Damour Massacre

The Damour Massacre which took place on January 20th 1976 was a massacre during the Lebanese Civil War . It is one of the best known of the many massacres Palestinian militants throughout the civil war inflicted by the Christian population in Lebanon.

Damour is a Christian town on the road to Beirut by PLO was attacked members. The population (mostly Maronites) partly was killed during fighting between Lebanese and Palestinians, a large part was later killed.The rest were forced to flee. [1] In addition to Palestinians would mercenaries and militiamen from Syria , Jordan , Libya , Iran , Pakistan , Afghanistan and even commandos from Japan have made ​​themselves complicit in the massacre. [2]

Massacre
The Palestinians systematically destroyed the buildings of the village and then turned to the Christian people. The Christian cemetery was destroyed, coffins dug up the bodies and robbed after the bodies and skeletons randomly at the cemetery were thrown. The church was burned and vandalized the outside wall with a mural of Fatah soldiers AK-47 rifles hold. It was a portrait of it - now deceased - Yasser Arafatinstalled. Other sources say that the church was used as a garage for PLO -vehicles. Goals were signed on the east side of the ship, which were then used for target practice.

Twenty Lebanese Phalangists were executed after civilians were put against the wall and killed. None of the other inhabitants who had not fled survived this massacre. [3] The estimate of the number of civilian casualties stands at 584 [4] . The PLO replaced by their murdered Lebanese population with Palestinians. The Israeli army invaded Lebanon in 1982 displaced the Palestinians, leaving the local population to return home. [5]

According to Thomas Friedman studied the Phalangist Damouri Brigade revenge not only for the death of the future president Bashir Gemayel, but also for several massacres were committed on the Palestinian population of Lebanon, including those in Damour. [6] [7]

Father Mansour Labaky of the St. Elias church in Damour gave the following description of Palestinian actions in Damour [8] ,