's official day of rest. This proposal was rejected by the Maronite community and such demands deeply impacted the communal relations between Lebanon's Muslim and Maronite citizens. The intellectual branch of the Maronite community begun to openly discredit the presence of Palestinian Muslims in Lebanon. The Universite’ Saint Esprit at Kaslik in Lebanon, founded by the Lebanese Maronite Order, published books and distributed a pamphlets that emphasised “the Islamic threat to Christian minorities in Lebanon and the Middle East”, while also addressing the need “to legitimise the community’s right to defend itself”. Ultimately, the large influx of Palestinians from the mid twentieth-century onwards granted Lebanon's Muslims' the demographic majority to question the power and authority retained by the Maronite community.

Tensions between Lebanon's Maronite and Palestinian communities drastically increased after the Cairo Agreement, ratified on November 3rd, 1969, which essentially “redefined the regulations governing refugees in Lebanon”. According to this unpublished agreement between Yasser Arafat, Gamal Abdel Nasser and General Emile Boustany, power from the Lebanese government would be delegated to the Palestinian Armed Struggle Command. Palestinians welcomed this level of independence, as it granted "the guerrillas autonomy in the camps and in the southern border regions", strengthening their ability to carry out an armed, non-conventional military campaign against the State of Israel, via Lebanon. As Israel would frequently retaliate by attacking different villages in the south of Lebanon, many Maronites' believed that this military campaign, carried out by the different Palestinian guerrilla organisations will only result in an Israeli military invasion. Infuriated at the Palestinians' ability "to create a state within a state", representatives of the Maronite community, such as Pierre Gemayel would write to Rashid Karami, protesting against the Cairo Agreement, regarding it as nothing more but an encroachment upon Lebanon's sovereignty.

One year after the Cairo Agreement, the first major violent clash took place within the Maronite village of Kahhalè, between Lebanese Christian and Palestinian militiamen. Following the Kahhalè incident, tensions between these warring communities reached a boiling point. Maronites were specifically angered at the level of harassment committed on a domestic level by Palestinian militiamen. According to the Lebanese Army Intelligence Unit, there had been over seven hundred and eighty violations committed between the years 1971 to 1972. During the Kataeb Party's fifteenth congress meeting, on September 22nd, 1972, Pierre Gemayel issued the following statement which serves to represent the demographic tensions between the Palestinian and Maronite communities:

"The [Palestinian] Resistance demands our frontiers as a base for its operations, it is imposing a sort of occupation on us and leading us into a battle—or rather into unequal battles— with Israel, which will result in the loss of the land, honour and the last refuge for the Resistance itself".

Within the following year, Pierre Gemayel publicly pledged to reinforce the Christian character of Lebanon. Such negative preconceptions against Lebanon's Palestinian community was shared amongst his son, Bashir Gemayel who had publicly described the Palestinians within Lebanon as “a people too many”. Referred to as a "virus" by the Kataeb Party, Bashir Gemayel would later suggest that “we will not rest until every true Lebanese has killed at least one Palestinian”. Camille Chamoun, former Lebanese President, “had no sympathy for the refugees and disliked them”. Dory Chamoun held a similar approach, referring to the Palestinians “as a race of wards whose refugee existence was no more than they deserved”. As distrust against Lebanon's Palestinian community grew, the Kataeb Party drafted and submitted a memorandum to the President in 1973. In relation to the growing presence and power retained by the Palestinian guerrilla forces in southern Lebanon, the Kataeb Party reminded the President:

"Should the state fail in its duty to weaken or hesitate, then Mr President, we shall ourselves take action: we shall meet demonstrations with bigger demonstrations, strikes with more extensive strikes, toughness with toughness, and force with force".

