War of the Camps
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War of the Camps | |||||||
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Part of the Lebanese Civil War | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Al-Mourabitoun Supported by: |
SSNP (Pro-Syrian government factions) Supported by:
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Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Yasser Arafat Abu Abbas (Muhammad Zaidan) Nayef Hawatmeh Ibrahim Kulaylat Mohsen Ibrahim Inaam Raad Abbas al-Musawi George Hawi (1987-1988) Walid Jumblatt (1987-1988) |
Pres. Amine Gemayel Ahmed Jibril | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
3,781 dead and 6,787 injured 3,100+ Palestinians killed by Amal Movement , 3,000+ Palestinians killed by other Palestinians.[citation needed] |
The War of the Camps (
Sometimes described as being
Background
During the
Even before the establishment of the
Israel's
Assad sought to control both the PLO and Lebanon. He worried that Palestinian guerrilla activities would invite another Israeli invasion and that his minority
Assad recruited Said al-Muragha to drive Arafat and his loyalist fighters out of Lebanon. Musa, himself a former member of Fatah, used Arafat's public willingness to negotiate with Israel as a pretext for war. In November 1983, Musa's Fatah al-Intifada (Fatah-Uprising) faction fought the Arafatist Fatah for a month at Tripoli, until Arafat once again was on his way to Tunisia by December. Unfortunately for Assad, Arafat's Fatah forces quietly returned to Lebanon over the next two years, ensconcing themselves in the many refugee camps in Beirut and the South.
As more Palestinians regrouped in the South, Assad's anxiety grew, as he did not want to give Israel a pretext for another invasion. This time, Assad recruited the more powerful Shia Amal Movement militia headed by Nabih Berri to dislodge Arafat's loyalists. Assad benefited from this alliance, which enabled him to exert a greater degree of control over Lebanese affairs through his local Lebanese allies. The benefit for Amal was revenge for decades of Palestinian arrogance and the opportunity of gaining further control over Shia-populated areas of Lebanon.
By mid-1985 Amal was also in conflict with the
The war of the camps
Opposing forces
Allied with the pro-Arafat
April 1985
The
May 1985
On 19 May 1985, heavy fighting erupted between Amal Movement and Palestinian camp militias for the control of
Virtually all the houses in the camps were reduced to rubble.In terms of sheer numbers, the Shi'ites outnumbered the Palestinians 5:1. Amal was heavily backed by Syria and indirectly supported by Israel, whereas the PLO did not enjoy much outside support. Amal also had the advantage over the PLO in terms of military equipment, especially artillery pieces and armored vehicles.[10]
Although the PSP/PLA and LCP/Popular Guard joined forces with Amal in defeating the Al-Mourabitoun, they remained militarily neutral in the fight against the PLO. Despite prodding from Syria, these political parties and their respective militias contributed nothing more than verbally expressing support for Amal and demanding that Arafat step down. The PSP/PLA even allowed the PLO to station their artillery on Druze-controlled areas. This left Amal to do the work of dislodging the Arafat loyalists, with some help from Syria's anti-Arafat Palestinian allies, such as As-Sa'iqa, PFLP-GC and Fatah al-Intifada. The alliance between Amal and most of the pro-Syrian Palestinian groups eventually soured however, and clashes would later break out between them. While some dissident Palestinian commanders such as Ahmed Jibril and Abu Musa still supported Amal against the PLO, many anti-Arafat fighters battled Amal in defense of the camps.
On 30 May 1985, much of Sabra fell to its attackers. Amid Arab and Soviet political pressure on Syria and an emergency meeting of Arab League foreign ministers scheduled to discuss the issue on 8 June, Amal declared a unilateral ceasefire the next day. Despite this, lower-scale fighting continued. In Shatila, the Palestinians only retained the part of the camp centered around the mosque. Burj al-Barajneh remained under siege as Amal prevented supplies from entering or its population from leaving. The death toll remains uncertain, but is likely to have been high. International pressures led to a ceasefire being signed between Amal and the Palestinian National Salvation Front on 17 June in Damascus. Sporadic clashes erupted again in September 1985.
