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→Further Damour victims
==Further Damour victims==
==Further Damour victims==
"A quarter of its population of 40,000 were killed in the battle or massacred afterwards, and the remainder forced to flee."<ref>Russell, Lee E., Katz, Sam. Armies in Lebanon 1982-84. United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2012. [https://books.google.com/books?id=CrHvCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT8 Chapter 1, 'Background to Chaos']</ref>
"A quarter of its population of 40,000 were killed in the battle or massacred afterwards, and the remainder forced to flee."<ref>Russell, Lee E., Katz, Sam. Armies in Lebanon 1982-84. United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2012. [https://books.google.com/books?id=CrHvCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT8 Chapter 1, 'Background to Chaos'].<blockquote><font size=1<On 13 April 1975, in the midst of this explosive atmosphere, a busload of PLO gunmen opened fire on a church in the Christian Ain Rammanah section of Beirut. Pierre Gemayel, leader of tbe Christian Phalange Party and one of the most powerful men in Maronite Lebanon, was present for a family baptism. His bodyguard returned fire, and the lighting escalated. The next day all hell broke loose in Lebanon.
The Lebanese Civil War, 1975–76
The Lebanese Civil War of 1975–76 caused 80,000 dead, and totally split the country along factional lines.
The peace which had existed for centuries between Muslim and Christian was destroyed. Christian fought Muslim, Christian fought Christian, and Muslim fought Muslim. An estimated 50 different 'militias' came into existence, and acts of violence were both individual and collective.
In Beirut, where the worst of the fighting took place, rooftop snipers shot pedestrians at random. Gunmen set up checkpoints to examine the papers of passing motorists, and anyone of the ‘wrong’ religion or political affiliation was killed out of hand. Battles were fought with unheard-of savagery, with prisoners saved only for torture, mutilation and death.
In January 1976 PLO units attacked the Christian city of Damour on the main highwav south of Beirut. A quarter of its population of 40,000 were killed in the battle or massacred afterwards, and the remainder forced to flee. In revenge, in October 1976 the Christian militias laid siege to the Tel Zaatar refugee camp north of Beirut for 50 days. When the camp fell, no quarter was given to the survivors, and the slaughter rivalled that of Damour.
By then the Christians, initially confident, were in trouble: the Palestinians had formed an alliance with other Muslim factions, and obtained the support of the Druze, the stubborn mountain people who had given the French repeated problems in the days of the Mandate.
The PLO-leftist Muslim-Druze alliance was too much for the Christian forces to handle and, in 1976, they gave tacit support to a Syrian and Lebanese plan to end the fighting by granting concessions to the Muslims.
The PLO refused to go along with the plan, however, hoping to achieve their own national state, or at the very least to gain total control of south Lebanon. As the war entered its second year, the desperate Christian leadership began to consider approaching the only power in the region capable of ensuring their survival: the State of Israel.</font></blockquote></ref>
==Elimination of the Butcher of Damour==
==Elimination of the Butcher of Damour==
Zuheir Mohsen, leader of [[as-Sa'iqa]], the butcher of Damour<ref name=ict-1036/> was assassinated in July, 1979.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/1979/07/26/archives/a-leader-of-plo-shot-in-france-arafat-accuses-the-israelis.html A Leader of P.L.O. Shot in France], The New York Times, July 26, 1979.
Zuheir Mohsen, leader of [[as-Sa'iqa]], the butcher of Damour<ref name=ict-1036/> was assassinated in July, 1979.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/1979/07/26/archives/a-leader-of-plo-shot-in-france-arafat-accuses-the-israelis.html A Leader of P.L.O. Shot in France], The New York Times, July 26, 1979.