Israeli–Lebanese Conflict

The Israeli–Lebanese conflict, or the South Lebanon conflict,G. Rongxing. ''Territorial Disputes and Conflict Management: The Art of Avoiding War''. p71. was a series of military clashes involving Israel, Lebanon and Syria, the Palestine Liberation Organization, as well as various militias acting from within Lebanon. The conflict peaked in the 1980s, during the Lebanese Civil War, and has abated since.

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) recruited militants in Lebanon from among the Palestinian refugees who had been expelled or fled after the creation of Israel in 1948. After the PLO leadership and its Fatah brigade were expelled from Jordan in 1970–71 for fomenting a revolt, they entered Southern Lebanon, resulting in an increase of internal and cross-border violence. Meanwhile, demographic tensions over the Lebanese National Pact led to the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990). PLO actions were one of the key factors in the eruption of the Lebanese Civil War and its bitter battles with Lebanese factions caused foreign intervention. Israel's 1978 invasion of Lebanon pushed the PLO north of the Litani River, but the PLO continued their campaign against Israel. Israel invaded Lebanon again in 1982 in alliance with the major Lebanese Christian militias of the Lebanese Forces and Kataeb Party and forcibly expelled the PLO. In 1983, Israel and Lebanon signed the May 17 Agreement providing a framework for the establishment of normal bilateral relations between the two countries, but relations were disrupted with takeover of Shia and Druze militias in early 1984. Israel withdrew from most of Lebanon in 1985, but kept control of a security buffer zone, held with the aid of proxy militants in the South Lebanon Army (SLA).

In 1985, Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shia radical movement sponsored by Iran, called for armed struggle to end the Israeli occupation of Lebanese territory. When the Lebanese civil war ended and other warring factions agreed to disarm, Hezbollah and the SLA refused. Combat with Hezbollah weakened Israeli resolve and led to a collapse of the SLA and an Israeli withdrawal in 2000 to their side of the UN designated border.

Citing Israeli control of the Shebaa farms territory, Hezbollah continued cross-border attacks intermittently over the next six years. Hezbollah now sought the release of Lebanese citizens in Israeli prisons and successfully used the tactic of capturing Israeli soldiers as leverage for a prisoner exchange in 2004. The capturing of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah ignited the 2006 Lebanon War. Its ceasefire called for the disarmament of Hezbollah and the respecting of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon by Israel.

Hostilities were suspended on 8 September 2006. As of 2015, the situation has generally remained calm, despite both sides violating the ceasefire agreements; Israel by making near-daily flights over Lebanese territory, and Hezbollah by not disarming.

Background

World War I and Mandate

The territories of what would become the states of Israel and Lebanon were once part of the Ottoman Empire which lasted from 1299 until its defeat in World War I and subsequent dissolution in 1922. As a result of the Sinai and Palestine Campaign in 1917, the British occupied Palestine and parts of what would become Syria. French troops took Damascus in 1918. The League of Nations officially gave the French the Mandate of Syria and the British the Mandate of Palestine after the 1920 San Remo conference, in accordance with the 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement.

The largely Christian enclave of the French Mandate became the French-controlled Lebanese Republic in 1926. Lebanon became independent in 1943 as France was under German occupation, though French troops did not completely withdraw until 1946.

The rise of anti-Semitism in Europe, culminating in the Holocaust during World War II, had meant an increase of Jewish immigrants to a minority Jewish, majority Arab Mandate. During the 1936–39 Arab revolt and thereafter the British increasingly came to rely on Jewish police forces to help maintain order. Eventually, the resultant rise in ethnic tensions and violence between the Arabs and Jews due to Jewish immigration and collaboration would force the British to withdraw in 1947. (The area of their mandate east of the Jordan river had already become the independent state of Jordan in 1946.) The United Nations General Assembly developed a gerrymandered 1947 UN Partition Plan, to attempt to give both Arabs and Jews their own states from the remains of the British Mandate; however, this was rejected by the Arabs, and the situation quickly devolved into a full-fledged civil war.

1948 Arab–Israeli War

In 1948, the Lebanese army had by far the smallest regional army, consisting of only 3,500 soldiers. At the prompting of Arab leaders in the region, Lebanon agreed to join the other armies that were being assembled around the perimeter of the British Mandate territory of Palestine for the purpose of invading Palestine. Lebanon committed 1,000 of these soldiers to the cause. The Arab armies waited for the end of the Mandate and the withdrawal of British forces, which was set for 15 May 1948.

