|
|||||
| Tel al-Zaatar Battle | |
|---|---|
| Location | Beirut, Lebanon |
| Date | Tel al-Zaatar refugee camp |
| Attack type | Seige |
| Death(s) | 1,500 to 3,000 |
| Injured | 4,000 |
| Perpetrator(s) | Syrian military, Christian militias |
The Battle of Tel al-Zaatar (Arabic: مذبحة تل الزعتر) was one of the hardest battles fought during the Lebanese Civil War on August 12, 1976. Tel al-Zaatar (The Hill of Thyme) was a UNRWA administered Palestinian Refugee camp housing approximately 50,000-60,000 refugees in northeast Beirut.[1][2][3]
Contents |
Background
With the breakdown in authority of the Lebanese government the militancy of radical faction increased.[4]
The Palestinians started collecting forced taxes from manufactures near Tall-El-Zaatar camp in order to maintain their armed militia in the refugee camp and their influence on Lebanese Christian resident of Ras-El-Dekweneh and the neighboring villages. Many Palestinians began invading houses and buildings and changing it to an armed headquarters. The removal of the camp was demanded by many residents of the area years before the massacre.
After Phalange, Guardians of the Cedars and Tiger militia forces took control of the Karantina district on 18 January 1976, Tel al-Zaatar was placed under siege by a plan elaborated by General Michel Aoun who was the army commander of the area at that time[5].
On 4th January 1976, a thin cordon was established around the camp by 300 fighters from the Tanzim and 100 fighters from the Maroun Khoury Group in an effort to contain the Palestinians. The Maroun Khoury Group was a Dikwaneh based militia. One road was left open to allow Palestinian evacuation towards Aley but the Palestinians refused to enter into dialogue with the Lebanese Front.
The PLO, as they had done in Karatina, prevented many of the people of the camp from leaving so by taking them hostage. Ahrar forces surrounded and attacked Jisr al Basha and Kataeb and Guardian of the Cedars troops engaged the adjacent mainly Shiite area of Nabaa which contained large numbers of leftist and forces. The battle for the camps had started and was the final showdown between the Palestinians and the Lebanese Front in Beirut. It was one of the hardest battles fought during the war.
Syria put itself forwards as a "mediator" on the basis of historic claims.[clarification needed] [4] Syrian forces with As-Sa'iqa units were intervening on behalf of hard presses[clarification needed] Christian militias by April. The influence of Syria led to the election of Elias Sarkis.[6]
By the first week of June, Syrian forces had applied a blockade of West Beirut, a predominantly Muslim section that contained the Palestinian headquarters, leaving only the southern route open.[7][8] From 22 June the Christian Phalangist forces, Many Christian residents of Ras el-Dekweneh and Mansouriye controlled by Maroun Khoury with Syrian backing intensified the blockade to a full scale military assault that lasted 35 days.[8][9] Christian militias had laid siege to the refugee camp for 7 months. When the camp fell, the victims numbered in the thousands. The Christian militia loss was around 500 armed men.
The massacre and its aftermath
 |
This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2008) |
On August 12 the camp finally fell, following an on-and-off siege of several months. During the last two months, the siege had tightened. Heavy artillery shelling damaged much of the camp and killed a number of inhabitants. John Bulloch, the Daily Telegraph correspondent in Beirut at the time wrote, "In their bitterness the Palestinian commanders ordered their artillery to open up on the fringes of the camp with the ostensible objective of hampering the attackers and helping those inside; instead the shells were landing among the hundreds who had got through the perimeter and were trying to escape. When they were told of this, the Palestinians made no attempt to lift their fire: they wanted martyrs".
Robert Fisk wrote in his biographical profile of Yasser Arafat, The broken revolutionary: "When Arafat needed martyrs in 1976, he called for a truce around the besieged refugee camp of Tel el-Zaatar, then ordered his commanders in the camp to fire at their right-wing Lebanese Christian enemies. When, as a result, the Phalangists and "Tigers" militia slaughtered their way into Tel el-Zaatar, Arafat opened a "martyrs' village" for camp widows in the sacked Christian village of Damour. On his first visit, the widows pelted him with stones and rotten fruit. Journalists were ordered away at gunpoint."
