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Lebanese Civil War

It was the fact that gunmen killed four Phalangists that caused the war to ignite in Beirut on April 13, 1975; the attack was originally aimed on Pierre Jumayyil. The assassins were believed to be Palestinian and therefore later on during that same day, the Phalangists retaliated with an attack on a bus that was travelling through a Christian neighborhood. The bus was filled with Palestinian passengers and twenty-six occupants were killed. Fighting erupted the next day between Phalangists and Palestinian fighters. The fact that Beirut’s areas were relatively divided into various sectors based upon religion and other factors as such, random killing developed. Civilians remained in their homes during the beginning stages of the battle and some of these civilians could not help but think that these were signs of war.

The government was largely ineffective, especially in the early stages of the conflict. This is partly due to the fact that Kamal Jumblatt(the Druze figurehead and leader of the Progressive Socialist Party at the time) and his leftist supporters tried to rally support against the Phalangists. This attempt failed, however, as the other Christian factions teamed up with Jumayyil and the Phalange. This widened the gap between the Christians(who had become a minority by this time but still refused to share economic and political power with the Muslim majority) and the rest of the Lebanese sects. As a result of this division, then Prime Minister Rashid el-Solh and his cabinet resigned, being replaced by Rashid Karami and his cabinet. Despite many calls for his resignation, President Sleiman Frangieh stubbornly refused to let go of his position. As the various sects grouped themselves into two larger warring factions, residents of areas with a mixed sectarian population were forced to seek refuge in areas where their sect was dominant. Although the conflict has often been classified as Christian versus Muslim, in reality the conflict was far more...