The Wimpy Operation () was an attack on

Israeli soldier The Israeli Ground Forces () are the ground forces of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The commander is the General Officer Commanding with the rank of major general, the ''Mazi'', subordinate to the Chief of General Staff. An order from Defen ...

s in Hamra, a neighbourhood in the west of the Lebanese capital

Beirut Beirut ( ; ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, just under half of Lebanon's population, which makes it the List of largest cities in the Levant region by populatio ...

on September 24, 1982 during the

1982 Lebanon War The 1982 Lebanon War, also called the Second Israeli invasion of Lebanon, began on 6 June 1982, when Israel invaded southern Lebanon. The invasion followed a series of attacks and counter-attacks between the Palestine Liberation Organization ...

.Mermier, Franck.
Commémorer la résistance à Beyrouth ouest
', published in Franck Mermier and Christophe Varin (ed.), ''Memoirs of wars in Lebanon (1975–1990)'', Arles, Sindbad / Actes Sud / Ifpo, 2010, p. 185-204 The Wimpy Operation marked the start of a campaign against Israeli forces in Beirut.''Al-Akhbar''
ذكرى عملية الويمبي
/ref>

The attack

Located on

Hamra Street Hamra Street or Rue Hamra () is one of the main streets of the city of Beirut, Lebanon, and one of the main economic and diplomatic hubs of Beirut. It is located in the neighborhood of the same name, Hamra. Its technical name is Rue 31. Due ...

, the Wimpy Cafe was a gathering point for the cosmopolitan

intelligentsia The intelligentsia is a status class composed of the university-educated people of a society who engage in the complex mental labours by which they critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society; as such, the i ...

of Beirut. In the afternoon on September 24, 1982 Khaled Alwan, a 19-year-old member of the

Syrian Social Nationalist Party The Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP; ) is a Syrian nationalist party operating in Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan. It advocates the establishment of a Greater Syrian nation state spanning the Fertile Crescent, including present-day Syria, Leb ...

(SSNP) opened fire on Israeli soldiers drinking coffee at the entrance to the Wimpy Cafe.''Daily Star''.
Wimpy reopens in heart of Hamra’s café society
' He killed an Israeli officer with his pistol and injured two Israeli soldiers accompanying the officer (one injured in the chest, the other in the neck). After the shooting, Alwan walked home. Legend has it that Alwan had been upset with seeing the Israeli officer insisting to pay his bill at Wimpy with

shekel A shekel or sheqel (; , , plural , ) is an ancient Mesopotamian coin, usually of silver. A shekel was first a unit of weight—very roughly 11 grams (0.35 ozt)—and became currency in ancient Tyre, Carthage and Hasmonean Judea. Name The wo ...

s. The

Lebanese National Resistance Front The Lebanese National Resistance Front (LNRF; ), best known by its Arabic acronym, ‘Jammoul’ (جمول), was a leftist alliance led by Walid Jumblatt’s Progressive Socialist Party, active in Lebanon from the 1982-1990 phase of the Civil ...

claimed responsibility for the operation.

Aftermath

The Wimpy Operation prompted other residents of the city to engage in resistance against the Israeli troops. Such acts continued until the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the capital.

Legacy

The SSNP commemorates the Wimpy Operation annually. In 2000, the site of the attack was renamed "Place Khaled Alwan" by the municipality of Beirut, in honour of his contributions to the resistance. In 2003 Alwan, who was killed in an ambush in 1984, was awarded the Lebanese Order of Merit posthumously. Writing on the political dimensions of resistance memorials, Franck Mermier noted that members of the

Lebanese Communist Party The Lebanese Communist Party (LCP; , transliterated: ) is a communist party in Lebanon. It was founded in 1943 as a division of the Syrian–Lebanese Communist Party into the Syrian Communist Party and the Lebanese Communist Party, but the divi ...

claimed that Alwan had been aided in the Wimpy Operation by two persons; another SSNP member and a Communist Party member named Charbel Abboud. According to Mermier, this claim does not appear in the official SSNP narratives regarding the operation. In ''Memory and Conflict in Lebanon'', Craig Larkin argues that the " e mythical power of this act" enabled a narrative which helped subsume memories of intra-Lebanese violence in the

Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

in favour of a "more pressing narrative of Israeli aggression and violence".

References

{{reflist 1982 Lebanon War 1980s in Beirut Lebanese National Resistance Front September 1982 in Asia Syrian Social Nationalist Party Attacks on coffeehouses and cafés in Asia Attacks on buildings and structures in Beirut Attacks on buildings and structures in 1982 Beirut in the Lebanese Civil War Beirut in the Israeli–Lebanese conflict Syria in the Arab–Israeli conflict Anti-Israeli sentiment in Lebanon

The attack

Aftermath

Legacy

See also

References