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Lebanese Civil War: the story on HearLore | HearLore
— Ch. 1 · Origins And Demographic Shifts —
Lebanese Civil War.
~9 min read · Ch. 1 of 6
On the morning of the 13th of April 1975, unidentified gunmen in a speeding car fired on a church in the Christian East Beirut suburb of Ain el-Rummaneh. Four people died that day, including two Maronite Phalangists. Hours later, Phalangists led by the Gemayels killed thirty Palestinians traveling in the same area. Citywide clashes erupted in response to this Bus Massacre. The conflict had been building since the early 1960s when Lebanon was relatively calm. Fatah and other Palestinian Liberation Organization factions were active among four hundred thousand Palestinian refugees in Lebanese camps. They relocated most of their fighting strength to Lebanon at the end of 1970 after being expelled from Jordan during Black September. This action created a State within a State that shook Lebanon's fragile sectarian balance. Solidarity with the Palestinians was expressed by Lebanese Sunni Muslims who aimed to change the political system. The influx of thousands of Palestinians first in 1948 and again in 1967 contributed to Lebanon's demographic shift towards an eventual Muslim majority. The religious diversity played a notable role in the lead-up to the conflict. Lebanese Christians and Lebanese Sunni Muslims comprised the majority in coastal cities while Lebanese Shia Muslims were primarily based throughout southern Lebanon and in the Beqaa Valley. Druze and Christians populated the country's mountainous areas. At the time, the Lebanese government was under the influence of elites within the Maronite Christian community. The link between politics and religion was reinforced under the French Mandate from 1920 to 1943. The country's parliamentary structure favoured a leading position for Lebanese Christians who constituted the majority of the population. However, Lebanon's Muslims comprised a large minority. Lebanon's Christian-dominated government faced increasing opposition from Muslims, pan-Arabists, and left-wing groups. The Cold War also exerted a disintegrative effect on the country closely linked to the political polarization that preceded the 1958 Lebanese crisis. Christians mostly sided with the Western world while Muslims, pan-Arabists, and leftists mostly sided with Soviet-aligned Arab countries.
Militia Alliances And Sectarianism
Throughout the spring of 1975, minor clashes in Lebanon had been building up towards all-out conflict. The Lebanese National Movement pitted against the Phalange caused the ever-weaker national government to waver. On the 6th of December 1975, known as Black Saturday, the killings of four Phalange members led Phalange to quickly set up roadblocks throughout Beirut. Many Palestinians or Lebanese Muslims passing through were killed immediately. Muslim and Palestinian militias retaliated with force increasing the total death count to between two hundred and six hundred civilians and militiamen. After this point, all-out fighting began between the militias. The two main alliances were the Lebanese Front consisting of nationalist Maronites who were against Palestinian militancy in Lebanon and the Lebanese National Movement which consisted of pro-Palestinian Leftists. The LNM dissolved after the Israeli invasion of 1982 and was replaced by the Lebanese National Resistance Front known as Jammoul in Arabic. Throughout the war most or all militias operated with little regard for human rights. The sectarian character of some battles made non-combatant civilians a frequent target. In East Beirut, Maronite leaders of the National Liberal Party joined in the Lebanese Front. Their militias, the Tigers, Kataeb Regulatory Forces and Guardians of the Cedars, entered a loose coalition known as the Lebanese Forces. From the very beginning, the Kataeb and its Regulatory Forces militia under the leadership of Bashir Gemayel dominated the LF. In 1977, 80, through absorbing or destroying smaller militias, he both consolidated control and strengthened the LF into the dominant Maronite force. Another party was the Kataeb Party founded by Pierre Gemayel in 1936. Kataeb similarly had its own militia officially formed in 1961 called the Kataeb Regulatory Forces led by William Hawi until 1976 when Bachir Gemayel succeeded him. Kataeb Regulatory Forces merged with Tigers Militia and several minor groups to form an umbrella militia known as the Lebanese Forces which acted in unity. Before 1975, Maronite militias were reportedly supplied by weapons from Bulgaria and by the onset of the war were receiving support from Iraq, Jordan, Pahlavi Iran, West Germany, Israel, and Saudi Arabia.
