Timeline of the Lebanese Civil War From 1975 to 1990

Soldiers fighting during the Lebanese Civil War.

Langevin Jacques/Contributor/Getty Images

The Lebanese Civil War took place from 1975 to 1990 and claimed the lives of some 200,000 people, which left Lebanon in ruins.

Lebanese Civil War, 1975 to 1978

April 13, 1975: Gunmen attempt to assassinate Maronite Christian Phalangist leader Pierre Gemayel as he’s leaving church that Sunday. In retaliation, Phalangist gunmen ambush a busload of Palestinians, most of them civilians, killing 27 passengers. Week-long clashes between Palestinian-Muslim forces and Phalangists follow, marking the beginning of Lebanon’s 15-year civil war.

June 1976: Some 30,000 Syrian troops enter Lebanon, ostensibly to restore peace. Syria’s intervention stops vast military gains against Christians by Palestinian-Muslim forces. The invasion is, in fact, Syria’s attempt to claim Lebanon, which it never recognized when Lebanon won independence from France in 1943.

October 1976: Egyptian, Saudi, and other Arab troops in small numbers join the Syrian force as a result of a peace summit brokered in Cairo. The so-called Arab Deterrent Force would be short-lived.

March 11, 1978: Palestinian commandos attack an Israeli kibbutz between Haifa and Tel Aviv, then hijack a bus. Israeli forces respond. By the time the battle was over, 37 Israelis and nine Palestinians were killed.

March 14, 1978: Some 25,000 Israeli soldiers crossed the Lebanese border in Operation Litani, named for the Litani River that crosses South Lebanon, not 20 miles from the Israeli border. The invasion is designed to wipe out the Palestine Liberation Organization’s structure in South Lebanon. The operation fails.

March 19, 1978: The United Nations Security Council adopts Resolution 425, sponsored by the United States, calling on Israel to withdraw from South Lebanon and on the UN to establish a 4,000-strong UN peacekeeping force in South Lebanon. The force is termed the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon. Its original mandate was for six months. The force is still in Lebanon today.

June 13, 1978: Israel withdraws, mostly, from occupied territory, handing over authority to the breakaway Lebanese Army force of Maj. Saad Haddad, which expands its operations in South Lebanon, operating as an Israeli ally.

July 1, 1978: Syria turns its guns on Lebanon’s Christians, pounding Christian areas of Lebanon in the worst fighting in two years.

September 1978: U.S. President Jimmy Carter brokers the Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt, the first Arab-Israeli peace. Palestinians in Lebanon vow to escalate their attacks on Israel.

1982 to 1985

​June 6, 1982: Israel invades Lebanon again. Gen. Ariel Sharon leads the attack. The two-month drive leads the Israeli army to the southern suburbs of Beirut. The Red Cross estimates the invasion costs the lives of some 18,000 people, mostly civilian Lebanese.

August 24, 1982: A multinational force of U.S. Marines, French paratroopers, and Italian soldiers lands in Beirut to assist in the evacuation of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

August 30, 1982: After intense mediation led by the United States, Yasser Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization, which had run a state-within-a-state in West Beirut and South Lebanon, evacuate Lebanon. Some 6,000 PLO fighters go mostly to Tunisia, where they are again dispersed. Most end up in the West Bank and Gaza.

September 10, 1982: The Multinational force completes its withdrawal from Beirut.

Sept. 14, 1982: The Israeli-backed Christian Phalangist leader and Lebanese President-Elect Bashir Gemayel is assassinated at his headquarters in East Beirut.

Sept. 15, 1982: Israeli troops invade West Beirut, the first time an Israeli force enters an Arab capital.

Sept. 15-16, 1982: Under the supervision of Israeli forces, Christian militiamen are bused into the two Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, ostensibly to “mop up” remaining Palestinian fighters. Between 2,000 and 3,000 Palestinian civilians are massacred.

September 23, 1982: Amin Gemayel, brother of Bashir, takes office as Lebanon’s president.

September 24, 1982: The U.S.-French-Italian Multinational Force returns to Lebanon in a show of force and support for the Gemayel’s government. At first, French and American soldiers play a neutral role. Gradually, they turn into defenders of the Gemayel regime against Druze and Shiites in central and South Lebanon.

April 18, 1983: The American Embassy in Beirut is attacked by a suicide bomb, killing 63. By then, the United States is actively engaged in Lebanon’s civil war on the side of the Gemayel government.

May 17, 1983: Lebanon and Israel sign a U.S.-brokered peace agreement that calls for the withdrawal of Israeli troops contingent on the withdrawal of Syrian troops from northern and eastern Lebanon. Syria opposes the agreement, which was never ratified by the Lebanese parliament and canceled in 1987.

October 23, 1983: U.S. Marines barracks near Beirut International Airport, on the south side of the city, are attacked by a suicide bomber in a truck, killing 241 Marines. Moments later, French paratroopers’ barracks are attacked by a suicide bomber, killing 58 French soldiers.

Feb. 6, 1984: Predominantly Shiite Muslim militias seize control of West Beirut.

June 10, 1985: The Israeli army finishes withdrawing out of most of Lebanon, but keeps an occupation zone along the Lebanon-Israeli border and calls it its “security zone.” The zone is patrolled by the South Lebanon Army and Israeli soldiers.

June 16, 1985: Hezbollah militants hijack a TWA flight to Beirut, demanding the release of Shiite prisoners in Israeli jails. Militants murder U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem. The passengers were not freed until two weeks later. Israel, over a period of weeks following the resolution of the hijacking, released some 700 prisoners, insisting the release was not related to the hijacking.

1987 to 1990

June 1, 1987: Lebanese Prime Minister Rashid Karami, a Sunni Muslim, is assassinated when a bomb explodes in his helicopter. He is replaced by Selim el Hoss.

September 22, 1988: The presidency of Amin Gemayel ends without a successor. Lebanon operates under two rival governments: a military government led by renegade general Michel Aoun, and a civil government headed by Selim el Hoss, a Sunni Muslim.

March 14, 1989: Gen. Michel Aoun declares a “war of Liberation” against Syrian occupation. The war triggers a devastating final round to the Lebanese Civil War as Christian factions battle it out.

September 22, 1989: The Arab League brokers a cease-fire. Lebanese and Arab leaders meet in Taif, Saudi Arabia, under the leadership of Lebanese Sunni leader Rafik Hariri. The Taif agreement effectively lays the groundwork for an end to the war by reapportioning power in Lebanon. Christians lose their majority in Parliament, settling for a 50-50 split, though the president is to remain a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim, and the speaker of Parliament a Shiite Muslim.

November 22, 1989: President-Elect René Muawad, believed to have been a reunification candidate, is assassinated. He is replaced by Elias Harawi. Gen. Emile Lahoud is named to replace Gen. Michel Aoun as commander of the Lebanese army.

October 13, 1990: Syrian forces are given a green light by France and the United States to storm Michel Aoun’s presidential palace once Syria joins the American coalition against Saddam Hussein in Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm.

October 13, 1990: Michel Aoun takes refuge in the French Embassy, then chooses exile in Paris (he was to return as a Hezbollah ally in 2005). October 13, 1990, marks the official end of the Lebanese Civil War. Between 150,000 and 200,000 people, most of them civilians, are believed to have perished in the war.