Between 1973-1975, acts of vandalism, robberies, kidnapping and bomb explosions had become a common feature in society, as the level of national security had deteriorated. On May 17th, 1973, the Lebanese government signed the The Melkart Protocol on May 17th, 1973, which granted the Palestinian guerrilla movements in Lebanon the ability to assert a stronger military presence in the country, worsening the already weak relations between the Maronite and Palestinian communities. For Camille Chamoun, the founder of the Tigers Militia, and Bashir Gemayel, the 1975-1990 Lebanese Civil war was a final bastion of hope for Lebanon’s Christian community, whose culture and existence felt under threat due to the growing dominance of the Islamic religion within the Middle East.

Tensions between Lebanon's Shi'ite and Palestinian communities.

Main article: Amal Movement

See also: Musa al-Sadr

Image of Musa al-Sadr, leader of the Amal Movement. Taken before his disappearance.

Initially, Lebanon’s Shi’ite and Palestinian communities were socially cohesive, as they regarded each other as mutual allies. However, following the Cairo Agreement in 1969, tensions between Lebanon’s Shi’ite and Palestinian communities begun to increase. Lebanon's Shi'ite Muslims grew tiresome of the violent clashes that took place between the different Palestinian guerrilla organisations and the Israeli military forces. Famous for its pre-emptive war strategy, the state of Israel would retaliate against the Palestinian military assaults in a “disproportionate” fashion, which usually resulted in the displacement of tens of thousands of Shi’ite citizens. By 1970, over fifty thousand Lebanese Shi’ites’ had fled southern Lebanon as a result of these violent military clashes. By 1974, almost every week the Israeli military would raid a village in the south of Lebanon, straining the socio-political relations between the Palestinian and Shi’ite community. Ultimately, Lebanon's Shi'ite citizens blamed the Palestinians for provoking Israel, without taking into account the impact that these military operations would have upon Lebanon's southern population.

The disappearance of Musa al-Sadr marked a major turning point in the relationship between Lebanon's Shi'ite and Palestinian communities. Descending from one of "the most famous and respected scholarly families in the Shi'ite world", Musa al-Sadr was a prominent, politically active religious cleric born in Qom, Iran. After arriving in Lebanon in 1959, Musa al-Sadr would later establish the Amal Movement in 1974, representing a respective share of Lebanon's Shi'ite population. Scheduled to meet Libya's ruler Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, the leader of the Amal Movement arrived in Libya on August 25th, 1978. Musa al-Sadr was last seen on August 31st, 1978. According to an article written in 2019 by the Lebanese newspaper "L'Orient-Le Jour" Musa al-Sadrs' whereabouts are still unknown. After his disappearance the Amal Movement grew suspicious of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation due to their political affiliation within the Arab world. Primarily, because of the positive relationship between the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and Libyan regime, whom members of the Amal Movement believed to be directly involved in the disappearance of Musa al-Sadr. As years passed, diplomatic relations between the Amal Movement and such organisation began to seriously deteriorate as the Lebanese Civil War forced Lebanon's Shi'ite population to adopt a new political approach and attitude towards Lebanon’s Palestinian population.

First Phase of violence (1975-1977)

The Ain el-Rammaneh Bus Massacre (April 13th, 1975):

Main article: The Ain el-Rammaneh Bus Massacre

On this day, unidentified assailants fired indiscriminately at a Maronite church during the Sunday church congregation, murdering two of Pierre Gemayel's personal bodyguards. Hours later, militiamen within the Kataeb Party orchestrated an attack upon a bus, transporting unarmed Palestinian women and children. According to Samir Khalaf, all twenty-eight passengers were murdered.  On the very same day, "barricades were going up all over the city and the traffic jams stretched for miles in each direction. The next morning, on 14th April, the battles began. It was a matter of suburb against suburb. Maronite district against Palestinian refugee camp". Soon after the Ain el-Rammaneh massacre, Palestinians would specifically target members and destroy offices belonging to the Kataeb Party, while also firing rockets at factories and shops located within Lebanon’s Christian districts. At the same time, Palestinian were frequently assaulted by right-wing Christian militia organisations such as the Kataeb Party, Tigers Militia and the Guardians of Ceders. Palestinian working in Western institutions, ranging from banks, airliners, to the American University of Beirut were frequently assaulted, kidnapped, and in some cases, murdered. Ultimately, this unprecedented act of violence committed by the Kataeb Party on the 13th April, 1975, marked a major turning point regarding the communal relations between Lebanon’s Maronite and Muslim communities.

