Siege of Beirut | |||||||
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Part of the 1982 Lebanon War | |||||||
![]() Aerial view of the Camille Chamoun Sports City Stadium, used by the Palestinians as an ammunition depot amidst armed confrontations with the Israelis | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
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Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Strength | |||||||
76,000 | 12,000 | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
Unknown | Unknown | ||||||
4,000–5,000 Lebanese civilians killed [1] |
During the 1982 Lebanon War, the city of Beirut was besieged by Israel following the breakdown of the ceasefire that had been imposed by the United Nations amidst the Lebanese Civil War. Beginning in mid-June, the two-month-long siege resulted in the expulsion of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) from Beirut and the rest of Lebanon.
The PLO moved its primary base of operations to Beirut in the early 1970s, after Black September in Jordan. The presence of Palestinian forces was one of the main reasons that led to a conflict in Lebanon in 1975–1976 which ended with the occupation of Lebanon by peacekeeping forces from several Arab countries,[ citation needed ] including Syria. Over the next few years, the Syrians and the PLO gained power in Lebanon, surpassing the ability of the official Lebanese government to curtail or control their actions. Throughout this time, artillery and rocket attacks were launched against Israel. Israel bombed targets in Lebanon and in 1978 launched a military invasion into Southern Lebanon codenamed "Operation Litani".
In 1978, and again in 1981 and early 1982, the United Nations sponsored a ceasefire, and Israeli troops were withdrawn. In 1982 Israel re-invaded Lebanon following the attempted assassination of its ambassador in London, despite being aware that the attack had been carried out by the Abu Nidal faction, which was at war with Yasser Arafat's PLO. The architect of the war, Ariel Sharon (then Defense Minister), presented it to the Israeli government as a limited incursion into Southern Lebanon but took his troops to Beirut. The invasion was code-named "Operation Pines" or "Peace for Galilee", and was intended to weaken or evict the PLO and impose Bachir Gemayel, head of the Christian Phalange party, as President of Lebanon in order to get Lebanon to sign a peace treaty with Israel and bring the country into Israel's sphere of influence. This plan failed when Gemayel was assassinated not long after being elected President by the Lebanese parliament under Israeli pressure.
The Israeli forces invaded in a three-pronged attack. One group moved along the coastal road to Beirut, another aimed at cutting the main Beirut-Damascus road, and the third moved up along the Lebanon-Syria border, hoping to block Syrian reinforcements or interference. By the 11th of June, Israel had gained air superiority after shooting down a number of Syrian aircraft; Syria called for a cease-fire, and the majority of PLO guerrillas fled Tyre, Sidon, and other areas for Beirut.
The ring around Beirut was closed by 13 June 1982, 7 days after the start of Israeli invasion to Lebanon. PLO and part of Syrian forces were isolated in the city.
Israel hoped to complete the siege as quickly as possible; their goal all along in invading Lebanon was for a quick and decisive victory. In addition, the United States, through their representative Philip Habib, was pushing for peace negotiations; the longer the siege took, the greater Arafat's bargaining power would be.
