Lebanon

J

The Lebanese Civil War

In 1975 fighting broke out between Lebanese Muslims and the Maronite-dominated Phalange faction. The central government ceased to function as heavily armed militia factions reduced Lebanon to anarchy. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) joined the Muslim side in early 1976, and Syria (wary of Israeli reaction) intervened against the PLO. Beirut was partitioned by the east-west “Green line”, separating the Christian-held north from the Muslim south. In June the Arab League imposed a truce, creating a Syrian-led Arab force to keep the peace.

Violence continued nonetheless, and in 1978 Israel invaded southern Lebanon in an attempt to eliminate Palestinian bases. Israeli troops were replaced by a UN force, but Israel continued to aid the Maronites and to strike at PLO targets in Lebanon. In June 1982 Israel invaded again, overrunning the PLO. By mid-August, after US mediation, the PLO fighters agreed to leave Beirut, and many were evacuated to other countries. Later that month, with Israeli troops surrounding Beirut, the Lebanese parliament elected the Christian militia leader Bashir Gemayel to be the new president; after Bashir was assassinated in September, his brother Amin Gemayel was elected to replace him. Phalangist forces slaughtered up to 1,000 Palestinians in retaliation, at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Israeli-occupied West Beirut. Subsequently, the Israelis withdrew to southern Lebanon, and an international peacekeeping force was stationed in Beirut.

Muslims were suspicious of the Western units supporting a Christian-led government; after more than 300 US and French troops were killed in terrorist bombings on October 23, 1983, the Western forces pulled out completely by February 1984. In the resultant power vacuum, factional strife persisted, with Israeli withdrawal in 1985 leaving a “security zone” controlled by its Christian allies the South Lebanese Army (SLA). The Iran-backed Shiite Hezbollah (Party of God) fought over this zone with the SLA, having rejected an interim peace accord, brokered by Syria in December 1985. Westerners in Beirut became the targets of radical Shiite kidnappers, apparently loyal to Iran. The Israelis continued to raid PLO installations in the south, and deteriorating conditions in Beirut led Syrian troops to occupy its Muslim sector in 1987 to end feuding between Lebanese and Palestinian Muslims.

When Gemayel’s presidential term expired in September 1988, he named the army commander General Michel Aoun, a Christian, to head an interim government. With Lebanese leaders unable to agree on a new president, rival Christian and Muslim factions then established their own administrations. In October 1989, Lebanese negotiators, meeting in Saudi Arabia, agreed on a new constitution providing increased power for the Muslims; the accord was rejected by Aoun, threatening the permanent partition of Lebanon.

On November 5, legislators ratified the charter and elected René Moawad as President. He was assassinated 17 days later, and Parliament chose another Maronite, Elias Hrawi, to succeed him. In October 1990, Syrian troops clamped down on east Beirut, defeating forces loyal to Aoun. Subsequently, the Lebanese army, with Syrian backing, regained control over much of the country, disarmed the militias, and ousted the PLO from strongholds in southern Lebanon. The war had cost some 150,000 Lebanese lives since 1975. Nearly all the Western hostages in Lebanon were released in 1991. See also Lebanese Civil War.

K

Recovery and Consolidation

Voting for a new National Assembly in 1992 represented the nation’s first legislative elections in 20 years. A US$13 billion recovery plan was unveiled by the government in March 1993, though only a fraction of this sum could be subscribed from the international community. In July 1993 Israeli air attacks against Hezbollah guerrillas caused 200,000 people to leave southern Lebanon and move north for safety. The attacks were in retribution for Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israel. Lebanese army forces joined UN peacekeepers in the area in August, but without disarming Hezbollah units.

In January 1994 the Lebanese government issued shares in the company detailed to reconstruct Beirut’s commercial districts. Continuing fighting between Hezbollah and Israeli forces in Israel’s “security zone” included the assassination on March 31, 1995, of a senior Hezbollah official, whose car was rocketed by Israeli helicopter gunships near Tyre. In October 1995 the National Assembly passed a constitutional amendment to allow President Hrawi to serve for a further three years.

L

Israeli Intervention

In February 1996 the Lebanese General Labour Confederation called a general strike, calling for a doubling of the national minimum wage and large public-sector wage increases; the government responded by drawing on army manpower. Following a series of incidents, including limited Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel, Israeli forces launched a combined land-sea-air offensive in Lebanon in April 1996, ostensibly targeted at Hezbollah positions, but reportedly also intended to pressurize the Lebanese government into greater efforts against Hezbollah.

