Middle East - Anthony Ham [340]
In October 1976, the Arab League nevertheless brokered a deal with Syria, allowing it to keep 40,000 troops in Lebanon as part of a peace-keeping ‘Arab Deterrent Force’. Syria was left in primary control of Lebanon, and the first of the civil war’s 150 short-lived ceasefires was declared.
But Palestinian attacks on Israel continued, prompting Israel to launch ‘Operation Litani’ in 1978, swiftly occupying most of southern Lebanon. Immediately, the UN demanded Israel’s withdrawal and formed the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) to ‘restore international peace’. Though Israel withdrew to a 12-mile-wide ‘Security Zone’, it simultaneously installed a puppet South Lebanon Army (SLA) and proclaimed a 700-square-mile region south of Nahr al-Litani (the Litani River) ‘Free Lebanon’. For the coming years, this area too would be knee-deep in war.
In 1982, Israeli ‘Operation Peace for Galilee’ troops marched into Lebanon, heading to Beirut, supported tacitly by Maronite and Phalangist leaders. By 15 June, Israeli forces had surrounded and besieged West Beirut, bombarding 16,000 PLO fighters entrenched there. Heavy fighting, unsurprisingly, ensued, and in just two months, the city was in ruins and 20,000, from both sides of the Green Line, were dead. On 21 August, the PLO left Beirut, guaranteed safe passage by multinational forces. By now, however, battle was also raging in the Chouf Mountains, the historic preserve of Druze and Christians and an area until now free from the ravages of war. The Lebanese army joined the Phalangists and Israelis against the Druze, who themselves were aided by the Shiite militia Amal, until the US intervened and another ceasefire was called.
The US, however, was becoming increasingly entrenched in the war, appearing to favour Israel and Lebanon’s beleaguered government. In 1983 came the reprisals. In April, an Islamic jihad suicide attack on the US embassy in Beirut left 63 dead. In October, suicide bombers hit the US and French military headquarters in Beirut, killing over 300. In 1984, abductions and the torture of foreigners – whose involvement in Lebanese affairs the abductors deeply resented – began. The following year, international forces hastily left Lebanon.
Battle of the Camps
In early 1985, the last Israeli troops finally withdrew to their self-proclaimed ‘security zone’, leaving their interests in the hands of the SLA and Christian militias, who immediately clashed with Druze and Shiite opponents around Sidon. In West Beirut fighting continued between Shiite, Sunni and Druze militias, all battling for the upper hand.
In the midst of the chaos, PLO forces began to return to Lebanon. Concerned, however, that this would lead to a renewed Israeli invasion of the south, the Shiite Amal fought to remove them. Heavy fighting battered the Palestinian refugee camps during 1986, causing many more thousands of casualties.
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THE DISPLACED & THE DISPOSSESSED
Most Palestinians who ended up refugees in Lebanon were relegated to UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA)–administered refugee camps, 12 of whose original 16 still house most of Lebanon’s Palestinian population today.
According to UNRWA, there are now about 410,000 registered Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, and Amnesty International estimates that there are another 3000 to 5000 second-generation unregistered refugees living illegally and without rights.
Palestinian refugees in Lebanon still suffer from a lack of opportunities, prohibited from joining professions such as engineering and medicine, largely barred from owning property and with only limited access to public health care, education and welfare programs. Most are still provided for by UNRWA, which runs the camps’ schools, hospitals, women’s centres and vocational training programs.
They are not, however, Lebanon’s only disadvantaged group. The Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) estimates there are between 216,000 and 800,000 Internally Displaced Persons in Lebanon,