Lebanese Civil War

Overview

The Lebanese Civil War was a prolonged conflict in Lebanon that began in April 1975 and continued through the political settlement of 1989 and the final major fighting of 1990. Its early battles set defenders of the existing political and economic order against factions demanding sweeping reform. Armed organizations then fought across shifting sectarian, ideological and foreign alliances. The war damaged Lebanese state institutions, devastated neighborhoods and refugee camps, displaced civilians and drew military intervention by neighboring states.

Lebanon’s Sunni, Shia, Christian, Druze and Alawite communities formed the social setting for the conflict, but no single division explains its course. Christian militias described their struggle as necessary for Christianity’s survival in the Middle East. Communist and secularist factions challenged the established distribution of power and argued that sectarian concerns protected elite economic privileges. Armenian political parties, despite differing views of the Soviet Union, abstained from the fighting. As the war developed, disputes within communities and rivalries among outside powers became as consequential as the original confrontation.

The PLO was central to the crisis. Following its expulsion from Jordan after Black September, many of its cadres moved to Lebanon. Under Yasser Arafat, the PLO and Fatah established political and military headquarters in Beirut and built an armed state within a state. PLO forces seized areas of Lebanon, displaced government authority and mistreated residents. Their growing military power helped destabilize the country before the war and shaped its early battles. The conflict later drew in Syrian forces and Israel, whose northern communities faced attacks from Lebanon.

Background

Lebanon’s political system distributed senior offices and parliamentary representation among religious communities. Before the war, the presidency, conventionally held by a Maronite Christian, was the dominant executive office. Supporters of the existing order defended that arrangement and the economic interests associated with it. Opponents sought broad political and social change. These disagreements took place amid rising armed mobilization and the weakening of the Lebanese government’s ability to control forces operating on its territory.

The PLO’s relocation from Jordan intensified that weakness. Armed PLO organizations established bases in Lebanon, including positions in the south from which they attacked Israel. In parts of the country they exercised authority that belonged to Lebanese institutions. Their presence also altered the balance among Lebanese factions: the PLO and radical Arab regimes supported opponents of the existing order, while conservative Arab states and, at times, Israel supported its defenders. Lebanese factions sought outside patrons as their own military strength grew.

The immediate outbreak came in April 1975 after a violent clash in Beirut between PLO fighters and supporters of the Christian Kataeb Party, also known as the Phalange. Fighting escalated between Christian militias and a coalition of armed organizations and left-wing militias led by Arafat. Bachir Gemayel commanded the Lebanese Forces within the Christian camp. The collapse of effective central authority exposed civilians to militia rule, abduction and killing. On October 14, 1976, Lebanon’s ambassador to the United Nations denounced kidnappings and killings carried out by PLO splinter organizations.

Course of the war

The first years brought massacres, population flight and expanding foreign involvement. In 1976, PLO forces and Lebanese leftists sacked Damour, a Christian village near Beirut, and massacred hundreds of its inhabitants. The PLO subsequently turned the village into a military base, using churches as strongholds and armories. Damour became one of the clearest examples of violence against civilians during the conflict. Across Lebanon, militia attacks and the breakdown of state protection drove communities from their homes.

Syria intervened militarily in 1976 under President Hafez al-Assad. Syrian policy reflected several interests, including ties to Lebanese President Suleiman Frangieh, despite Syrian sympathy for the PLO and the Lebanese opposition. Assad demanded that Kamal Jumblatt accept a ceasefire; Jumblatt refused and continued attacks on Lebanese Christian factions. As the Christian camp faced a growing threat, its leaders sought military and political assistance from both Syria and Israel. Syrian troops remained a decisive force in Lebanon long after their initial intervention and did not withdraw until 2005.

The war also drew in Lebanese Shia and Druze organizations whose priorities differed from those of the principal early camps. Heavy Shia losses in 1975 and 1976 shaped Musa al-Sadr’s assessment of Jumblatt’s anti-establishment front. After Kamal Jumblatt was killed during the war, his son Walid made military alliances with Syria to protect the Druze. Such alignments changed the meaning of earlier divisions between defenders and opponents of Lebanon’s political order. Militia competition increasingly concerned control of districts, communities and access to external support.

Israel’s 1982 Lebanon War followed years in which the PLO had expanded its military presence and attacked across Israel’s northern border. Israeli forces entered Lebanon, and the campaign expelled the PLO leadership from the country. Israel sought a Lebanese administration led by President Bachir Gemayel and dominated by Maronite Christians. A bomb killed Gemayel and 25 of his followers in September 1982, disrupting those plans. From September 1982 until early 1985, Israeli forces remained in Lebanon while Israel pursued political gains and a peace treaty. They also became entangled in Lebanese disputes, including fighting between Druze and Christian militias.

After an Israeli withdrawal on September 3, militias led by Walid Jumblatt fought the Maronite Lebanese Forces. Jumblatt and his allies attacked Lebanese troops to prevent them from intervening in that struggle. The violence showed how the departure or repositioning of an outside army could open another contest for local control. On January 14, 1985, Israel decided to redeploy the Israel Defense Forces to the international border while maintaining a security zone along the Lebanese border. Protecting northern Israel remained a central concern even as Israeli troops left much of Lebanon.

Fighting continued among organizations based in and around Lebanon’s refugee camps. During the 1985–87 War of the Camps, Syrian-backed Amal forces fought Fatah and destroyed most of Fatah’s military presence in the camps. From 1985 to 1988, Syrian-aligned Amal militiamen killed hundreds of Arab civilians in attacks on refugee camps. At Burj Barajneh, fighting badly damaged residents’ property and displaced nearly one quarter of the camp’s population. At Rashidieh near Tyre, violence from 1982 to 1987 destroyed or damaged nearly 600 shelters and displaced more than 5,000 refugees.

