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In 1976 a massacre of thousands of Palestinian refugees took place in Lebanon. And while Israel played a key role in those refugees being there in the first place, it didn’t do the killing. That was mostly Christians.
--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: August 12, 1976--
The establishment of the nation of Israel in 1948 and the war that followed led to a mass exodus of Palestinians. There was another such exodus in 1967 during the Six Day War when Israel captured even more territory. Approximately 100,000 Palestinian refugees ended up in Lebanon, and that shifted the balance of power in the nation.
Prior to the outbreak of civil war in Lebanon, the nation was home to a number of faiths. There were Maronite Christians, Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims, and Druze. Thanks to some French colonialism earlier in the century, the Christian population was mostly in charge of the government. There was also Cold War fuckery, as the Christians were all yay USA, and the pan-Arab group sought alliance with the Soviets. Then all these Palestinian refugees showed up and they sure as shit didn’t side with the Christians.
Fighting between the Christians and the Palestinian Liberation Organization began in 1975, and then leftist groups, pan-Arabists, and other Muslim Lebanese joined in on the side of the Palestinians and there was a full-on civil war. Israel provided weapons and advisers to the Christians. Syria actually invaded and in a strange way was on the same side as Israel because it started attacking the PLO, feeling it would help stabilize things, or some shit.
The war lasted until 1990, with over 120,000 killed. A couple thousand of those died during one massacre at Tel al-Zaatar, a Palestinian refugee camp. Christian militia fighters, along with some aid from Syrians, laid siege to the camp in June of 1976 and let those inside die and become weakened by dehydration. They entered the camp on August 12, 1976 and went on a killing spree of civilians. It’s estimated as many as 2,000 Palestinians were killed and another 4,000 wounded. About 6,000 surrendered and many were summarily executed. There was also rape. The rest fled.
In the aftermath, Syrian president Hafez al-Assad had the rest of the Arab world saying—the fuck dude why are you helping kill Palestinians and siding with Christians? Syria was forced to accept a ceasefire, and in cooperation with other Arab nations Syria maintained a powerful presence in Lebanon as a deterrent force to renewed hostilities between the various combatants. The ceasefire managed to last two years before everything went to shit again, with another dozen years of fighting still to come.
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