In an L.A. Weekly interview published May 30, 2002 Fisk recalls "Arafat is a very immoral person, or maybe very amoral. A very cynical man. I remember when the Tal-al-Zaatar refugee camp in Beirut had to surrender to Christian forces in the very brutal Lebanese civil war. They were given permission to surrender with a cease-fire. But at the last moment, Arafat told his men to open fire on the Christian forces who were coming to accept the surrender. I think Arafat wanted more Palestinian "martyrs" in order to publicize the Palestinian position in the war. That was in 1976. Believe me that Arafat is not a changed man."
The massacre is said to have contributed to the mounting Sunni Muslim dissent within the Alawi-ruled country.[citation needed] As a result, Syria broke off its offensive on the PLO and the LNM, and agreed to an Arab League summit which temporarily ended the Civil War.
The PLO used the former Christian town of Damour to house survivors of the Tal al-Zaatar massacre.[10]. The Damour, a Christian town on the main highway south of Beirut, had been 'emptied' by PLO military units on January 20, 1976. Part of its population was killed in the battle or massacred afterwards, and the remainder forced to flee.Damour.
The split in the PLO leadership was ended when the Syrian backed As-Sa'iqa movement was expelled from the PLO, leaving Fatah as the dominant party.[11]
Estimations of the numbers of victims
- Harris (p. 165) writes that "Perhaps 3,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, died in the siege and its aftermath"
- Cobban (p. 142) writes that 1 500 camp residents were killed in one day and a total of 2 200 were killed throughout the events.
- James Ron (2003) p 84. gives 1,000 - 2,000
- Canadian artist Jayce Salloum states that 2,000 people died during the entire siege, and 4,000 were wounded.
- The Lebanese-American Association estimates that "many of the several thousand civilians who had remained there [during the siege] were killed.
- World Socialist Web Site The bitter legacy of Syria's Hafez al-Assad By Jean Shaoul and Chris Marsden 16 June 2000, gives a figure of "2,000 refugees" for Tel al-Zaatar and the Karantina Massacre together.
See also
References
- ^ Lisa Suhair Majaj, Paula W. Sunderman, and Therese Saliba Intersections Syracuse University Press ISBN 0815629516 p 156
- ^ Samir Khalaf, Philip Shukry Khoury (1993) Recovering Beirut: Urban Design and Post-war Reconstruction BRILL, ISBN 9004099115 p 253
- ^ Younis, Mona (2000) Liberation and Democratization: The South African and Palestinian National Movements University of Minnesota Press, ISBN 0816633002 p 221
- ^ a b Kissinger, Henry (1999) Years of Renewal Simon Schuster, ISBN 1-84212-042-5 p 1022
- ^ Kazziha, Walid (1979) Palestine in the Arab dilemma Taylor & Francis, ISBN 0856648647 p 52
- ^ Yair Evron (1987) War and Intervention in Lebanon: The Israeli-Syrian Deterrence Dialogue Routledge, ISBN 0709914512 p 13
- ^ Amal Kawar (1996) Daughters of Palestine: Leading Women of the Palestinian National Movement SUNY Press, ISBN 0791428451 p 65
- ^ a b Walid Kazziha (1979) Palestine in the Arab dilemma Taylor & Francis, ISBN 0856648647 p 54
- ^ Cobban, Helena (1984), The Palestinian Liberation Organisation: People, Power, and Politics, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521272165 p 73
- ^ Robert Fisk (2002) Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War Oxford University Press, ISBN 0192801309 p 98
- ^ Barry M. Rubin (1994) Revolution Until Victory?: The Politics and History of the PLO, Harvard University Press, ISBN 0674768035 p 50
External links
- Information and Pictures from the Lebanese Civil War 'liberty05.com' Tel-el-Zaatar (the Hill of Thyme) was the largest and strongest Palestinian refugee camp established in 1948, Includes several pictures from The Battle of Tel al-Zaatar.
Bibliography
- William Harris, Faces of Lebanon. Sects, Wars, and Global Extensions (Markus Wiener Publishers, Princeton, USA 1996)
- Helena Cobban, The Making of Modern Lebanon (Hutchinson, London, UK 1985, ISBN 0091607914)
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