At first Israelis thought that Maronite forces would eradicate the PLO quasi-government in Beirut, but it turned out that the Maronites were not prepared to undertake this task. For the IDF, the capture of Beirut in street-to-street fighting would have involved unacceptable level of casualties. This is why the method chosen, was the combination of military pressure and psychological warfare to persuade the PLO that the only alternative to surrender was total annihilation. [2]
For seven weeks, Israel attacked the city by sea, air, and land, cutting off food and water supplies, disconnecting the electricity, and securing the airport and some southern suburbs, but for the most part coming no closer to their goals. As with most sieges, the population of the city, thousands of civilians, suffered alongside the PLO guerrillas. Israel was roundly accused of indiscriminately shelling the city in addition to the other measures taken to weaken the PLO. By the end of the first week of July 500 buildings had been destroyed by Israeli shells and bombs. [3]
On 14 July, Sharon and chief of staff Rafael Eitan obtained Prime Minister Begin's support for a large scale operation to conquer West Beirut in order to achieve the eviction of the PLO. But the plan was rejected on 16 July by the full Israeli cabinet, out of concern for heavy loss of life. Some parties threatened to leave the ruling coalition if the plan was adopted. [4]
At the end of July, with negotiations still deadlocked, the IDF intensified its attacks. Mossad, using their Phalangist contacts, sent Arab agents into Beirut with car bombs in order to terrorize the Palestinians into submission and the Lebanese to increase pressure for their departure. Dozens of people were killed in these bombings. Some of the Israeli agents were caught and ultimately confessed. [4]
The Israeli Air Force intensified missions specifically designed to assassinate Palestinian leaders – Yassir Arafat, Abu Jihad and Salah Khalaf (Abu Iyad). The Israelis were assisted by agents with transmitters on the ground. Although a number of apartment houses were destroyed with hundreds of Palestinians and Lebanese killed or wounded, the leaders managed to evade bombings. [5]
On 10 August, when American envoy Philip Habib submitted a draft agreement to Israel, Sharon, probably impatient with what he regarded as American meddling, ordered a saturation bombing of Beirut, during which at least 300 people were killed. That bombing was followed by a protest to the Israeli government by President Ronald Reagan. Within 20 minutes of a phone call between Reagan and Begin, in which the former said the bombings were going too far and needed to stop, Begin ordered the bombings stopped. [6] On 12 August, the Israeli cabinet stripped Ariel Sharon of most of his powers; he was not allowed to order the use of air force, armored force and artillery without agreement of the cabinet or prime minister. [7]
During the siege, the Israelis secured several key locations in other parts of Lebanon, but did not manage to take the city before a peace agreement was finally implemented. Although Syria had agreed on 7 August, Israel, Lebanon, and the PLO finally agreed, with US mediation, on the 18th. On 21 August, 350 French paratroopers arrived in Beirut, followed by 800 US Marines and Italian Bersaglieri plus additional international peacekeepers (for a total force of 2,130) to supervise the removal of the PLO, first by ship and then overland, to Tunisia, Yemen, Jordan, and Syria. Altogether 8,500 PLO men were evacuated to Tunisia, and 2,500 by land to other Arab countries. [7]
In the end, Israel succeeded in ending the rocket attacks for a very short period, and routed the PLO from Lebanon. The siege also saw the insubordination and subsequent dismissal of the 211th Armor Brigade commander, Eli Geva, who refused to lead his forces into the city, arguing this would result in "the excessive killings of civilians."[ citation needed ]
The conclusion to the conflict has been portrayed by analyst Jonathan F. Keiler as a tactical victory for Israel, but a strategic victory for the PLO. [8]
Bachir Gemayel, the Lebanese president-elect, was killed in Eastern Beirut a few weeks after the withdrawal of PLO forces. His death resulted in the Lebanese Forces entering the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps and slaughtering almost two thousand Palestinian civilians, mostly women, children and the elderly. [11] This occurred under the supervision of Israeli troops who illuminated the areas with flares and provided bulldozers for mass burials of the victims.
Following the siege of Beirut, Arafat left for Greece, and then Tunis, establishing a new headquarters there. PLO fedayeen continued to operate out of Yemen, Algeria, Iraq, and the Sudan, as well as within Israeli-controlled territory.[ citation needed ]
In late 1983, 4,000 Arafat loyalists were evacuated from Tripoli on five Greek vessels. [12]
Decades later, the siege was cited by Osama bin Laden as a major reason for the September 11, 2001 attacks. [13]
God knows it did not cross our minds to attack the Towers, but after the situation became unbearable—and we witnessed the injustice and tyranny of the American-Israeli alliance against our people in Palestine and Lebanon—I thought about it. And the events that affected me directly were those of 1982 and the events that followed—when America allowed the Israelis to invade Lebanon, helped by the U.S. Sixth Fleet. As I watched the destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me to punish the unjust the same way: to destroy towers in America so it could taste some of what we were tasting and to stop killing our children and women.