The Black Saturday Incident (December 6th, 1975):

Main article: Black Saturday (Lebanon).

On 5 December 1975, four member of the Kataeb Party were murdered and mutilated. Soon after this incident, members of the Kataeb Party gathered and slaughtered a minimum of two hundred Lebanese Muslims.

The Battle of the Hotels (October 1975 - March 1976):

Main article: The Battle of the Hotels.

The Battle of the Hotels began in October 1975, and lasted until March in 1976. During this epoch, Muslim and Christian Lebanese militiamen fought over the control of these monolithic towers. These edifices provided a defensive advantage as the height and location of these hotel was the perfect opportunity to house highly trained marksman.

The Karantina Massacre (January 18th, 1976):

Main article: The Karantina massacre.

See also: Karantina

The Karantina massacre took place on the 18th of January 1976. On this day, Maronite militiamen stormed into the predominately Muslim neighbourhood, located in East Beirut. What was initially a quarantine camp for the survivors of the Armenian genocide, the Karantina district soon transformed into a “shantytown housing Palestinians and some Lebanese, Kurdish and Syrian poor families”. Despite being a predominately Muslim district, the land was originally owned by Maronite monks. Therefore, in an attempt to extend the power retained by the Lebanese Front and to also “purge East Beirut of its Muslim and Palestinian residents”, Maronite militiamen dismantled the pre-existing political structure and administration established by the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. To many social researchers and political scientists, “Qarantina was the worst atrocity of the war so far”. According to Yale University, at least one thousand Palestinian and Lebanese Muslims were murdered. Tens of thousands were forcefully expelled. Jonathan C. Randall, a published author, and a first-hand witness, described how "Moslem males of all ages lined up against a wall, their hands behind their backs, guarded by Phalangists". Following the massacre, right-wing Christian militiamen set many homes on fire, before completely destroying such structures with their bulldozers, transforming the district into a future headquarters for the Kataeb militia. Two days later, Palestinian and Lebanese Muslim forces carried out a military assault on the Christian coastal town of Damour, twelve miles south of Beirut.

The Damour Massacre (January 20th, 1976):

Main article: The Damour Massacre.

See also: Damour

On the 20th January 1976, in retaliation to the Karantina massacre, Palestinian militiamen and Lebanese Muslims commandos overran the coastal Christian village of Damour, the birthplace of Camille Chamoun, and the former area of residency for Elie Hobeika. According to Israeli Lieutenant Colonel Dov Yermiya, reporting from Damour in 1982, an estimate of two hundred and fifty civilians had been massacred. Amongst those murdered were members within Elie Hobeika’s family, such as his fiancée. In the following days, remaining inhabitants were expelled and the coastal village was looted, and the displaced refugees of the Karantina district were re-housed in the village of Damour. Published academic and first-hand witness, Robert Fisk highlighted how:

-“Civilians were lined up against the walls of their homes and sprayed with machine-gun fire. Their houses were then dynamited. The 149 bodies that lay in the streets for days afterwards showed grisly evidence of what the Palestinians had done”. He later described how "many of the young women had been raped” and that “babies had been shot at close range in the back of the head”.

