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| On April 13, 1975, unidentified Palestinian gunmen opened fire at a congregation outside a Maronite church in Ayn ar Rummenneh, a Christian suburb of Beirut. Later in the day , members of christian Phalange Party ambushed a bus filed with armed Palestinians, Arab Liberation front guerillas that had overrun a check piont, claiming 26 dead...... The War Of Lebanon started and soon become an orgy of death.... |
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| Lebanon 1975 |
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| The dimensions of the war comprised of a Lebanese-Palestinian war, a Lebanese-Lebanese , a Palestinian-Syrian, a Palestinian-Israeli, a Lebanese-Syrian, a Syrian-Israeli, and a Lebanese-Israeli war.Add to these dimension Libyans, Iraqis, Americans and russian , and the resulting chaotic soup of well over seventy groups fighting in Lebanon would confuse the most ordered of mind.... |
| Snipers on the roofs or at high windows picked off victims in the streets, in their homes, in shops, and in Offices.A common site was an open truck bearing a Soviet heavy machine-gun known as a "Douchka", the gunman holding its grips with both hands to keep his balance as the vehicle hurled through the street and careened round corners. ( It reminded onlookers of branco-riding. or water-skiing, and the gunmen came to be known as "WATER-SKIERS" ).... |
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| Everywhere in the city 'armed elements' sautered in public places wearing masks, balaclavas, or squares of cloth covering all their features, or carnival papier-mache' faces, comic or grotesque.. |
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| Palestinian gunman firing from a church-Beirut 1976 |
| On January 20, 1976, Palestinians and their leftist allies attacked in force the Christian town of Damour which lay across the Sidon - Beirut highway about 20 km south of Beeirut. The relentless pounding the town received resulted in the deaths of many. In the siege that had been established on 9 January the Palestinians cut off food and water supplies and refused to allow the Red Cross to take out the wounded. Infants and children died of dehydration. A plan was devised to evacuate the civilians and fortunately the majority of the population of Damour was evacuated by sea but about 500 civilians defended by some 20 Phalangists did not make it out in time. Damour was captured, the Phalangists were executed, the civilians were lined up against the walls of their houses and shot, their houses were then dynamited. Many of the young women had been raped and babies had been shot at close range at the back of the head. 149 bodies lay in the streets for days afterwards and 200 other civilians were never seen again. In all about 582 civilians had been murdered. The horror did not end there, the old Christian cemetery was next, coffins were dug up, the dead robbed, vaults opened, and bodies and skeletons thrown across the grave yard. Damour was then transformed into a stronghold of Fatah and the PFLP (Popular Front fort he Liberation of Palestine). The massacre and destruction of Damour is best described by Becker in the book "The PLO" |
| Palestinian (west Beirut) |
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| Elderly residents of Damour a moment before being killed by a Libyan mercenary with the PLO, Damour, January 1976. The photo was taken and sold to Stern magazine by another Libyan mercenary. |
| Leftist gunmen in a car drag the body of a right-wing christian Phalangist during the Damour Massacre. |
| "Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation." |
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