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The Lebanese Civil War ( Arabic: الحرب الأهلية اللبنانية Al-Ḥarb al-Ahliyyah al-Libnāniyyah) was a multifaceted armed conflict that took place from 1975 to 1990. It resulted in an estimated 150,000 fatalities [5] and also led to the exodus of almost one million people from Lebanon. [6]
- Lebanese Front
The Lebanese Front (Arabic: الجبهة اللبنانية, al-Jabha...
- Civil War
A civil war is a war between organized groups within the...
- Army of Free Lebanon
The Army of Free Lebanon – AFL (Arabic: جيش لبنان الحر,...
- Druze
The Druzite community in Lebanon played an important role in...
- Armenian Secret Army for The Liberation of Armenia
ASALA was founded in 1975 (thought to correspond to the 60th...
- Etienne Saqr
Étienne Saqr (Arabic: إتيان صقر; born on 26 December 1937;...
- Tony Frangieh
Antoine "Tony" Suleiman Frangieh (Arabic: أنطوان "طوني"...
- Dany Chamoun
Biography Early life and education. Chamoun was born in Deir...
- Tigers Militia
The Tigers militia (Arabic: نمور الأحرار, transliterated:...
- Tel al-Zaatar Massacre
Background. At the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War, the...
- Lebanese Front
- Overview
- Background
- Progression of the war
- Resolution
Lebanese Civil War, civil conflict (1975–90) in Lebanon emanating from the deterioration of the Lebanese state and the coalescence of militias that provided security where the state could not. These militias formed largely along communal lines: the Lebanese Front (LF), led by the Phalangists (or Phalange), represented Maronite Christian clans whose...
The causes of the war were multifaceted and deeply rooted but can be generalized as a growing crisis of insecurity. After he played a key role as commander of the army in resolving the crisis of a 1958 rebellion, the newly elected president Fuad Chehab made a valiant attempt to address the disproportionate development of the country and to centralize the state’s security apparatus. By the late 1960s, however, the development program he initiated proved politically unsatisfactory and had become a destabilizing force. The strengthened security apparatus, meanwhile, gained a reputation for suppression and corruption. The situation grew more precarious as the government negotiated the presence and operation of PLO guerrillas inside Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps, which had attracted Israeli raids on Lebanon, most notably on the airport in Beirut in 1968. As the state proved increasingly unable to maintain a monopoly of force, patronage networks, both existing and new, began arming and organizing their own security.
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A History of War
On August 17, 1970, Suleiman Franjieh, leader of a powerful Maronite clan from northern Lebanon who sought to undo the reform program initiated by Chehab, was elected president by one vote after three rounds of balloting. His presidency, polarizing and corrupt, alienated Muslims and Christians alike, and his government proved unable to maintain the state’s dominance over the growing and diffuse militias of the PLO. The Phalangist militia of the rival Maronite Gemayel clan began taking matters into its own hands by confronting the Palestinian militias directly.
The beginning of the civil war is typically dated to April 13, 1975, when the Phalangists attacked a bus taking Palestinians to a refugee camp at Tall al-Zaʿtar, Lebanon. The attack escalated an intermittent cycle of violence into a more general battle between the Phalangists and the LNM, whose coalition of Lebanese leftists and Muslims supported the PLO’s cause.
In the months that followed, the general destruction of the central market area of Beirut was marked by the emergence of a “green line” between Muslim West Beirut and Christian East Beirut, which persisted until the end of the civil war in 1990, with each side under the control of its respective militias.
As Franjieh’s term came to an end, and with Lebanon’s army splintered, he asked Syria to intervene to prevent the country from disintegrating into multiple states. Despite its earlier support for the PLO in the south, Syria launched a large-scale intervention to redress the emerging imbalance of power in favour of the Christians in the north. Syria’s intervention sparked a more active Israeli involvement as well, in which Israel armed and financed Christian militias in the south of the country, whom Israelis looked upon as their main ally in their fight against the PLO. With Palestinian forces continuing to conduct cross-border raids into Israel, Israel launched a major reprisal attack in March 1978, sending troops into the south of Lebanon as far as the Līṭānī River. The resulting conflict led to the establishment of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL)—a peacekeeping force meant to secure Israeli withdrawal and support the return of Lebanese authority in the south—as well as to the creation of the South Lebanese Army (SLA)—a militia led by Saʿd Haddad and armed and financed by Israel to function as a proxy militia under Lebanese Christian command.