Displacement altered the camps’ populations as well as their physical condition. Families driven from camps near Tripoli and elsewhere moved to Ein el-Hillweh, which became Lebanon’s largest camp by population and area. Violence between 1982 and 1991 caused heavy casualties there and nearly destroyed it. Fighting continued even after leaders reached a political agreement in 1989. In 1990 alone, one camp lost or suffered severe damage to a quarter of its shelters, while more than 100 predominantly Christian refugee families were displaced. The Lebanese Forces surrendered their arms at the end of the civil war in 1991.

Israel's conduct and the protection of civilians

The PLO’s bases in Lebanon connected the civil war to the security of Israel’s northern border. Its attacks forced residents of the Galilee to flee or spend extended periods in shelters. Israel’s 1982 campaign removed the PLO leadership from Lebanon, but the subsequent Israeli presence exposed its forces to attacks and to Lebanon’s continuing militia conflicts. Israel’s government pursued a Lebanese peace arrangement before deciding in 1985 to pull its forces back to the international border and retain a security zone supported by local forces.

The Sabra and Shatila massacres near Beirut were among the war’s gravest atrocities against civilians. On September 16–17, 1982, Lebanese Christian Phalangist militiamen entered the camps and killed residents. Israeli troops allowed the militiamen in to search for armed PLO cells. The killings were carried out by the Phalangists; the decision to permit their entry was an Israeli action that forms part of the account of the massacres. Reported death estimates ranged from 460 recorded by Lebanese police to 700–800 assessed by Israeli intelligence.

Civilian protection failed across multiple fronts. The destruction of Damour, attacks on refugee camps, abductions and the displacement of whole neighborhoods demonstrated the danger posed when armed groups controlled territory beyond effective state authority. The war also harmed people who belonged to none of its principal armed camps. Fighting around Beirut’s Jewish Quarter in 1975–76 damaged Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues. The Maghen Abraham Synagogue was seriously damaged and looted during the conflict.

Terrorist tactics and propaganda

PLO organizations combined territorial control in Lebanon with attacks on Israel and coercion inside Lebanon. Their armed presence displaced Lebanese government authority in areas they held. The Lebanese ambassador’s 1976 denunciation of kidnappings and killings by PLO splinter organizations described violence directed at Lebanese people and foreigners as well as the broader struggle over control of the country. Cross-border attacks also affected Israeli civilians and helped draw Israel into the conflict.

The language used by Lebanese factions was part of the war’s political struggle. Christian militias presented their cause as the defense of Christianity in the Middle East, while communist and secularist opponents portrayed sectarian arguments as protection for established privilege. Neither account encompassed the full range of participants or explained the later conflicts among former allies. The War of the Camps, Druze–Christian fighting and Syrian intervention each followed interests that changed as the war continued.

Hezbollah emerged during the 1982 war with support from Iran’s regime and developed an armed organization alongside its political and social institutions. Its later participation in Lebanese politics did not end its independent military activity. Unlike the Lebanese Forces, which disarmed after the civil war, Hezbollah retained its militia. That difference became a lasting question for Lebanese sovereignty and for the security of civilians in Lebanon and Israel.

Outcome

The 1989 Taif Agreement provided the framework for ending the civil war and amended Lebanon’s constitution. It reduced the powers of the Maronite-designated presidency while increasing those of the Sunni-designated prime minister and cabinet. The postwar arrangement retained a Shia-designated parliamentary speakership alongside the Christian presidency and Sunni premiership. It also introduced administrative decentralization and revised parliamentary representation to allocate 64 seats to Christians and 64 to Muslim communities, including Druze and Alawites.

Taif was a political settlement rather than an immediate end to every battle. Fighting persisted into 1990, and the Lebanese Forces surrendered their arms in 1991. Hezbollah kept its weapons. Syrian troops, first sent into Lebanon in 1976, remained until 2005. The agreement reworked the distribution of authority among Lebanon’s communities, while the continued presence of armed and foreign forces limited the state’s ability to exercise authority throughout its territory.

Aftermath and legacy

The war left extensive physical damage, displacement and unresolved disappearances. At least seven Jews were among approximately 17,000 people missing from the conflict. They included Isac Sasson, president of the Jewish community; Elie Hallak, a physician in Beirut; and Salim Jamous, a former community secretary general. Most of Lebanon’s remaining 1,800 Jews emigrated in 1976 amid the fighting and fear that growing Syrian power would restrict their freedom. Many went to France, the United States and Canada. The damage to their homes and communal institutions marked a severe contraction of a longstanding Lebanese community.

Reconstruction after the 1975–1990 war became a major undertaking associated with Rafic Hariri. Lebanon nevertheless continued to face the political consequences of sectarian power sharing, wartime displacement and the survival of armed organizations outside state control. Syrian withdrawal in 2005 ended a military presence that had lasted nearly three decades, while Hezbollah’s retained arsenal remained central to disputes over the authority of the Lebanese government and the safety of Israel’s northern communities.

The civil war has continued to shape Lebanese political warnings. In 2024, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah warned the Lebanese Forces and Kataeb Party against actions he said could lead to another civil war. Kataeb chairman Samy al-Gemayel challenged Nasrallah’s authority to decide whether Lebanese civilians would live through war. Their exchange reflected the lasting force of memories of militia violence, outside intervention and the failure of state institutions to protect civilians during the conflict.