Everything about The Damour Massacre totally explained
The
Damour massacre took place on
20 January,
1976 during the
1975–
1990 Lebanese Civil War. It was perpetrated mainly by
Palestinian and
Muslim militias against Christian inhabitants of
Damour.
Events
The massacre was perpetrated by the PLO in order to force a Palestinian-Druze alliance that hadn't been sealed yet at the time. Attacking and murdering Christians in Damour effectively forced walid jumblat to ally with Yasser Arrafat, chiefly due to them now having a strong common enemy. Palestinian militias committed genocide in Damour, a
Lebanese Christian town 12 miles south of
Beirut, close to the home of
Camille Chamoun. Most of the inhabitants managed to flee during the assault, but a number stayed behind as the Palestinian forces seized control of the town. The attackers destroyed the buildings in the seaside village systematically and then took revenge on the remaining
Christian inhabitants. The Christian cemetery was destroyed, coffins dug up, the dead robbed, vaults opened, and bodies and skeletons thrown across the graveyard. The church was burnt and an outside wall was covered with a mural of
Fatah guerrillas holding
AK47 rifles. A portrait of
Yasser Arafat was placed at one end. Other sources claim that the church was used as a repair garage for
PLO vehicles, and also as a range for shooting-practice with targets painted on the eastern wall of the
nave.
Twenty Phalangist militiamen were executed and then civilians were lined up against a wall and sprayed with
machine-gun fire. An unknown number of women were raped, babies shot at close range, and bodies were mutilated and dismembered. None of the remaining inhabitants survived. Estimates of the
civilian dead range from 25–30 to 582 with the most reliable figure probably being around 330. Among the killed were family members of
Elie Hobeika, and his fiancé. Following the
Tel al-Zaatar Massacre later the same year, the
PLO resettled surviving
Palestinian refugees in Damour. After the
Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the Zaatar refugees were expelled from Damour, and the original inhabitants brought back.
According to
Thomas L. Friedman, the Phalangist Damouri Brigade which carried out the
Sabra and Shatila Massacre during the
1982 Lebanon War sought revenge not only for the assassination of
Bashir Gemayel, but also for what he describes as past tribal killings of their own people by Palestinians including those at Damour.
The Damour massacre was a response to the
Karantina Massacre of (
18 January,
1976), in which
Phalangists killed an estimated one thousand people. It may be simplistic, however, to say that the events in Damour were mere retaliation on the part of the PLO.
Perpetrators
There are a number of conflicting claims as to exactly which militias participated in the massacre. It is clear that it was a Palestinian-led attack, but some sources indicate a heavy participation of
Syrian-backed Palestinian factions. This much is clear: the attack and subsequent
massacre was carried out by a mixed crew of Palestinian militiamen aligned with the
Lebanese National Movement (LNM).
According to
Robert Fisk, the attack was led by
Col. Abu Musa, a senior commander of the
PLO and
Fatah, but later leader of the anti-
Arafatist Fatah Uprising faction.
This page
, however, names
Zuheir Mohsen, leader of
as-Sa'iqa, a
Damascus-based Palestinian faction operating directly on Syrian orders, and claims that he was known in Lebanon as the "Butcher from Damour".
The bulk of the attacking forces seems to have been composed by brigades from the
Palestinian Liberation Army and
as-Sa'iqa, as well as other militias including
Fatah. Some sources also mention the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the
Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) and the
Muslim Lebanese
al-Murabitun militia among the attackers. There are also reports that mercenaries or militiamen from
Syria,
Jordan,
Libya,
Iran,
Pakistan and
Afghanistan were part of the assault, and even
Japanese commandos who were training in
Lebanon.
Further Information
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