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The most significant Israeli intervention during the course of the Lebanese Civil War, however, was the invasion that began on June 6, 1982. Although the stated goal of Israel was only to secure the territory north of its border with Lebanon so as to stop PLO raids, Israeli forces quickly progressed as far as Beirut’s suburbs and laid siege to the capital, particularly to West Beirut. The invasion resulted in the eventual removal of PLO militia from Lebanon under the supervision of a multinational peacekeeping force, the transfer of the PLO headquarters to Tunis, Tunisia, and the temporary withdrawal of Syrian forces back to al-Biqāʿ. Galvanized by the Israeli invasion, a number of Shiʿi groups subsequently emerged, including Hezbollah.
On October 22, 1989, most members of the Lebanese parliament (elected in 1972) met in Ṭāʾif, Saudi Arabia, and accepted a constitutional reform package that restored consociational government in Lebanon in modified form. The power of the traditionally Maronite president was reduced in relation to those of the Sunni prime minister and the Shiʿi speaker of the National Assembly, and the division of parliamentary seats, cabinet posts, and senior administrative positions was adjusted to represent an equal ratio of Christian and Muslim officials. A commitment was made for the gradual elimination of confessionalism, and Lebanese independence was affirmed with a call for an end to foreign occupation in the south. The terms of the agreement also stipulated that Syrian forces were to remain in Lebanon for a period of up to two years, during which time they would assist the new government in establishing security arrangements. For his part, General Aoun was greatly opposed to the Ṭāʾif Accord, fearing it would provide a recipe for continued Syrian involvement in Lebanon.
Parliament subsequently convened on November 5 in Lebanon, where it ratified the Ṭāʾif Accord and elected René Moawad to the presidency. Moawad was assassinated on November 22, and Elias Hrawi was elected two days later; however, General Aoun denounced both presidential elections as invalid. Several days later it was announced that General Aoun had again been dismissed from his position as head of the armed forces, and Gen. Émile Lahoud was named in his place.
In January 1990 intense strife broke out in East Beirut between Aoun and Samir Geagea, who then headed the LF, which proved very costly for the Maronite community and, over several months, resulted in the deaths of numerous (mostly Christian) Lebanese. The final vestiges of the Lebanese Civil War were at last extinguished on October 13, when Syrian troops launched a ground and air attack against Aoun and forced him into exile.
The newly unified government of President Hrawi then embarked upon the delicate and dangerous process of consolidating and extending the power of the Lebanese government. A new cabinet composed of many former militia leaders was appointed, and considerable effort was devoted to the demobilization of most of the wartime militias. The process of rebuilding the Lebanese Army was begun under the auspices of General Lahoud, its new commander in chief. At tremendous cost, the more-than-15-year Lebanese Civil War was ended, and the framework for Lebanon’s Second Republic had been established. Throughout the war’s duration, more than 100,000 people were killed, nearly 1,000,000 displaced, and several billion dollars’ worth of damage to property and infrastructure sustained.
The 1982 Lebanon War began on 6 June 1982, when Israel invaded southern Lebanon. The invasion followed a series of attacks and counter-attacks between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) operating in southern Lebanon and the Israeli military that had caused civilian casualties on both sides of the border.
- 6 June 1982 – 5 June 1985, (main phase June–September 1982)
- Southern Lebanon
- Inconclusive
The Lebanese Civil War was a multifaceted armed conflict that took place from 1975 to 1990. It resulted in an estimated 150,000 fatalities and also led to the exodus of almost one million people from Lebanon.
- Lebanon
Lebanese Civil War, (1975–90) Civil conflict resulting from tensions among Lebanon’s Christian and Muslim populations. The conflict was exacerbated by socioeconomic disparities and the presence in Lebanon in the 1970s of fighters from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
Sep 30, 2021 · Key Facts and Summary. The Lebanese Civil War [1975–1990] was a multifaceted armed conflict in Lebanon which included various armed groups with Maronite Christian, Sunni Muslim, Shia Muslim and Druze affiliations, as well as external parties such as Syria, Israel, France, Italy, Britain and the United States.
The Sabra and Shatila massacre was the 16–18 September 1982 killings of between 700 and 3,500 civilians—mostly Palestinians and Lebanese Shias —in the city of Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War.