Foreign Interventions And Proxy Wars
On the 22nd of January 1976, Syrian President Hafez al-Assad brokered a truce between the two sides while covertly moving Syrian troops into Lebanon under the guise of the Palestine Liberation Army. On the 1st of June 1976, twelve thousand regular Syrian troops entered Lebanon and began conducting operations against Palestinian and leftist militias. This technically put Syria on the same side as Israel since Israel had already begun to supply Maronite forces with arms tanks and military advisers in May 1976. Syria had its own political and territorial interests in Lebanon which harbored cells of Sunni Islamists and anti-Ba'athist Muslim Brotherhood. In March 1978, eleven Fatah fighters landed on a beach in northern Israel and hijacked two buses full of passengers on the Haifa, Tel-Aviv road. They killed thirty-seven and wounded seventy-six Israelis before being killed in a firefight with Israeli forces. Israel invaded Lebanon four days later in Operation Litani. The Israeli Army occupied most of the area south of the Litani River. The UN Security Council passed Resolution 425 calling for immediate Israeli withdrawal and creating the UN Interim Force in Lebanon charged with attempting to establish peace. Israel's Security Zone in Lebanon was held by the South Lebanon Army a Christian-Shi'a militia under the leadership of Major Saad Haddad backed by Israel. The Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin compared the plight of the Christian minority in southern Lebanon to that of European Jews during World War II. On the 3rd of June 1982, the Abu Nidal Organization attempted to assassinate Israeli ambassador Shlomo Argov in London. Israel carried out a retaliatory aerial attack on PLO and PFLP targets in West Beirut that led to over one hundred casualties. Israel launched Operation Peace for Galilee on the 6th of June 1982 attacking PLO bases in Lebanon. Israeli forces quickly drove into Lebanon moving into East Beirut with the tacit support of Maronite leaders and militia. When the Israeli cabinet convened to authorize the invasion Sharon described it as a plan to advance forty kilometers into Lebanon.
Major Battles And Massacres
On 16, the 18th of September 1982, Lebanese Phalangists allied with the Israeli Defense Force killed between four hundred sixty and three thousand five hundred Lebanese and Palestinian Shiite civilians in the Shatila refugee camp and the adjacent Sabra neighborhood of Beirut. The Israelis had ordered their Phalangist allies to clear out PLO fighters. Soldiers loyal to Phalangist leader Elie Hobeika began slaughtering civilians while Israeli forces blocked exits from Sabra and Shatila and illuminated the area with flares. IDF officials failed to act to stop the killings and prevented the escapees from fleeing the Phalangists. 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 then-Defense Minister Ariel Sharon was personally responsible for the massacre and should resign. On the 12th of August 1976, supported by Syria, Maronite forces managed to overwhelm the Palestinian and leftist militias defending the Tel al-Zaatar refugee camp. The Christian militia massacred one thousand to fifteen hundred civilians which unleashed heavy criticism against Syria from the Arab world. On the 19th of October 1976, the Battle of Aishiya took place when a combined force of PLO and a Communist militia attacked Aishiya an isolated Maronite village in a mostly Muslim area. The Artillery Corps of the Israel Defense Forces fired twenty-four shells from US-made 175-millimeter field artillery units at the attackers repelling their first attempt. However, the PLO and Communists returned at night when low visibility made Israeli artillery far less effective. The Maronite population of the village fled and returned in 1982.