May 1986
The situation remained tense and fighting occurred again between September 1985 and March 1986. Fighting broke out for a third time on 27 March 1986, coinciding with a rocket attack on
June 1986
Meanwhile, throughout
September 1986
The tension due to this conflict was also present in the South, where the presence of Palestinian guerrillas in the predominantly Shia areas led to frequent clashes. The third and deadliest battle began on 29 September 1986, when fighting broke out around the
February–April 1987
Following the disappearance of
Simultaneously a major escalation of violence erupted in West Beirut, when the Druze PSP/PLA and Amal again turned against each other in what became known as the "War of the Flag". The conflict was started when a PSP/PLA fighter, acting on orders from their leader Walid Jumblatt, walked to the Channel 7 TV station (French: Télé Liban – Canal 7) building in the Tallet el-Khayat sector at Msaytbeh and replaced the Lebanese national flag hoisted there by the Druze five-coloured flag,[23] which was interpreted by Amal militiamen as a deliberate act of provocation.[24] A new round of brutal fighting soon spread throughout western Beirut, and although Amal forces initially managed to restore the Lebanese national flag on the Channel 7 building, they were subsequently overpowered by an alliance of PSP/PLA, LCP/Popular Guard and SSNP militias, and driven out of large portions of West Beirut. On 21–22 February, the week of fighting was ended by the arrival in West Beirut of 7,000 Syrian Commando troops under the command of Major general Ghazi Kanaan, assisted by Lebanese Internal Security Forces (ISF) gendarmes, who immediately closed over fifty militia "offices" and banned the carrying of weapons in public, detaining in the process many young men with beards suspected of being militiamen and began executing anyone found with unauthorised weapons.[25]
An
Consequences
Internal fighting had happened before in the Muslim/leftist camp (the former Lebanese National Movement or LNM) but never on such massive scale. This inflicted a severe blow in terms of public image for many Muslim militias and destroyed the perception of unity. The main Lebanese Sunni militia, the Al-Mourabitoun, was crushed and their leader Ibrahim Kulaylat sent into exile. The results were mitigated since the PLO retained control of some of the camps.
At the end of the war, an official Lebanese government report stated that the total number of casualties for these battles was put at 3,781 dead and 6,787 injured in the fighting between Amal and the Palestinians. Furthermore, the number of Palestinians killed in inter-factional clashes between pro-Syrian and pro-Arafat organizations was around 2,000. The real number is probably higher because thousands of Palestinians were not registered in Lebanon and the blockade meant that no officials could access the camps, so that all the casualties could not be counted.[31] As the Amal-initiated "War of the Camps" against the PLO ended, the religiously oriented Hezbollah and its rival the essentially secular Amal began clashing in South Lebanon and in Beirut's southern suburbs over control of the Shiite population of Lebanon.
See also
- Amal Movement
- Lebanese Army
- Lebanese Civil War
- List of weapons of the Lebanese Civil War
- Internal Security Forces
- Sabra and Shatila massacre
- Mountain War (Lebanon)
- People's Liberation Army (Lebanon)
- War of Brothers
- 6th Infantry Brigade (Lebanon)
- 8th Infantry Brigade (Lebanon)
Notes
- S2CID 152485333, retrieved 16 March 2023
- OCLC 759110679.
- ISSN 0002-8762.
- ^ a b c d Gharbieh, Hussein M. (1996). Political awareness of the Shi'ites in Lebanon: the role of Sayyid 'Abd al-Husain Sharaf al-Din and Sayyid Musa al-Sadr (PDF) (Doctoral). Durham: Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, University of Durham.
- ISBN 978-9963-715-03-9.
- ^ a b Joe Stork, "The War of the Camps, The War of the Hostages" in MERIP Reports, No. 133. (June 1985), pp. 3–7, 22.
- ^ Middle East International No 291, 9 January 1987; Publishers Lord Mayhew, Dennis Walters; Jim Muir pp.3-4 (paying of bribes and Israeli Navy); No 290, 19 December 1986; Godfrey Jansen pp.6-7 (number of fighters)
- ^ William E. Smith, "Lebanon: A Country's Slow Death", Time, April 29, 1985, p. 46.
- ^ a b O'Ballance, Civil War in Lebanon (1998), p. 158.
- ^ Kassis, 30 years of Military Vehicles in Lebanon (2003), pp. 63–65.
- ^ Middle East International No 272, 4 April 1986. Godfrey Jansen p. 6
- ^ Éric Micheletti, "Bataille d'Artillerie", RAIDS magazine (1989), p. 14.
- ^ Kassis, 30 years of Military Vehicles in Lebanon (2003), p. 65.
- ^ O'Ballance, Civil War in Lebanon (1998), pp. 168–169.
- ^ Middle East International No 291, 9 January 1987; Jim Muir p.4
- ^ Middle East International No 290, 19 December 1986; Godfrey Jansen pp.6-7
- ISBN 9950-312-27-2.
- ^ Middle East International No 289, 5 December 1986; Jim Muir pp.10-11
- ^ Middle East International No 289; Muir pp.10-11
- ^ Middle East International No 294, 20 February 1987; Jim Muir, pp. 3-4.