Reinforcing the sectarian nature of the political violence, Father Mansour Labaky, a witness and religious cleric stationed within the former Church of St. Elias in Damour, stating how:

-“The PLO came and bombed the church without entering it. They kicked open the door and threw in the grenades”

Soon after the massacre, the newly recruited young men of the Damour Brigade would swear an oath to avenge their fallen relatives and to expel Palestinians from Lebanon. Furthermore, In 2005, The Guardian had published an article titled "Elie Hobeika. Lebanese militia leader who massacred civilians”, which stated that Hobeika was “deeply influenced by the massacre of his family and of his fiancée by Palestinian militiamen at Damour in 1976". Six years after the Damour incident, Elie Hobeika would orchestrate the infamous, internationally condemned Sabra and Shatila massacre, murdering over three thousand refugees. Therefore, many political scientists and Lebanese historians have highlighted that the Damour massacre intensified the sectarian nature of the 1975-1990 Lebanese Civil War. In the words of Israeli military specialist, Ze’ev Schiff, the Damour massacre became "the site of one of the many tit-for-tat massacres of that savage conflict”.

Syrian Intervention (1976):

Main article: Syrian intervention in the Lebanese Civil War

See Also: Syrian occupation of Lebanon

On 22 January 1976, Syrian President Hafez al-Assad brokered a truce between the two sides, while covertly beginning to move Syrian troops into Lebanon under the guise of the Palestine Liberation Army in order to bring the PLO back under Syrian influence and prevent the disintegration of Lebanon. Despite this, the violence continued to escalate. In March 1976, Lebanese President Suleiman Frangieh requested that Syria formally intervene. Days later, Assad sent a message to the United States asking them not to interfere if he were to send troops into Lebanon. On 8 May 1976, Elias Sarkis, who was supported by Syria, defeated Frangieh in a presidential election held by the Lebanese Parliament. However, Frangieh refused to step down. On 1 June 1976, 12,000 regular Syrian troops entered Lebanon and began conducting operations against Palestinian and leftist militias. This technically put Syria on the same side as Israel, as Israel had already begun to supply Maronite forces with arms, tanks, and military advisers in May 1976.

Tel el-Zaatar Massacre (August 12th, 1976)

Main article: Tel el-Zaatar massacre

The Tel el-Zaatar settlement was a United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) refugee camp, stationed in Eastern Beirut. Prior to the massacre, the camp’s population ranged between fifty to seventy thousand inhabitants. In response to the Damour massacre, right-wing Christian militia organisations in Lebanon, such as the Kataeb Party, the Tigers militia and the Guardians of the Ceders begun a ground assault against the settlements. It took months for such militia organisations to gain control of the whole camp. By August 12th, 1976, thirty thousand of the remaining inhabitants of the Tel el-Zaatar refugee camp surrendered, after a brutal siege which caused “an estimated three hundred babies and young children to die of dehydration, in addition to the many more strictly military casualties”. During the Siege, Pope Paul VI gave a speech that concluded with an appeal in favour of the Palestinians trapped inside. In response, Camille Chamoun accused the pope of “having a heart that has often bled for the wounded of Tall-Zaatar, but never did so for the Lebanese who fall daily”. Soon after entering the camp, mass killings were orchestrated, in an indiscriminate fashion, by right-wing Christian militia organisations. According to the oral accounts provided by Helena Cobban, a British news correspondent stationed in Beirut between 1976-1981:

-“There were corpses of women, children, babies and old people, as well as men of fighting age. Several, cut down in the camp’s twisting lanes, had been squashed to sandwich thickness by passing vehicles”.

-“One family group of women and children was heaped together in a small rocky square, their bellies split open. Outside the camp hospital lay a pile of dead old people”.

-“Throughout the whole area drifted the indiscernible smell of rotting bodies”.

In total, over one thousand, five hundred refugees were murdered by such right-wing militia organisations. Published academic, Ferdinand Smit disagrees with the figure provided by Helena Cobban, suggesting that as many as three thousand inhabitants were massacred.

