The Wimpy Operation ( ar, عملية الويمبي) was an attack on

Israeli soldier The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; he, צְבָא הַהֲגָנָה לְיִשְׂרָאֵל , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the State of Israel. It consists of three service branch ...

s in Hamra, a neighbourhood in the west of the

Lebanese Lebanese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the Lebanese Republic * Lebanese people The Lebanese people ( ar, الشعب اللبناني / ALA-LC: ', ) are the people inhabiting or originating from Lebanon. The term may al ...

capital

Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

on September 24, 1982 during the

1982 Lebanon War The 1982 Lebanon War, dubbed Operation Peace for Galilee ( he, מבצע שלום הגליל, or מבצע של"ג ''Mivtsa Shlom HaGalil'' or ''Mivtsa Sheleg'') by the Israeli government, later known in Israel as the Lebanon War or the First L ...

.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 has a strong symbolic significance, as it marked the start of the campaign against Israeli forces in Beirut.''Al-Akhbar''
ذكرى عملية الويمبي
/ref>

The attack

Located on

Hamra Street Hamra Street or Rue Hamra ( ar, شارع الحمراء) 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 te ...

, the Wimpy Cafe was an established 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) or is a Syrian nationalist party operating in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine. It advocates the establishment of a Greater Syrian nation state spanning the Fertile Crescent, including presen ...

(SSNP) walked along the sidewalk. Reaching the Wimpy Cafe, he opened fire on Israeli soldiers at Wimpy.''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 calmly. Popular legend has it that Alwan had been upset with seeing the Israeli officer insisting to pay his bill at Wimpy with

shekel Shekel or sheqel ( akk, 𒅆𒅗𒇻 ''šiqlu'' or ''siqlu,'' he, שקל, plural he, שקלים or shekels, Phoenician: ) is an ancient Mesopotamian coin, usually of silver. A shekel was first a unit of weight—very roughly —and became c ...

s. The

Lebanese National Resistance Front The Lebanese National Resistance Front – LNRF ( ar, جبهة المقاومة الوطنية اللبنانية, ''Jabhat al-Muqawama al-Wataniyya al-Lubnaniyya'') or Front National de la Résistance Libanaise (FNRL) in French, but best known ...

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.''Daily Star''.
Alwan’s one-man war remembered
' 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 An ambush is a long-established military tactics, military tactic in which a combatant uses an advantage of concealment or the element of surprise to attack unsuspecting enemy combatants from concealed positions, such as among dense underbru ...

in 1984, was awarded the Lebanese Order of Merit posthumously. Writing on the political dimensions of resistance memorials, Franck Mermier notes that members of the

Lebanese Communist Party The Lebanese Communist Party (LCP), abbr. PCL is a communist party in Lebanon. It was founded in 1924 by the Lebanese intellectual, writer and reporter Yusuf Yazbek and Fu'ad al-Shamali, a tobacco worker from Bikfaya. History Creation The ...

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 or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same 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 polic ...

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 events in Asia Syrian Social Nationalist Party Attacks on restaurants in Asia

The attack

Aftermath

Legacy

See also

References