- OCLC 1043049820.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - ^ Middle East International No 293, 6 February 1987; Jim Muir, pp. 3-4.
- ISBN 978-9963-715-03-9p. 158.
- ^ Sex & Bassel Abi-Chahine, Modern Conflicts 2 – The Lebanese Civil War, From 1975 to 1991 and Beyond (2021), p. 6.
- ^ Middle East International No 295, 4 March 1987; Publishers Lord Mayhew, Dennis Walters MP; Jim Muir, pp. 3-5.
- ^ Middle East International No 296, 20 March 1987; Jim Muir pp.6-7
- ^ Tveit pp.163-164 estimate of population of Dahieh
- ^ Middle East International No 295, 4 March 1987; Jim Muir pp.3-5; No 297, 3 April 1987; Jim Muir pp. 6-7.
- ^ Saving a City from Itself, TIME Magazine, 9 March 1987.
- ^ Middle East International No 298, 17 April 1987; Godfrey Jansen pp.3-4
- ^ Sune, Haugbolle (25 October 2011). "THE HISTORIOGRAPHY AND THE MEMORY OF THE LEBANESE CIVIL WAR". Sciences Po. Retrieved 15 March 2023.
References
- ISBN 0-333-72975-7
- Éric Micheletti and Yves Debay, Liban – dix jours aux cœur des combats, RAIDS magazine n.º41, October 1989 issue. )
- Samer Kassis, 30 Years of Military Vehicles in Lebanon, Beirut: Elite Group, 2003. ISBN 9953-0-0705-5
- Moustafa El-Assad, Civil Wars Volume 1: The Gun Trucks, Blue Steel books, Sidon 2008. ISBN 9953-0-1256-8
- Rex Brynen, Sanctuary and Survival: the PLO in Lebanon, Boulder: Westview Press, Oxford 1990. ISBN 0 86187 123 5 – [1]
- Joe Stork, The War of the Camps, The War of the Hostages, MERIP Reports, No. 133 (June 1985), pp. 3–7 and 22.
- ISBN 0-19-280130-9 – [2]
- The War of the Camps, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Autumn, 1986), pp. 191–194.
- Zachary Sex & Bassel Abi-Chahine, Modern Conflicts 2 – The Lebanese Civil War, From 1975 to 1991 and Beyond, Modern Conflicts Profile Guide Volume II, AK Interactive, 2021.
Further reading
- Antoine J. Abraham, The Lebanon war, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1996. ISBN 0-275-95389-0 – [3]
- Barry Rubin (editor), Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict, and Crisis, Middle East in Focus, Palgrave Macmillan, London 2009. ISBN 978-1-349-37326-0 – [4]
- Denise Ammoun, Histoire du Liban contemporain: Tome 2 1943–1990, Éditions Fayard, Paris 2005.
- Fawwaz Traboulsi, Identités et solidarités croisées dans les conflits du Liban contemporain; Chapitre 12: L'économie politique des milices: le phénomène mafieux, Thèse de Doctorat d'Histoire – 1993, Université de Paris VIII, 2007. (in French) – [6]
- Fawwaz TrabouIsi, War, Militias and the State: The Role of War in State and Society Transformation – the Lebanese Case, Paper presented at the workshop on "War as a Source of State and Social Transformation in the Middle East", Social Science Research Council, Paris, 2–4 November 1994, pp. 1–26. – [7]
- Fawwaz Traboulsi, A History of Modern Lebanon: Second Edition, Pluto Press, London 2012. ISBN 978-0745332741
- Jean Sarkis, Histoire de la guerre du Liban, Presses Universitaires de France - PUF, Paris 1993. ISBN 978-2-13-045801-2 (in French)
- Samir Kassir, La Guerre du Liban: De la dissension nationale au conflit régional, Éditions Karthala/CERMOC, Paris 1994. ISBN 978-2865374991 (in French)
- Samir Makdisi and Richard Sadaka, The Lebanese Civil War, 1975-1990, American University of Beirut, Institute of Financial Economics, Lecture and Working Paper Series (2003 No.3), pp. 1–53. – [8] Archived 10 August 2017 at the Wayback Machine
- Oren Barak, The Lebanese Army – A National institution in a divided society, State University of New York Press, Albany 2009. ISBN 978-0-7914-9345-8 – [9]
- Itamar Rabinovich, The war for Lebanon, 1970-1985, Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London 1989 (revised edition). ISBN 978-0-8014-9313-3, 0-8014-9313-7
External links
- Histoire militaire de l'armée libanaise de 1975 à 1990 (in French)
- Lebanese Civil War The combat returned to Beirut in 1987, with Palestinians, leftists, and Druze fighters allied against Amal, eventually drawing further Syrian intervention.