Black Saturday (Lebanon)

:"For other uses, see Black Saturday."

Infobox civilian attack
title=Black Saturday


caption=
location=East Beirut, Lebanon
target=Palestinians and Lebanese Muslims
date=December 6, 1975
time=
timezone=
type=
fatalities=200 to 600
injuries=
perps=Kataeb Party militia
motive=Retaliation for the Muslim militia attack

Black Saturday was a series of and armed clashes in Beirut, that occurred in the first stages of the Lebanese Civil War.

On Saturday December 6, 1975, the bodies of four members of the rightist Kataeb Party (Phalange), an organization grouping primarily Maronite Christians, were found in an abandoned car outside the state-owned power plant in Christian-dominated East Beirut.Fact|date=August 2007

The Phalange's militiamen in the city went into a frenzied rage, blaming the killings on the Lebanese National Movement (LNM), dominated by leftist Lebanese and Palestinians. Phalange forces attacked Muslims throughout Christian-dominated East Beirut, indiscriminately firing into crowds. Tens or hundreds of Muslim hostages were snatched off city streets and either killed or later released for ransom.Fact|date=August 2007

Fighters allegedly led by Joseph Saad, whose son was one of the four murdered, began putting up checkpoints on major roads. At these, passing cars and pedestrians were intercepted and ordered to show identification cards. Any Palestinians (who as refugees were stateless and had no ID cards) or Muslims (Lebanese ID cards indicated religious affiliation) were killed on the spot.

In an orgy of bloodletting, several hundred people were murdered in a few hours, most of them civilian. Estimations of the total number of victims range between 200 and 600. Phalangist headquarters released a communiqué the next day claiming the revenge was supposed to have been limited to hostage-taking, but had escalated into a massacre because of "hysteria" and "elements who would not listen to orders of their superiors".Fact|date=August 2007

Immediately afterwards, the LNM attacked Phalangist positions in retaliation. Major combat raged in the capital, and much of the surrounding countryside, until January 22, 1976, but was soon to resume again.

External links

* [http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070212/bazzi "Blowback in Lebanon"] by Mohamad Bazzi, "The Nation" (article makes reference to the event)