Economic Collapse And Smuggling Networks
As the war dragged on, the militias deteriorated ever further into mafia-style organizations with many commanders turning to crime as their main occupation rather than fighting. Finances for the war effort were obtained through outside support notably from Syria or Israel. Other Arab governments and Iran also provided considerable funds. Alliances would shift frequently. Local populations believed they had legitimate moral authority to raise taxes to defend their communities. Road checkpoints were a particularly common way to raise these claimed taxes. Such taxes were in principle viewed as legitimate by much of the population who identified with their community's militia. However, many militia fighters would use taxes or customs as a pretext to extort money. Furthermore, many people did not recognize militia tax-raising authority and viewed all militia money-raising activities as mafia-style extortion and theft. During the civil war, Lebanon turned into one of the world's largest narcotics producers with much of the hashish production centered in the Bekaa valley. However, much else was also smuggled such as guns and supplies all kinds of stolen goods and regular trade. War or no war, Lebanon would not give up its role as the middleman in European-Arab business. Many battles were fought over Lebanon's ports to gain smugglers access to the sea routes. In 1976, Wilton Wynn a TIME correspondent visited the East Beirut Christian canton. He reported that compared to villages outside the canton in Maronite towns and villages no garbage littered the streets gas was one-fifth the price charged in West Beirut and the price of bread was controlled to levels comparable to pre-war pricing.
Peace Processes And The Taif Agreement
In October 1983, Israel withdrew from the Chouf District in southeast of Beirut removing the buffer between the Druze and the Maronite militias and triggering another round of brutal fighting known as the Mountain War. Israel did not intervene. By September 1983, the Druze had gained control over most of the Chouf and Israeli forces had pulled out from all but the southern security zone. In August 1983, following the Israeli withdrawal and the ensuing battles between the Lebanese Army and opposing factions for control of key terrain during the Mountain War, the Reagan White House approved the use of naval gunfire to subdue Druze and Syrian positions. On the 21st of August 1982, the first troops of a multinational force landed in Beirut to oversee the PLO withdrawal from Lebanon. U.S. mediation resulted in the evacuation of Syrian troops and PLO fighters from Beirut. The agreement provided for the deployment of a multinational force composed of U.S. Marines along with French Italian and British units. However, Israel reported that some two thousand PLO militants were hiding in Palestinian refugee camps on the outskirts of Beirut. Bachir Gemayel was elected president on the 23rd of August. He was assassinated on the 14th of September by Habib Tanious Shartouni affiliated to the Syrian Social Nationalist Party. In 1989, the Taif Agreement marked the beginning of the end for the fighting as a committee appointed by the Arab League began to formulate solutions to the conflict. In March 1991, the Parliament of Lebanon passed an amnesty law that pardoned all political crimes that had been perpetrated prior to the law's time of enactment. In May 1991, all of the armed factions that had been operating in Lebanon were dissolved excluding Hezbollah an Iran-backed Shia Islamist militia.
When did the Lebanese Civil War begin and what triggered it?
The Lebanese Civil War began on the 13th of April 1975 when unidentified gunmen fired on a church in Ain el-Rummaneh killing four people. This attack was followed by retaliatory killings by Phalangists that led to citywide clashes and all-out fighting between militias.
Who were the main factions involved in the Lebanese Civil War?
The two main alliances were the Lebanese Front consisting of nationalist Maronites against Palestinian militancy and the Lebanese National Movement which consisted of pro-Palestinian Leftists. Other groups included the Kataeb Regulatory Forces, Tigers Militia, South Lebanon Army, and Hezbollah an Iran-backed Shia Islamist militia.
What role did Syria play during the Lebanese Civil War?
Syria intervened with twelve thousand regular troops entering Lebanon on the 1st of June 1976 to conduct operations against Palestinian and leftist militias. Syrian President Hafez al-Assad brokered a truce on the 22nd of January 1976 while covertly moving troops into Lebanon under the guise of the Palestine Liberation Army.
When did the Sabra and Shatila massacre occur and who committed it?
Lebanese Phalangists allied with the Israeli Defense Force killed civilians in the Shatila refugee camp and Sabra neighborhood on the 18th of September 1982. Soldiers loyal to Phalangist leader Elie Hobeika began slaughtering civilians while Israeli forces blocked exits from the area.
How did the Lebanese Civil War end and when was peace established?
The Taif Agreement marked the beginning of the end for the fighting in 1989 as a committee appointed by the Arab League formulated solutions to the conflict. The Parliament of Lebanon passed an amnesty law in March 1991 that pardoned all political crimes and dissolved armed factions in May 1991 excluding Hezbollah.