— Osama bin Laden, 2004 [14]
Yasser Arafat, also popularly known by his kunya Abu Ammar, was a Palestinian political leader. He was chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from 1969 to 2004 and president of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) from 1994 to 2004. Ideologically an Arab nationalist and a socialist, Arafat was a founding member of the Fatah political party, which he led from 1959 until 2004.
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. It was perpetrated by the Lebanese Forces, one of the main Christian militias in Lebanon, and supported by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) that had surrounded Beirut's Sabra neighbourhood and the adjacent Shatila refugee camp.
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. The military operation was launched after gunmen from the Abu Nidal Organization attempted to assassinate Shlomo Argov, Israel's ambassador to the United Kingdom. Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin blamed Abu Nidal's enemy, the PLO, for the incident, and used the incident as a casus belli for the invasion.
Elie Hobeika was a Lebanese Maronite militia commander in the Lebanese Forces militia during the Lebanese Civil War and one of Bashir Gemayel's close confidants. After the murder of Gemayel, he gained notoriety for his direct involvement in, and overseeing of, the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre. Hobeika initially supported the IDF during their invasion, but later switched sides and supported the Syrians. He became president of the Lebanese Forces political party until he was ousted in 1986. He then founded the Promise Party and was elected to serve two terms in the Parliament of Lebanon. In January 2002, he was assassinated by a car bomb at his house in Beirut, shortly before he was to testify about the Sabra and Shatila massacre in a Belgian court.
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.
On October 23, 1983, two truck bombs were detonated at buildings in Beirut, Lebanon, housing American and French service members of the Multinational Force in Lebanon (MNF), a military peacekeeping operation during the Lebanese Civil War. The attack killed 307 people: 241 U.S. and 58 French military personnel, six civilians, and two attackers.
The 1978 South Lebanon conflict began after Israel invaded southern Lebanon up to the Litani River in March 1978, in response to the Coastal Road massacre near Tel Aviv by Lebanon-based Palestinian militants. The conflict resulted in the deaths of 1,100–2,000 Lebanese and Palestinians, 20 Israelis, and the internal displacement of 100,000 to 250,000 people in Lebanon. The Israel Defense Forces gained a military victory against the Palestine Liberation Organization as the latter was forced to withdraw from southern Lebanon, preventing it from launching attacks on Israel from across its land border with Lebanon. In response to the outbreak of hostilities, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 425 and Resolution 426 on 19 March 1978, which called on Israel to immediately withdraw its troops from Lebanon and established the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
Black September, also known as the Jordanian Civil War, was an armed conflict between Jordan, led by King Hussein, and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), led by chairman Yasser Arafat. The main phase of the fighting took place between 16 and 27 September 1970, though certain aspects of the conflict continued until 17 July 1971.
The Lebanese Forces is a Lebanese Christian-based political party and former militia during the Lebanese Civil War. It currently holds 19 of the 128 seats in Lebanon's parliament and is therefore the largest party in parliament.
The Multinational Force in Lebanon (MNF) was an international peacekeeping force created in August 1982 following a 1981 U.S.-brokered ceasefire between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel to end their involvement in the conflict between Lebanon's pro-government and pro-Syrian factions. The ceasefire held until June 3, 1982 when the Abu Nidal Organization attempted to assassinate Shlomo Argov, Israel's ambassador to London. Israel blamed the PLO and three days later invaded Lebanon. West Beirut was besieged for seven weeks before the PLO acceded to a new agreement for their withdrawal. The agreement provided for the deployment of a Multinational Force to assist the Lebanese Armed Forces in evacuating the PLO, Syrian forces and other foreign combatants involved in Lebanon's civil war.
