Lebanese Civil War: A Visual History

The Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990) broke out on 13 April 1975 when Christian Phalangist gunmen killed 27 Palestinians on a bus in Beirut after an attack on their leader; sectarian tensions over the Palestinian armed presence, Muslim demands for power and Christian dominance under the 1943 pact exploded into war between the Christian Lebanese Front and the Muslim-leftist National Movement allied to the PLO. Syria intervened in 1976 and stayed; Israel invaded in 1978 and 1982, besieging Beirut and expelling the PLO, and its Phalangist allies massacred Sabra and Shatila; multinational forces were bombed out; Shia Amal and Hezbollah fought each other and Palestinians in the camps; Christians fought Christians. The Taif Agreement (1989) rebalanced power, and Syria crushed General Aoun in October 1990. About 150,000 died and 17,000 disappeared.

When it was fought: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Lebanese Civil War. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

Lebanon's population by emigration and death

Timeline of the Lebanese Civil War

1. 1975
   Bus massacre; war begins13 April.
2. 1976
   Karantina, Damour, Tel al-Zaatar; Syrian intervention
3. 1978
   Israeli Litani operation
4. 1982
   Israeli invasion; siege of Beirut; PLO leaves; Bashir killed; Sabra and Shatila
5. 1983
   US embassy and Marine barracks bombings
6. 1985
   Israel withdraws to the south; War of the Camps
7. 1989
   Aoun's war of liberation; Taif Agreement
8. 1990
   Syria ousts Aoun; war ends13 October.

1975-1977: the two-year war

Lebanon's confessional system gave Maronite Christians the presidency and majority; the PLO's move to Lebanon after Black September in Jordan made the country a base for attacks on Israel and a state within a state. After the Ain al-Rummaneh bus killings, Beirut split into Christian east and Muslim west along the Green Line; massacres followed at Karantina and Damour and, in August 1976, at the Palestinian camp of Tel al-Zaatar. Syria, fearing a radical victory, sent 30,000 troops in June 1976 to save the Christians, and an Arab peacekeeping mandate legitimised its presence.

1978-1985: Israel and the militias

Israel invaded south Lebanon in 1978 (Operation Litani) and created a buffer under Saad Haddad's South Lebanon Army; the Phalangist Bashir Gemayel consolidated the Christian militias by massacring rivals (Ehden 1978, Safra 1980). In June 1982 Israel invaded to Beirut, besieged the PLO for ten weeks and forced Arafat's evacuation; Bashir, elected president, was assassinated on 14 September and Phalangists killed hundreds at Sabra and Shatila under Israeli watch. US Marines and French paratroopers were bombed in October 1983 (299 dead) by Hezbollah's precursors, and the multinational force left; Israel withdrew to the south in 1985 and Hezbollah's resistance began. Amal's War of the Camps besieged the Palestinians (1985-1988).

1988-1990: Aoun and Taif

With no president in 1988, General Michel Aoun headed a military cabinet, declared a 'war of liberation' against Syria in 1989 and then fought the Lebanese Forces of Samir Geagea in the Christian enclave. Arab mediation produced the Taif Agreement in October 1989: parity between Christians and Muslims, a weaker presidency and Syrian withdrawal in due course. Syrian troops and aircraft stormed Aoun's palace on 13 October 1990 and he fled to the French embassy. Militias disarmed except Hezbollah, a general amnesty covered the war's crimes, and Syria ran Lebanon until 2005; Beirut's reconstruction and its unhealed sectarian system followed.

Related empires and wars

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

• Ottoman Empire (1299 to 1922)
• Second French colonial empire (1830 to 1980)
• United States (1776 to present)
• British Empire (1583 to 1997)
• Qajar Empire (1789 to 1925)

Wars of the same era and region

• Arab-Israeli conflict (1948 to present)
• Syrian Civil War (2011 to 2024)
• Cold War (1947 to 1991)
• Iran-Iraq War (1980 to 1988)
• Gulf War (1990 to 1991)
• Kurdish-Turkish conflict (1978 to present)

8 surprising things about the Lebanese Civil War

1. The Green Line dividing Beirut got its name from the vegetation that grew in the deserted no-man's-land.
2. The 1983 Beirut barracks bombing killed 241 US servicemen, the Marines' worst single-day loss since Iwo Jima.
3. The Sabra and Shatila killings, 800 to 3,500 dead, led an Israeli inquiry to find Ariel Sharon indirectly responsible and cost him the defence ministry.
4. Terry Waite, Terry Anderson and other Western hostages were held for years by Hezbollah-linked groups; Anderson for nearly seven.
5. The war's amnesty law of 1991 pardoned all militia crimes, and many warlords became ministers.
6. Michel Aoun, driven out in 1990, became president in 2016 in alliance with Hezbollah.
7. Some 17,000 people disappeared; families still campaign for mass graves to be opened.
8. Beirut's Holiday Inn, a militia stronghold, still stands gutted as a monument to the war.

Sources

• Lebanese Civil War Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Lebanese Civil War Wikipedia
• Lebanon profile – Timeline BBC News
• Robert Fisk, Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War (1990) Andre Deutsch

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