Israel declared its independence on 14 May 1948. The next day, the British Mandate officially expired and, in an official cablegram, the seven-member Arab League, including Lebanon, publicly proclaimed their aim of creating a democratic "United State of Palestine" in place of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine. The League soon entered the conflict on the side of the Palestinian Arabs, thus beginning the international phase of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Transjordan, and Iraq declared war on the new state of Israel. They expected an easy and quick victory in what came to be called the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The Lebanese army joined the other Arab armies in the invasion. It crossed into the northern Galilee. By the end of the conflict, however, it had been repulsed by Israeli forces, which occupied South Lebanon. Israel signed armistice agreements with each of its invading neighbors. The armistice with Lebanon was signed on 23 March 1949. As part of the agreement with Lebanon, Israeli forces withdrew to the international border.

By the conclusion of that war, Israel had signed ceasefire agreements with all of the neighbouring Arab countries. The territory it now controlled went well beyond what had been allocated to it under the United Nations Partition Plan, incorporating much of what had been promised to the Palestinian Arabs under the Plan. However, it was understood by all the state parties at the time that the armistice agreements were not peace treaties with Israel, nor the final resolution of the conflict between them, including the borders.

After the war, the United Nations estimated 711,000 Palestinian Arabs, out an estimated 1.8 million dwelling in the Mandate of Palestine, fled, emigrated or were forced out of Israel and entered neighboring countries. By 1949, there were 110,000 Palestinian Arabs in Lebanon, moved into camps established by and administered by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.

With the exception of two camps in the Beirut area, the camps were mostly Muslim. Lebanese Christians feared that the Muslim influx would affect their political dominance and their assumed demographic majority. Accordingly, they imposed restrictions on the status of the Palestinian refugees. The refugees could not work, travel, or engage in political activities. Initially the refugees were too impoverished to develop a leadership capable of representing their concerns. Less democratic regimes also feared the threat the refugees posed to their own rule, but Lebanon would prove too weak to maintain a crackdown.

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) recruited militants in Lebanon from among the families of Palestinian refugees who had left Israel in 1948.

War over water and 1967 Six-Day War

Despite sharing in the ongoing border tensions over water, Lebanon rejected calls by other Arab governments to participate in the 1967 Six-Day War. Militarily weak in the south, Lebanon could not afford conflict with Israel.

Nevertheless, the loss of additional territory radicalized the Palestinians languishing in refugee camps hoping to return home. The additional influx of refugees turned Palestinian camps throughout the Middle East into centers of guerrilla activity.

Timeline

Rise of the PLO militants (1968–1975)

The PLO, from its inception in 1964 by Ahmed Shukeri, began executing numerous terror attacks on Israeli civilians in attempt to fulfill its mission charter's vow to pursue in "the path of holy war (al-jihad)" until the establishment of a Palestinian State in place of the State of Israel. The series of attacks (such as the 1966 bombings in Romema, Jerusalem) drove the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to strike in return, instigating the long and still unresolved struggle between the PLO and the IDF.

From 1968 onwards, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) began conducting raids from Lebanon into Israel, and Israel began making retaliatory raids against Lebanese villages to encourage the Lebanese people to themselves deal with the fedayeen. After an Israeli airline was machine-gunned at Athens Airport, Israel raided the Beirut International Airport in retaliation, destroying 13 civilian aircraft.

The unarmed citizenry could not expel the armed foreigners, while the Lebanese army was too weak militarily and politically. The Palestinian camps came under Palestinian control after a series of clashes in 1968 and 1969 between the Lebanese military and the emerging Palestinian guerrilla forces. In 1969 the Cairo Agreement guaranteed refugees the right to work, to form self-governing committees, and to engage in armed struggle. "The Palestinian resistance movement assumed daily management of the refugee camps, providing security as well as a wide variety of health, educational, and social services."

On 8 May 1970, a PLO faction, called the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, (DFLP) crossed into Israel and carried out the Avivim school bus massacre.

In 1970, the PLO attempted to overthrow a reigning monarch, King Hussein of Jordan, and following his quashing of the rebellion in what Arab historians call Black September, the PLO leadership and their troops fled from Jordan to Syria and finally Lebanon, where cross-border violence increased.

With headquarters now in Beirut, PLO factions recruited new members from the Palestinian refugee camps. South Lebanon was nicknamed "Fatahland" due to the predominance there of Yasser Arafat's Fatah organization. With its own army operating freely in Lebanon, the PLO had created a state within a state. By 1975, more than 300,000 Palestinian displaced persons lived in Lebanon.

In reaction to the 1972 Munich massacre, Israel carried out Operation Spring of Youth. Members of Israel's elite Special Forces landed by boat in Lebanon on 9 April 1973, and with the aid of Israeli intelligence agents, infiltrated the PLO headquarters in Beirut and assassinated several members of its leadership.

In 1974 the PLO altered its focus to include political elements, necessary for a dialogue with Israel. Those who insisted on a military solution left to form the Rejectionist Front, and Yassir Arafat took over the PLO leadership role.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command, which split from the PLO in 1974, carried out the Kiryat Shmona massacre in April of that year. In May 1974, the DFLP crossed again into Israel and carried out the Ma'alot massacre.

Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990)

The Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990) was a complex conflict in the form of various factions and shifting alliances between and among Lebanese Maronite Catholics, Lebanese Muslims, Palestinian Muslims, Lebanese Druze, and other non-sectarian groups. Governmental power had been allotted among the different religious groups by the National Pact based partially on the results of the 1932 census. Changes in demographics and increased feelings of deprivation by certain ethnic groups, as well as Israeli–Palestinian clashes in the south of the county all contributed to the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War.

Israeli support to Lebanese Forces

Beginning in May 1976, Israel supplied the Maronite militias, including the Lebanese Forces, led by Bachir Gemayel, with arms, tanks, and military advisers. The border between Israel and Lebanon was at this time was nicknamed the Good Fence.

Fearing loss of commercial access to the port of Beirut, in June 1976 Syria intervened in the civil war to support the Maronite dominated government, and by October had 40,000 troops stationed within Lebanon.

Operation Litani

On 11 March 1978, eleven PLO militants made a beach landing 30 km. south of Haifa, Israel, where they seized a bus, full of people, killing those on board in what is known as the Coastal Road massacre. By the end of the incident, nine hijackers and 38 Israeli civilians (including 13 children) were dead.

In response, on 14 March 1978, Israel launched Operation Litani occupying southern Lebanon, except for the city of Tyre, with 25,000 troops. The objective was to push the PLO away from the border and bolster a Lebanese Christian militia allied with Israel, the South Lebanese Army (SLA). However, the PLO concluded from the name of the operation that the invasion would halt at the Litani River and moved their forces north, leaving behind a token force of a few hundred men. As a result, the casualties were almost all civilians.

On 19 March 1978, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 425, which called for Israel's immediate withdrawal and the establishment of a United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon. When Israel forces withdrew later in 1978, they turned over its positions in Lebanon to the South Lebanon Army which would continue fighting as a proxy for Israel against the PLO until Israel drove the PLO out of Lebanon in 1982.

On 22 April 1979, Samir Kuntar and three other members of the Palestine Liberation Front, a sometimes faction of the PLO, landed in Nahariya, Israel from Tyre, Lebanon by boat. After killing a police officer who had discovered their presence, they took a father and his daughter hostage in an apartment building. After fleeing with the hostages from police back to the beach, a shootout killed one policeman and two of the militants. Kuntar then executed the hostages before he and the remaining invader were captured.

In April 1981, the United States brokered a cease-fire in southern Lebanon among Israel, Syria and the PLO.

1982 Lebanon war and aftermath

The 1982 Lebanon war began on 6 June 1982, when Israel invaded again for the purpose of attacking the Palestine Liberation Organization. The Israeli army laid siege to Beirut. During the conflict, according to Lebanese sources, between 15,000 and 20,000 people were killed, mostly civilians. According to American military analyst Richard Gabriel, between 5,000 and 8,000 civilians were killed. Fighting also occurred between Israel and Syria. The United States, fearing a widening conflict and the prestige the siege was giving PLO leader Yasser Arafat, got all sides to agree to a cease-fire and terms for the PLO's withdrawal on 12 August. The Multinational Force in Lebanon arrived to keep the peace and ensure PLO withdrawal. The PLO leadership retreated from Beirut on 30 August 1982 and moved to Tunisia.

The National Assembly of Lebanon narrowly chose Bachir Gemayel as president-elect, but when he was assassinated on 14 September 1982, Israel reoccupied West Beirut. In parallel, Maronite militia Kataeb Party carried out the Sabra and Shatila massacre.

1983 Israeli-Lebanese accords and their collapse

In 1983, the United States brokered the May 17 Agreement, a peace treaty between Israel and Lebanon in all but name. The agreement called for a staged Israeli withdrawal over the next eight to twelve weeks and the establishment of a "security zone" to be patrolled by the Lebanese army in southern Lebanon, but was conditional on Syrian withdrawal as well. In August 1983, as Israel withdrew from the areas southeast of Beirut to the Awali River, Lebanese factions clashed for control of the freed territory.

In February 1984, the Lebanese Army collapsed, with many units forming their own militias. Shia and Druze militias took over much of Beirut in early 1984 and consolidated power. The National Assembly of Lebanon, under pressure from Syria and Muslim militias, cancelled the 17 May Agreement on 5 March 1984.

On 15 January 1985, Israel adopted a phased withdrawal plan, finally retreating to the Litani River to form the deep Israeli Security Zone (map at) while using the native South Lebanese Army militia to help control it.

SLA conflict with Hezbollah (February 1985 – May 2000)

Consolidation of Hezbollah

On 16 February 1985, Shia Sheik Ibrahim al-Amin declared a manifesto in Lebanon, announcing a resistance movement called Hezbollah, whose goals included combating the Israeli occupation. During the South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

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