Damour massacre

The Damour massacre took place on January 20, 1976, during the 1975–1990 Lebanese Civil War. Damour, a Maronite Christian town on the main highway south of Beirut, was attacked by Muslim and left-wing militants with help from Palestine Liberation Organisation units. Part of its population died in battle or in the massacre that followed, and the remainder were forced to flee.[3]

Damour massacre
Part of the Lebanese Civil War
LocationDamour, Lebanon
Coordinates33°44′N 35°27′E
DateJanuary 20, 1976 (cc)
Attack type
Massacre
Deaths150[1]-582 civilians[2]
PerpetratorsPalestine Liberation Organization, Lebanese National Movement

Background

The Damour massacre was a response to the Karantina massacre of January 18, 1976, in which Phalangists — a predominantly Christian right-wing militia — killed from 1,000 up to 1,500 people.[4][5]

The Ahrar and the Phalangist militias based in Damour and Dayr al Nama had been blocking the coastal road leading to southern Lebanon and the Chouf, and this turned them into a threat to the PLO and its leftist and nationalist allies in the Lebanese civil war.[6]

It occurred as part of a series of events during the Lebanese Civil War, in which Palestinians joined the Muslim forces,[7] in the context of the Christian-Muslim divide,[8] and soon Beirut was divided along the Green Line, with Christian enclaves to the east and Muslims to the west.[9]

On 9 January, the PLO began a siege of Damour and Jiyeh.[10] Jiyeh was entered by the PLO on 17 January.[10] It was said that Yasser Arafat wanted to execute the local PLO commanders for what he then permitted [11]

Events

Twenty Phalangist militiamen were executed, and then civilians were lined up against a wall and sprayed with machine-gun fire.[12] Estimates of the number killed range from 100 to 500.[13][2][14] Among the killed were family members of Elie Hobeika and his fiancée.[15] Following the Battle of Tel al-Zaatar later the same year, the PLO resettled Palestinian refugees in Damour. After the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the Zaatar refugees were expelled from Damour, and the original inhabitants brought back.[16]

According to Thomas L. Friedman, the Phalangist Damouri Brigade, which carried out the Sabra and Shatila massacre during the 1982 Lebanon War sought revenge not only for the assassination of Bashir Gemayel, but also for what he describes as past killings of their own people by Palestinians, including those at Damour.[17][18]

According to an eyewitness, the attack took place from the mountain behind the town. "It was an apocalypse," said Father Mansour Labaky, a Christian Maronite priest who survived the massacre. "They were coming, thousands and thousands, shouting 'Allahu Akbar! (God is great!) Let us attack them for the Arabs, let us offer a holocaust to Mohammad!", and they were slaughtering everyone in their path, men, women and children."[19][20][21][22]

Perpetrators

The bulk of the attacking forces seems to have been composed of brigades from the Palestinian Liberation Army[23] and as-Sa'iqa, as well as other militias, including Fatah. Some sources also mention the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), and the Muslim Lebanese al-Murabitun militia among the attackers. There are reports that PLO forces were additionally joined by militiamen from Syria, Jordan, Libya,[24] Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and possibly even Japanese Red Army terrorists who were then undergoing training by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in Lebanon.[25]

See also

Notes
  1. Hirst, David (2010). Beware of small states. Nation Books. p. 111. ISBN 978-0-571-23741-8. With Palestinian help, the Muslim/lefitsts then overran Damour, in their domain, on the coastal road a few kilometres south of the capital, sacked it, killed some 150 inhabitants, and drove out the rest.
  2. Nisan, 2003
  3. Armies in Lebanon, 1985, Osprey Publishing
  4. William W. Harris (January 2006). The New Face of Lebanon: History's Revenge. Markus Wiener Publishers. p. 162. ISBN 978-1-55876-392-0. Retrieved July 27, 2013. the massacre of 1,500 Palestinians, Shi'is, and others in Karantina and Maslakh, and the revenge killings of hundreds of Christians in Damour
  5. Noam Chomsky, Edward W. Said (1999) Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians South End Press, ISBN 0-89608-601-1 pp 184–185
  6. Yezid Sayigh (1999) Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949–1993 Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-829643-6 p 368
  7. Samuel M. Katz (1985). Armies in Lebanon. Osprey Publishing. p. 5. ISBN 978-0-85045-602-8. Retrieved July 27, 2013.
  8. Frank Brenchley (1989). Britain and the Middle East: Economic History, 1945-87. I.B.Tauris. p. 221. ISBN 978-1-870915-07-6. Retrieved July 27, 2013.
  9. Terry John Carter; Lara Dunston; Amelia Thomas (2008). Syria & Lebanon. Ediz. Inglese. Lonely Planet. p. 35. ISBN 978-1-74104-609-0. Retrieved July 27, 2013.
  10. "Lebanon's Legacy of Political Violence: A Mapping of Serious Violations of International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in Lebanon, 1975-2008" (PDF). pp. 14, 15.
  11. Fisk, 2001, pp. 99,
  12. Fisk, 2001, pp. 99–100.
  13. Randal, Jonathan (1983) ‘’The Tragedy of Lebanon. Christian Warlords, Israeli Adventurers and American Bunglers’’ Chatto & Windus. ISBN 0-7011-2755-4 p.90
  14. Hirst, David (2010) Beware of Small States. Lebanon, battleground of the Middle East. Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-0-571-23741-8 p.111: ‘some 150’ killed
  15. "Elie Hobeika". moreorless : heroes & killers of the 20th century. www.moreorless.au.com. Archived from the original on August 5, 2012. Retrieved 8 July 2012.
  16. Helena Cobban (November 8, 2004). "Back to Shatila, part 2". Just World News. Just World News. Archived from the original on July 12, 2012. Retrieved 8 July 2012.
  17. Friedman, 1998, p. 161.
  18. Friedman, New York Times, Sep 20, 21, 26, 27, 1982.
  19. Israel undercover: secret warfare and hidden diplomacy in the Middle East By Steve Posner, ISBN 0-8156-0220-0, ISBN 978-0-8156-0220-0, p. 2
  20. J. Becker: The PLO: The Rise and Fall of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1984, p. 124 qtd in
  21. "Articles > PLO Policy towards the Christian Community during the Civil War in Lebanon". ICT. Retrieved July 5, 2012.
  22. The PLO: The Rise and Fall of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1984, p. 124 qtd in
  23. Some sources name the PLA's Ayn Jalout brigade armed by Egypt and the Qadisiyah brigade from Iraq. This page Archived January 14, 2006, at the Wayback Machine also mentions the Yarmouk brigade, set up by Syria.
  24. Brian Lee Davis (January 1, 1990). Qaddafi, Terrorism, and the Origins of the U.S. Attack on Libya. ABC-CLIO. p. 11. ISBN 978-0-275-93302-9. Retrieved July 27, 2013.
  25. Nisan, 2003, p. 41.

References
  • Abraham, A. J. (1996). The Lebanon War. Praeger/Greenwood. ISBN 0-275-95389-0
  • Fisk, Robert. (2001). Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-280130-9
  • Friedman, Thomas. (1998) From Beirut To Jerusalem. 2nd Edition. London: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-00-653070-2
  • Nisan, M. (2003). The Conscience of Lebanon: A Political Biography of Etienne Sakr (Abu-Arz). London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7146-5392-6.

Further reading
  • Becker, Jillian. (1985). The PLO: The Rise and Fall of the Palestine Liberation Organization . New York: St. Martin's Press ISBN 0-312-59379-1
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