Karantina massacre

Karantina massacre
Part of the Lebanese Civil War

Award winning photo taken by Françoise Demulder during the massacre.[1]
Location Beirut, Lebanon
Date January 18, 1976
Target Karantina district of Beirut
Attack type
 Massacre
Deaths Estimated 1,000–1,500
Perpetrators Kataeb, Guardians of the Cedars, Tiger militia[2]
Motive Securing territory

The Karantina massacre took place early in the Lebanese Civil War on January 18, 1976. With the breakdown in authority of the Lebanese government the militancy of radical factions increased.[3] Black Saturday preceded Karantina by six weeks.

Karantina was a predominantly Palestinian Muslim slum district in mostly Christian east Beirut controlled by forces of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO),[4] inhabited by Kurds, Syrians, Armenians[5] and Palestinians.[6] The fighting and subsequent killings also involved an old quarantine area near the port and nearby Maslakh quarter.[7][8][9]

Karantina was overrun by militias of the right-wing and mostly Christian Lebanese Front, resulting in the deaths of approximately 1,000-1,500 people, mostly Muslims.[8] After Kataeb Regulatory Forces (KRF), Guardians of the Cedars (GoC), NLP Tiger militia and Lebanese Youth Movement (LYM) forces took control of the Karantina district on 18 January 1976, Tel al-Zaatar was placed under siege, leading to the Tel al-Zaatar massacre.[2]

The Damour massacre was a reprisal for the Karantina massacre.[8][10]

See also

Footnotes

  1. ↑ 1976 - World Press Photo
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Kazziha, Walid (1979) Palestine in the Arab dilemma Taylor & Francis, ISBN 0-85664-864-7 p 52
  3. ↑ Kissinger, Henry (1999) Years of Renewal Simon Schuster, ISBN 1-84212-042-5 p 1022
  4. ↑ Noam Chomsky (1989) Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies South End Press, ISBN 0-89608-366-7 p 171
  5. ↑ Jonathan C. Randal (1990) The Tragedy of Lebanon: Christian Warlords, Israeli Adventurers and American Bunglers Hogarth, ISBN 0-7012-0909-7 p 88-90
  6. ↑ Michael Johnson (2001) All Honourable Men: The Social Origins of War in Lebanon I.B.Tauris, ISBN 1-86064-715-4 p 62
  7. ↑ Lokman I. Meho, Kelly L. Maglaughlin (2001) Kurdish culture and society: an annotated bibliography Greenwood Publishing Group, ISBN 0-313-31543-4 p 35
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Harris (p. 162) notes "the massacre of 1,500 Palestinians, Shi'is, and others in Karantina and Maslakh, and the revenge killings of hundreds of Christians in Damur"
  9. ↑ Jonathan C. Randal (1990) The Tragedy of Lebanon: Christian Warlords, Israeli Adventurers and American Bunglers Hogarth, ISBN 0-7012-0909-7 p 88
  10. ↑ Noam Chomsky, Edward W. Said (1999) Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians South End Press, ISBN 0-89608-601-1 pp 184-185

Bibliography