Lebanon War
A terrorist attack against two Israeli buses near Tel-Aviv by Palestinian groups based in Lebanon in March 1978 killed thirty-seven Israelis and injured an additional seventy-six.
In response, the IDF launched a major military incursion into southern Lebanon, called “Operation Litani,” seeking to eliminate the bases of these groups. Once Israel had moved into Lebanese territory and attacked its acknowledged targets, it did not immediately withdraw, however. The U.N. Security Council, backed by the United States, responded to the incursion with Resolution 425, which secured an Israeli withdrawal byJune and the creation of a United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). Thereafter, attacks by PLO units from Lebanon against Israeli towns continued, frustrating any chances of a resumption of peaceful relations between the two states.The conflict persisted with Israeli townships along the border bearing the brunt of Palestinian attacks and Israel retaliating in kind. In June 1982, following an attempt by a Palestinian splinter group (the Abu-Nidal group) to assassinate Israel’s ambassador in London, Israel launched “Operation Peace for Galilee” under the direction of Defense Minister Ariel Sharon. Its declared purpose was the creation of a forty-kilometer security zone in southern Lebanon, but soon Israeli forces had passed the forty-kilometer line and laid siege to the city of Beirut.
After intervention on the part of the United States, a cease-fire was accepted. Subsequently, United States Ambassador Phillip Habib negotiated a peaceful PLO withdrawal from Lebanon that was supervised by a multinational force. By September 9, over 8,000 PLO fighters had left by sea and over 6,000 had evacuated overland to Damascus. A multinational force was to supervise the process. Complicating the fragile situation, however, the newly elected Lebanese president, Bashir Gemayel, was assassinated before he could take office, prompting Israeli troops to reenter west Beirut under the pretense of maintaining order.
Defense Minister Sharon then allowed the militias of the Phalange, Bashir Gemayel’s loyals, to enter the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila presumably in order to “clean out” the terrorists still lurking there. That was an irresponsible, fatal decision, for the revenge-thirsty Phalangists massacred hundreds of defenseless Palestinians.Lebanon continued for years to come to be the playground of foreign forces. On October 23, suicide car bombers attacked the multinational bases inside Lebanon, killing seventy-eight French troops and 241 U.S. marines. On February 8, 1984, President Reagan announced his plan to withdraw the marines from Lebanon.
In June 1985, Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres ordered a unilateral withdrawal of most of Israel’s troops from Lebanon, leaving only a small residual Israeli force and an Israeli-supported Lebanese militia in a “security zone.” On May 22, 2000, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak decided unilaterally to withdraw all Israeli troops from Lebanon, ending Israel’s twenty-two-year military presence.
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