Summary

Even though it had been preceded by instances of political violence, and armed conflict, the 15 years long Lebanese civil war is remembered to have started on Sunday April 13, 1975 when Kataeb militia men opened fire on a bus carrying Palestinians and Lebanese in Ain El Remmaneh (Est of Beirut), killing 23 in retaliation or in reaction to a shoot-out with members of the Palestinian Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine in front of a church where Kataeb leader Pierre Gemayel was attending mass earlier that day.

The Lebanese Civil War was not named as such or even recognized as one long war until after the events passed.The period between 1975 and 1990 witnessed numerous smaller wars between different local and foreign militias and armies and several untenable truces. Until the early 1980s most of the fighting occured over the role of the Palestinian armed struggle in Lebanon. Christian groups opposed Palestinian armed presence while radical and leftist groups supported and sometimes participated in the Palestinian military actions against Israel. The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) along with the Lebanese Communist Party and leftist factions fought against the Lebanese Forces (LF), a Christian militia formed by Kataeb, Nantional Lebanese Party or Ahrar, Tanzim, Guardians of the Cedars), but also against the Amal militia which was supported by the Syrian regime and headed by Nabih Berri.  

Christian militias’ military tried to forcibly displace civilians in order to homogenize the populations between Christian-dominated and Muslim-Palestinian dominated areas in Beirut and its suburbs. Druze militias and Christian militias fought in the Shouf (South Mount Lebanon)  where massacres were committed, pushing tens of thousands of Christian population to flee the area.

Many Palestinian camps, notably Karantina, Tal el Za’tar, and Sabra & Chatila, were sieged, raided, and destroyed by multiple actors including Lebanese militias, Israeli and Syrian troops. The War of the camps initiated in 1985 by the Syrian troops and their allies in Lebanon, including Amal and Palestinian factions, achieved the destruction of Palestinian camps in Beirut and Saida.

Internal power struggles also led to devastating clashes between militias of the same sect: the Lebanese Army under General Michel Aoun’s command against the Lebanese Forces led by Samir Geagea, and Hezbollah against Amal.

In South Lebanon, Israel continuously conducted air, land and sea strikes against Palestinian organizations settled camps in North and South Lebanon, and later against Hezbollah, killing scores of civilians every time, sometimes directly targetting civilians as well. It funded and operated through the South Lebanon Army which was dissolved after the withdrawal of the Israeli troops in 2000 (and many of its fighters fled to Israel).

The Syrian Army, which had entered Lebanon in 1976 under the pretext of stopping the fighting, went into full-blown confrontation with the Joint Forces then with the Christian militias and the Lebanese Army. They later stayed according to agreements and as part of the Deterrent Arab Forces. Yet they killed, detained and abducted many civilians and bombed residential areas. After the war ended, Syrian troops stayed for years in the country (until April 2005), increasing repression of institutions and people who opposed the status quo (Pax Syriana).

All sides raided and looted homes, deployed heavy shelling, kidnapped and summarily executed civilians, and raped women during the war. Most were absolved by the amnesty law passed in 1991. Many former militia leaders such as Walid Jumblatt (head of the Progressive Socialist Party), Nabih Berri (head of Amal), and members of the LF, the Marada, and others were appointed to the government cabinet and parliament after the war, later followed by members of the Hezbollah.

The regime inherited from the war adopted neoliberal, sectarian, and clientelistic policies that riddled its social fabric with manufactured divisions, controlled (and mismanaged) the economic sector by heavily relying on privatization, and maybe most nefariously, imposed an amnesia on their criminal past that reinforced a rule of impunity. In the two decades following the war, Lebanon witnessed many political assassinations, which sharply increased in 2005 before the withdrawal of Syrian troops. The country was also dragged into a war with Israel in 2006, an internal conflict with an islamist militant group (Nahr el Bared conflict) in 2007. In May 2008, parts of the city saw Hezbollah and opposition groups violently wreak havoc in residential neighborhoods after a government decision to dismantle its parallel telecommunication system. The following decade can now be described as a calm before the storm.

On October 17, 2019, after days of the state inability to respond wildfires destroying green hills and compromising the safety of residents, after the first manifestations of the looming economic crisis, and finally after the announcement of the “WhatsApp tax”, tens of thousands of people took to the streets with varying demands one denominator: the fall of the sectarian regime inherited from the war. The revolution was violently repressed and dwindled down after persisting for months.

Less than a year later, the regime proved its criminality. Several tons of ammonium nitrate, unsafely stored in the Beirut port, detonated, killing at least 254 people, injuring thousands, many of whom became permanently disabled. Homes, businesses, and entire neighborhoods were damaged, which left hundreds of thousands displaced. In the aftermath of the blast, people were left to fend for themselves; to clean up, to heal, to rebuild with little to no state intervention.

To date, no one has been held accountable for the explosion at the port. To the contrary, many state actors and political parties have actively fought the investigating judges. On October 14, 2021, after days of instigation from party leaders, Hezbollah and Amal supporters marched in a protest calling for the removal of the judge investigating the blast. Unidentified gunmen opened fire at the demonstrators and the day escalated into three hours of gunfire in Tayouneh (Beirut), killing at least seven people including two bystanders and terrorizing an entire nation.

One of the reasons why they were able and willing to engage in this fight is the cycle of impunity that is guaranteed by the status quo that the warlords fight to maintain. This makes the work of documentation, accountability, and transitional justice even more important today.

We acknowledge that the above summary is non-exhaustive and far from complete. You can find more detailed accounts of the civil war and post-war events by following the “Learn More” button below which leads to a more detailed summary based on the ICTJ report aforementioned. You can also find on this page a summary of the past two years' events.