Sabra and Shatila Massacre (September 16th-18th)

Main article: Sabra and Shatila massacre

See Also: Shatila refugee camp

The Sabra and Shatila massacre took place between the 16th and 18th September, 1982. In response to the assassination of Bashir Gemayel, Elie Hobeika, one of the actors involved in the Tel el-Zaatar massacre, led the military wing of the Kataeb Party into the Sabra and Shatila refugee camp. Believing that the Palestinian Muslims of Lebanon were responsible for the death of Bashir Gemayel, right-wing Christian militiamen began to indiscriminately slaughter Palestinian refugees at an unprecedented level. The majority of the victims were civilians, who had been “shot, knifed, eviscerated and disemboweled by Israel’s Christian militia allies”, as their corpses were found with their bellies ripped open and their throats slit.Within Noam Chomsky’s “Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the Palestinians” (1983), Israeli Colonel Dov Yirmiah recounts the atrocities committed within this forty-eight hours period:

“I happened to make friends with one Phalangist. Until today, I cannot forget two pictures that he showed me with real pride. In one he stood in a heroic pose holding in his hands two full jars – ears of the terrorists’.

“In the second, I saw him standing holding in each hand a head that had been cut off, and between his legs a third. He explained to me with great self-importance that these were the heads of the Palestinians he had decapitated".

The following statement is by Souad Merii, a former resident of the Shatila camp in 1982:

“We saw 13 armed men outside our door…He ordered us to stand up by the wall with our hands raised above our heads, with our backs towards them…They started shooting us. My baby sister was shot in her head, and her brains splattered over us. My father was shot in his heart, but was still alive. My brothers Shadi, 3, Farid 8, Bassam 11, and my sister Hajar, 7, and Shadia, and our neighbour died right away…As for me I was paralyzed right away and I couldn't move. The soldiers thought we were all dead and left our house”

According to Yasser Arafat, a minimum of three thousand, two hundred inhabitants of the Sabra and Shatila refugee camp were murdered by members of the Kataeb Party. This figure is also supported by the well-respected Israeli Journalist, Amnon Kapeliouk, who claimed that between three, to three thousand five hundred inhabitants were murdered within this forty-eight hour period. Ten days later, the Israeli government set up the Kahan Commission to investigate the circumstances of the Sabra and Shatila massacre. In 1983, the commission published its findings that former Defense Minister Ariel Sharon was personally responsible for the massacre and should resign. Under pressure, Sharon resigned as defense minister but remained in the government as a minister without portfolio. Many political commentators have openly stated that “on the level of individual atrocities, the massacre at Sabra and Shatila stands alongside similar outrages in the Second World War”.

Destroyed office belonging to the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, Sidon (1982)

Fourth Phase 1984-1990:

During this 1985-1990, domestic violence, carried out between the nation's different ethnic and religious communities remained to be a prevalent feature within Lebanese society. On 8 March 1985 a car bomb exploded in Bir al-Abid, south Beirut, killing 80 and injuring over 400. In response to the level of violence, a summit was held in Damascus with President Amin Gemayel, Prime Minister Rachid Karami and Syrian President Hafez Assad on August 8,1985. The purpose of this summit was to put an end to the sectarian-skirmishes between Lebanon's Christian and Druze militias. There followed a series of car bombs in Beirut which were seen as intended to thwart any agreement. On 14 August a car exploded in a Christian district control by the Lebanese Forces. On 17 August another exploded beside a supermarket, also in a district under LF control. 55 people were killed. Two days later 2 car bombs went off in a Druze and a Shi’ite district of Beirut. The following day another car bomb exploded in Tripoli. An unknown group, the “Black Brigades”, claimed responsibility. The violence quickly escalated with extensive artillery exchanges. It is estimated that in two weeks 300 people were killed. On 15 September fighting broke out in Tripoli between Alawite and Sunni militias. 200,000 people fled the city. The harbour district was heavily bombarded. The arrival of the Syrian army a week later ended the violence which left 500 killed.