The Israeli–Lebanese conflict, or the South Lebanon conflict, is a series of military clashes involving Israel, Lebanon and Syria, the Palestine Liberation Organization, as well as various militias and militants acting from within Lebanon. The conflict peaked in the 1980s, during the Lebanese Civil War, and has abated since.
The South Lebanon conflict, designated by Israel as the Security Zone in Lebanon Campaign, was a protracted armed conflict that took place in southern Lebanon from 1985 to 2000. It saw fighting between Israel and the Catholic Christian-dominated South Lebanon Army (SLA) against Hezbollah-led Shia Muslim and left-wing guerrillas within the Israeli-occupied "Security Zone"; the SLA had military and logistical support from the Israel Defense Forces over the course of the conflict and operated under the jurisdiction of the Israeli-backed South Lebanon provisional administration, which succeeded the earlier Israeli-backed State of Free Lebanon. It can also refer to the continuation of the earlier conflict in this region involving the growing Palestinian insurgency in South Lebanon against Israel following the expulsion of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from Jordan after Black September. Historical tensions between Palestinian refugees and Lebanese factions contributed another layer to the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990), which saw the Maronite-led Lebanese Front and the Shia Amal Movement at war with the PLO. Hence, the South Lebanon conflict can partly be seen as an extension of the civil war that ended in 1990.
The Battle of the Beaufort was fought between the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) on June 6, 1982, over Beaufort Castle, Lebanon. It was one of the first clashes of the 1982 Lebanon War and resulted in the IDF capturing the castle.
Israel–Lebanon relations have experienced ups and downs since their establishment in the 1940s.
Bachir Pierre Gemayel was a Lebanese militia commander who led the Lebanese Forces, the military wing of the Kataeb Party in the Lebanese Civil War and was elected President of Lebanon in 1982.
Events in the year 1982 in Israel.
The Palestinian insurgency in South Lebanon was a multi-sided armed conflict initiated by Palestinian militants against Israel in 1968 and against Lebanese Christian militias in the mid-1970s. It served as a major catalyst for the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975. Fighting between the Palestinians and the Christian militias lasted until the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, which led to the expulsion of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from Lebanese territory. While the PLO relocated to Tunisia in the aftermath of Israel's invasion, other Palestinian militant factions, such as the Syria-based PFLP–GC, continued to carry out low-level operations from Syrian-occupied Lebanon. After 1982, the insurgency is considered to have faded in light of the inter-Lebanese Mountain War and the Israel–Hezbollah conflict, the latter of which took place for the duration of the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon.
In July 1981, Israeli warplanes began bombarding a number of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) targets across Lebanon, mostly in Beirut and in the south of the country. This was in response to several Palestinian rocket attacks on northern Israel during the Lebanese Civil War.
Syria intervened in the Lebanese Civil War in 1976, one year after the breakout of the war, as Syrian military began supporting Maronite militias against the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and leftist militias. Syria also raised a proxy militia of its own, the Palestine Liberation Army (PLA). Hafiz al-Assad's primary objective was to suppress the rise of PLO and allied pro-Palestinian militias in Lebanon which toed a hardline stance against Israel; and the invasion received widespread rebuke in the Arab world.
On 14 September 1982, a bomb was detonated during a party meeting in the Kataeb Party headquarters in Achrafieh, Beirut which killed Lebanese president-elect Bachir Gemayel and 25 other affiliates of the party.
Dating from the siege of Beirut in 1982, Israel has practiced a complex and limited form of urban warfare. In Beirut, this involved a cordon around the city, accompanied by limited attacks with artillery, ground, and air forces to put pressure on the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and Syrian forces inside. The IDF did not launch a general assault on the city; it awaited a political solution that resulted in evacuation of enemy forces under the auspices of outside powers. Despite the IDF's restraint, it was depicted as little short of barbaric by much of the international media. The PLO's evacuation was treated as a victory parade, rather than the retreat it was, and the PLO lived to fight another day. The battle was a tactical victory for Israel, but a strategic defeat.