Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
of the Palestinian refugee influx between 1948 and 1982, Christian and Muslim interreli-
gious strife, and the involvement of Syria and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
With a short break in the fighting in 1976 the strife continued, with fighting primarily fo-
cused in southern Lebanon, occupied first by the PLO, then by Israel.
During the course of the fighting, alliances shifted rapidly and unpredictably. By the end of
the war, nearly every party had allied with and subsequently betrayed every other party at
least once.
The 1980s were especially bleak. Much of Beirut lay in ruins following the Karantina mas-
sacre carried out by Lebanese Christian militias, the shelling of Christian neighborhoods
by the Syrian Army, and the Israeli invasion that evicted the PLO from the country.
A number of atrocities and terrorist acts were committed by the Lebanese Christian
Phalange as well as the Palestinians and Israelis, all of whom participated in the war. These
included the Damour massacre in which Palestinians massacred Christian inhabitants of the
coastal town 20 miles south of Beirut, and the Sabra and Shatila massacre where Christian
Phalange forces massacred civilians and refugees during three days, while the camps were
under Israeli control. The war deteriorated ever further into sectarian carnage, and in the
end Lebanon's effective independence counted among the casualties, with Syria occupying
the country from 1976 to 2005.
Things began to fall apart for Syria in February 2005, when Rafiq Al-Hariri was assassin-
ated. Hariri, a self-made billionaire and business tycoon, was Prime Minister of Lebanon
from 1992 to 1998 and again from 2000 until his resignation in 2004. He dominated the
country's post-war political and business life and is country's post-war political and busi-
ness life and is year civil war. But his regime was blighted by widespread corruption.
Hariri was assassinated when explosives were detonated as his motorcade drove past the
St. George Hotel in Beirut. The investigation into his assassination is still ongoing under
the supervision of the United Nations.
In its first two reports, UN indicated that the Syrian government may be linked to the assas-
sination through senior figures in Hezbollah. Both the Syrians and Hezbollah vehemently
reject these findings; however, the massive political change that occurred and the conse-
quent so-called Cedar Revolution led to the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon. In
Beirut, there are a number of posters showing Hariri's image.