War of the Camps (1984-1987)

Main article: War of the Camps

Tensions between Lebanon's Shi'ite and Palestinian communities reached an unprecedented level following the disappearance of Musa al-Sadr. As the years passed, minor clashes transformed into fierce military battles and by 1982, these battles had become highly frequent. During such skirmishes, Fatah would indiscriminately bomb entire villages such as Hanawayya (east of Tyre), a predominantly Shi’ite village that had been almost completely destroyed. Thus, as Palestinian militia forces attempted to re-establish its influence within the refugee camps in both Beirut and the South of Lebanon, Nabih Berri introduced his "Security Plan" on February 24th, 1984, which instructed militiamen within the Amal Movement to systematically attack a series of Palestinian refugee camps in an attempt to curtail the power and influence retained by Palestinian organisations within Lebanon.

This phase within the Lebanese Civil War is commonly referred to as “The War of the Camps”. Nabih Berri ordered the attack on three Palestinian refugee camps, Sabra, Shatila, and Burj al Barajina. By June, the Amal Movement shifted its assaults, now targeting the Mar Elias refugee camp, followed by six days of “human wave” military assaults on Shatila. As a result, a minimum of two hundred and seventy-five homes were destroyed in the Shatilia refugee camp. Moreover, over ninety-five percent of the homes within the Sabra refugee camp had been destroyed. A minimum of six hundred people died, with more than two thousand wounded. One month before a ceasefire was signed, Dawud Dawud, an Amal representative, publicly stated on May 12th, 1985 that "we" will allow the Palestinians’ to return to Lebanon on one condition, “we want their return, but only to punish them”.

A ceasefire was signed between Amal and Palestinian representatives in Damascus on June 17th, 1985. However, less than a year later, another round of fighting between Palestinian militias and Amal forces took place on May 19th, 1986. Within the following four months, Amal forces had surrounded the Rashidieh refugee camp, in response to Palestinian forces firing upon an Amal patrol force at Rashidieh. By December, Amal militiamen had set over one hundred houses on fire in the Jmayjim and Abu-al-Aswad refugee camp, near Tyre, expelling over six thousand inhabitants. The War of the Camps was official over by April 1987. Over four hundred Palestinians were killed and over eight hundred wounded. Between thirty to one hundred and fifty thousand Palestinians had been displaced.

1985-1990:

In late December 1985 an agreement was reached between the Syrians and their Lebanese allies to stabilise the situation in Lebanon. It was opposed by President Amin Gemayel and the Phalangist Party. On 15 January 1986 the pro-Syrian leader of the Lebanese Forces, Elie Hobeika, was overthrown. Shortly afterwards, 21 January, a car bomb killed 20 people in Furn ash-Shebbak, East Beirut. Over the next 10 days a further 5 smaller explosions occurred close to Phalangist targets.

In April 1986, following American air strikes on Libya, three western hostages were executed and a new round of hostage taking started.

Major combat returned to Beirut in 1987, when Palestinians, leftists, and Druze fighters allied against Amal, eventually drawing further Syrian intervention. Violent confrontation flared up again in Beirut in 1988 between Amal and Hezbollah. Hezbollah swiftly seized command of several Amal-held parts of the city, and for the first time emerged as a strong force in the capital.

See Also

• Amal Movement
• Bashir Gemayel
• Cairo Agreement
• Camille Chamoun
• Fatah
• National Pact
• Palestinian Liberation Organisation in Lebanon
• Pierre Gemayel
• The Kataeb Party
• The Lebanese Civil War
• Sectarianism
• Sectarian Violence

External Links

• An-Nahar Newspaper. Amal Movement: Thirty Years after its creation.http://www.imamsadr.net/News/print.php?NewsID=1685</ref>.
• Lewis A. Neil. U.S. Links Men in Bomb Case To Lebanon Terrorist Group. The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. Last modified May 18, 1988. https://www.nytimes.com/1988/05/18/world/us-links-men-in-bomb-case-to-lebanon-terrorist-group.html.
• Thames Tv. Lebanese Crisis. Civil War. Palestinian Refugees. This Week. 1973. Youtube Video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc1xWNxc8lM
• Thames Tv. Lebanon's Civil War 1976. The Agony of Lebanon. This Week. 1976. Youtube Video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NWwuEIsiZk
• Thames Tv. Lebanon. Civil War. Middle East. 1983. Youtube Video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zuMykVib7U

References

Books

• Ajami, Fouad. The Vanished Imam: Musa al Sadr and the Shia of Lebanon. Ithaca. Cornell University Press, 2012.