The assaults led to a mass exodus from the affected areas, considerable damage to Lebanon’s infrastructure, and the deaths of many Lebanese civilians; Hezbollah, meanwhile, continued its rocket attacks throughout the offensive. Following the Israeli shelling of Lebanese refugees in a UN post at Qana which killed over 100 civilians, international pressure to end the offensive increased; Israel, Syria, and Lebanon agreed a ceasefire at the end of April which effectively restored the status quo in southern Lebanon. A UN report in May on the Qana massacre of April 1 concluded that Israeli forces had deliberately targeted the post.

M

Hezbollah Offensive

Hezbollah fighters continued the offensive in June 1996 in Israel’s self-declared “security zone”. A new electoral law approved by the National Assembly in July was seen by many Christians as a loss of influence in favour of the Druze; the Constitutional Court ruled the measure unconstitutional in August.

The general election, which took place on five consecutive Sundays in each of the governorates between mid-August and mid-September 1996, resulted in the incumbent prime minister, Rafiq al-Hariri, being invited to form a government, which was appointed in November. At a Washington conference in December, about US$3 billion was pledged by the international community to facilitate reconstruction in Lebanon.

Fighting between Hezbollah guerrillas and Israeli forces continued in January and February 1997 in the south of the country. The conflict escalated in September, when Hezbollah and Amal fighters, together with the Lebanese army, intercepted an Israeli naval commando unit deep inside southern Lebanon. Later that month Madeleine Albright, the US Secretary of State, visited Lebanon during a tour of the Middle East, as part of the ongoing peace process.

In October 1998, the National Assembly elected General Emile Lahoud, the army chief of staff backed by Syria, as president. In November 1998 Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri resigned, refusing to accept new powers being given to Lahoud, and in December Lahoud named the politician and economist Salim al-Hoss as Lebanon’s new prime minister. The death of Brigadier-General Erez Gerstein, Israel’s senior commander in southern Lebanon, in a Hezbollah bomb attack inside the so-called southern Lebanon “security zone” in February 1999 highlighted continuing Hezbollah successes against Israeli forces there.

There was a marked change of policy after Ehud Barak became Israeli prime minister in May 1999. Barak declared that Israeli troops would be pulled out of southern Lebanon by July 2000; Israeli forces changed their tactics in the area and began withdrawal preparations in November. Nevertheless, skirmishes and unrest continued into early 2000.

N

Israeli Withdrawal From Southern Lebanon

As Hezbollah guerrillas made a rapid advance in the Israeli-occupied southern part of the country, the Israelis decided to pull out from the territory, well ahead of the scheduled deadline. The withdrawal from the “security zone”, completed on May 24, 2000, effectively finished the occupation, which had claimed the lives of around a thousand Israelis and nearly 1,300 members of Hezbollah since the invasion in 1978. The Lebanese government declared May 25 “National Liberation Day”. Fighting continued, however, between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas in the disputed Israeli-occupied area of Shebaa Farms, adjacent to the Golan Heights.

UN peacekeeping troops moved into the border area of southern Lebanon in late July to fill the vacuum left by the Israeli withdrawal. Less than two weeks later, around a thousand Lebanese and Internal Security Forces troops were deployed in the area.

The former prime minister, Rafiq al-Hariri, won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections, defeating incumbent Salim al-Hoss. President Lahoud confirmed Hariri’s appointment on October 23, 2000.

Tensions between Lebanon and Israel mounted briefly in March 2001, when Lebanon began diverting water from the Hasbani, a tributary of the River Jordan, to supply a southern border village. Despite the initial fury, Israel quickly toned down its response but there was further hostility when the Israelis shot down a Lebanese civilian aircraft in May and fighting persisted between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon. Meanwhile, Syria continued to withdraw its troops from Beirut.

In January 2002 the former military intelligence head of the Lebanese Forces during the civil war, Elie Hobeika, was assassinated in Beirut. At the time of his murder it was believed that he was about to testify on his involvement in the atrocities 20 years earlier in the Shatila and Sabra refugee camps. Such testimony, it was thought, would have implicated Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, who was then Israeli defence minister and was subsequently held indirectly responsible for not preventing the killings—something he has always strenuously denied.

In April 2003 the Prime Minister al-Hariri resigned to allow for a new Cabinet. The following day he was voted back into office by MPs. He finally resigned, after 15 years in office, in October 2004 and was replaced by Omar Karameh. A new Cabinet was appointed with Lebanon’s first woman minister, Layla Solh.