• Chomsky, Noam. Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians. New York: South End Press, 1999.

• Chomsky, Noam. Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies. London: Pluto Press, 1989.

• Cobban, Helena. The Palestinian Liberation Organisation: People, Power and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984.

• Deeb, Marius. Syria’s Terrorist War on Lebanon and the Peace Process. Basingstoke: Springer, 2003.

• Fisk, Robert. Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War. New York: Oxford University Press, USA, 2001.

• Gilmour, David. Lebanon, the Fractured Country. Oxford: Penguin, 1983.
• Gordon, Alijah. I Painted the Snow Black because we're afraid of the days: Palestinians Speak. Malaysian Sociological Research Institute, 2001.
• Kazziha, Walid. Palestine in the Arab Dilemma. London: Routledge, 2015.

• Khalaf, Samir. Civil and Uncivil Violence in Lebanon: A History of the Internationalization of Communal Conflict. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.
• Merom, Gil. How Democracies Lose Small Wars: State, Society, and the Failures of France in Algeria, Israel in Lebanon, and the United States in Vietnam. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2003
• Nielsen S. Jorgen. International Documents on Palestine 1972. Kuwait. The Institute for Palestinian Studies Beirut, 1975.

• O'Ballance, Edgar. Civil War in Lebanon, 1975-92. Basingstoke: Springer, 1998.

• Petran, Tabitha. The struggle over Lebanon. Monthly Review Pr, 1987.
• Picard, Elizabeth. Reconciliation, Reform and Resilience: Positive Peace for Lebanon. London: Conciliation Resources, 2012.

• Randal, Jonathan C. The Tragedy of Lebanon: Christian Warlords, Israeli Adventurers and American Bunglers. Chatto & Windus, 1990.

• Schiff, Ze'ev, and Ehud Ya'ari. Israel's Lebanon War. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985.
• Smit, Ferdinand. The Battle for South Lebanon: The Radicalization of Lebanon's Shi'ites, 1982-1985. Bulaaq publications. 2000

Journals/Articles:

• Boano Camillo, Chabarek Dalia. Memories of war in the divided city. Open Democracy. (2013).
• Farsoun, Samih. Lebanon Explodes: Toward a Maronite Zion. MERIP Reports, no. 44 (1976), 15. doi:10.2307/3011713.
• Henley, Alexander D. Politics of a Church at War: Maronite Catholicism in the Lebanese Civil War. Mediterranean Politics 13, no. 3 (2008), 353-369. doi:10.1080/13629390802386713.
• Hudson C. Michael. The Palestinian Factor in the Lebanese Civil War. The Middle East Journal 32, no. 4 (1978). https://www.jstor.org/stable/4325767

• Khalili, Laleh. Places of Memory and Mourning: Palestinian Commemoration in the Refugee Camps of Lebanon. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 25, no. 1 (2005), 30-45. doi:10.1215/1089201x-25-1-30.
• Makdisi Karim & Göksel Timur. UNIFIL II: Emerging and Evolving European Engagement in Lebanon and the Middle East. German Council on Foreign Relations. Paper 76. (January 2009).

• Michalak, Tomáš. The Palestinians and the Outbreak of Civil War in Lebanon. Asian and African Studies 22, no. 1 (2013). https://www.sav.sk/journals/uploads/112415016_Michalak.pdf..

• Peteet, Julie. From Refugees to Minority: Palestinians in Post-War Lebanon. Middle East Report, no. 200 (1996), 27. doi:10.2307/3013265.

• Picard, Elizabeth. The Lebanese Shi’a and Political Violence in Lebanon. The Legitimization of Violence, (1997), 189-233. doi:10.1007/978-1-349-25258-9_6.
• Reilly A. James. Israel in Lebanon, 1975-82. MERIP Reports. 108/109. (1982). 10.2307/3012236.

• Siklawi, Rami. The Dynamics of Palestinian Political Endurance in Lebanon. The Middle East Journal 64, no. 4 (2010), 597-611. doi:10.3751/64.4.15.

• Siklawi, Rami. The Dynamics of the Amal Movement in Lebanon 1975-90. Arab Studies Quarterly 34, no. 1 (2012). https://www.jstor.org/stable/41858677?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference%23references_tab_contents#metadata_info_tab_contents.

Websites:

• Ali Nayel, Moe. Lebanon Marks Civil War Anniversary. Breaking News, World News and Video from Al Jazeera. Last modified April 12, 2014. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/04/lebanon-civil-war-anniversary-2014412171036541966.html.
• Hajjar Claude. The War Against 'South Lebanon - South Lebanese Army". The Committee of Support for the Lebanese in Enforced Exile in Israel. http://www.gotc-se.org/statements/SOUTH_OF_LEBANON_UPD1.html. Last modified January, 2007. Accessed on 20th May, 2020.
• Hassan Krayem, The Lebanese Civil War and the Taif Agreement. American University of Beirut. https://almashriq.hiof.no/ddc/projects/pspa/conflict-resolution.html. Accessed 8th May, 2020.
• Library of Congress. Contemporary Distribution of Lebanon's Main Religious Groups. Washington, D.C. : Central Intelligence Agency 1988. Accessed on May 17th, 2020.
• Maktabi, Rima. Lebanon's Missing History: Why School Books Ignore the Past.. CNN. June 08th, 2012. https://edition.cnn.com/2012/06/08/world/meast/lebanon-civil-war-history/index.html. Accessed Monday 18th May, 2020.

• Mostyn, Trevor. Obituary: Elie Hobeika. The Guardian. Last modified January 24, 2002. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/jan/25/israelandthepalestinians.lebanon. Accessed on 07/05/2020.
• Tabbara, Acil. Decades After the Disappearance of Imam Musa Al-Sadr, the Mystery Remains. L'Orient-Le Jour. September 1st 2019. https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1184846/decades-after-the-death-of-imam-musa-al-sadr-the-mystery-remains.html

• Wayback Machine. The PLO in Lebanon. https://web.archive.org/web/20090911032429/www.palestinefacts.org/pf_1967to1991_lebanon_plo.php. Accessed May 8, 2020.

Government Reports:

• Ben-Horin, Yoav & Posen Barry. Israel's Strategic Doctrine. Report Number: R-2845-NA. The Rand Cooperation report prepared for the Director of Net Assessment, Office of the Secretary of Defense. https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a115647.pdf

Photographs:

• Chamran Mostafa. http://www.imam-sadr.com/نگارخانه/نمایش-نگارخانه/tabid/131/ArticleId/5154/امام-موسی-صدر.aspx. 8th July, 2017. Accessed on 19th May, 2020
• Françoise Demulder. https://www.worldpressphoto.org/index.php?option=com_photogallery&task=view&id=173&Itemid=115&bandwidth=high. 1976. Accessed on 19th May, 2020.
• Robin Moyer, World Press Photo of the Year https://archive.vn/20120728140707/http://www.archive.worldpressphoto.org/search/layout/result/indeling/detailwpp/form/wpp/q/ishoofdafbeelding/true/trefwoord/year/1982. 1982 Accessed on 19th May, 2020.

Dissertations/Thesis:

• Khawaja Bassam. War and Memory: The Role of Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon. History Honors Projects. Paper 13, 2011. http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/history_honors/13.