The Damour massacre… Lebanon’s long forgotten massacre.
Edmond El-Chidiac/January 18/2026
ذكرى مجزرة الدامور… المجزرة المنسية
ادمون الشدياق/18 كانون الثاني/2026
مجزرة الدامور هي مجزرة وقعت في 20 كانون الثاني/ يناير 1976 خلال الحرب اللبنانية. هاجم مسلحو منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية بلدة الدامور المارونية المسيحية وقتل جزء من سكان البلدة في مجزرة مريعة وأجبر باقي السكان على هجرها بحراً من شاطىء السعديات حيث كانت الطرق شبه مقطوعة وخطرة باتجاه بيروت وقسم منهم عبر براً الى منطقة الشوف ومنها الى الجنوب والبقاع والشمال.
الأحداث
هاجم المسلحون الفلسطينيون بلدة الدامور ودار قتال على أطراف البلدة بين (المسلحين الفلسطينيين والمدافعين عنها المقاتلين من اهالي الدامور ومن حزب الكتائب اللبنانية وحزب الوطنيين الاحرار وحزب التنظيم والجبهة اللبنانية … مدافعين عن بيوتهم واهلهم وارزاقهم) وتمكن المقاتلون الفلسطينون (و يا للاسف) من اجتياح البلدة وقتلوا المئات من السكان ودمروا المقابر و نبشوها و بعثروا الجثث وقاموا بتفجير الكنائس وقام المسلحون الفلسطينيون بأعدام بعض الاهالي. و بعد ذالك تم تحويل الدامور الى مخيم تدريب للفلسطينيين و قاموا بحفر خنادق في وسط البلدة (بعدها ما زال موجوداً ومقفلا) وكما حفروا خنادق اخرى تحت التلال الفاصلة مع بلدة الناعمة ( اليوم يتواجد فيها مجددا عناصر من الجبهة الشعبية) الا انهم طردوا منها أثناء حرب لبنان 1982.
من حصيلة ضحايا المجزرة، وصل عدد القتلى الى 684 شهيد .
المسؤولون عن المجزرة
هناك الكثير من الادعاءات المتناقضة حول الميليشيات المسؤولة عن المجزرة بالتحديد. من الواضح أن الميليشيات كانت فلسطينية و هناك مصادر ترجح مشاركة فصائل فلسطينية مدعومة من سوريا. يدعي “روبرت فيسك” أن سعيد مراغة القيادي في فتح، والذي انشأ لاحقاً فتح الانتفاضة المنشقة من فتح والمدعومة من سوريا، هو من قاد الهجوم. كما يؤكد آخرون ان منظمة الصاعقة المتمركزة في سوريا والمدعومة منها هي التي قامت بالمجزرة بأوامر مباشرة من سوريا. ولكن الواضح ان المليشيات كانت من منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية ومن المناصرين لها ومن الداعمين والمشاركين، لانها قامت بوضع بوسترات لياسر عرفات على جدران المنازل بعد الاجتياح.
The Damour massacre… Lebanon’s long forgotten massacre.
Edmond El-Chidiac/January 18/2026
On January 20th in 1976, the horrific Damour Massacre occurred when the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) and its allies massacred hundreds of Maronite Christians in the Lebanese town of Damour. To this day, despite the fact that their militias were responsible and that they could have stopped it, no Palestinian leader has felt the need to express regret over the atrocity, never mind apologise.
Palestinian militants aimed to and indeed were successful in their endeavours to set up a PLO mini-state in southern Lebanon in which they had free reign to launch “exceptionally bloody” attacks on northern Israel. Any community such as Maronite Christians who might be likely to demur to such a development had to be eliminated.
Damour was a Maronite Christian town about 20km south of Beirut on the Lebanese coast on the highway running south. Hence, for this reason it was of strategic importance and whoever held Damour had control of the main artery going towards the Israeli border. It was overrun by Palestinian militias and their Lebanese allies on January 20th 1976 and some 6-700 of its inhabitants were murdered, including many women and children. Women were raped by the militias who also bombarded churches where civilians had sought refuge.
Was it retaliation? Really?
The massacre took place in the context of a series of tit-for-tat sectarian atrocities that had begun in April 1975 when Palestinian guerillas opened fire on a congregation of Christians at a church in east Beirut, killing 4. As the year progressed, the violence worsened and each retaliation from one side was “answered” with another massacre from the other side. In the first two weeks of January 1976, there had been attacks by Palestinians on Christian towns such as Jiyyeh, Kab Elias, Deir Jennine and Hoche Barada, resulting in the deaths of scores of people.
Two days before the Damour Massacre, there had been an attack on Muslims in the Karantina district of Beirut by Christian Phalangist forces and you may find articles claiming that what happened in Damour was in retaliation for what was done in Karantina. However, it needs to be pointed out that 9 days prior to the Karantina massacre, the PLO had already surrounded Damour and tried to murder one of the local priests. The slaughter in Damour didn’t start on January 20th. Dozens were killed when PLO militants infiltrated the town in the early hours of January 10th.
Arafat did nothing to stop the massacre
In the hours prior to that, as described in this article, the priest made several desperate calls to a local Muslim cleric and to various local political leaders but they could do nothing to help. The militias besieging the town were Palestinian, controlled only by Yasser Arafat and only Arafat had the power to stop them. The priest called Arafat’s headquarters and while he was fobbed off with certain assurances, they turned out to be worthless in the end.
Scene from the massacre in Damour in January 1976 (Source: Medium.com)
The town remained in PLO hands for the following 6 years until it was freed by Israeli forces following Israel’s invasion of south Lebanon in 1982 . They found a town that had been completely emptied of its original inhabitants, and where Christian places of worship had been willfully desecrated, one having been used as a garage for repairing vehicles, another as a volleyball court. A Christian cemetery was also desecrated. In the years that followed, small numbers of the town’s original inhabitants have returned to live there.
World only cares about 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre
Don’t be surprised if you hadn’t heard of the Damour Massacre before. It has been called Lebanon’s long-forgotten massacre. For obvious reasons, Palestinians don’t want to talk about it and would presumably rather that the horrific incident were consigned to the pages of history.
This study by Fred Maroun (a Canadian-Lebanese journalist) shows that the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre gets a hugely disproportionate level of coverage in internet articles despite not being the worst of the massacres that occurred during the Lebanese civil war. Indeed, the Syrian army perpetrated a worse massacre in the same districts in 1985 but the world only seems to remember the one carried out in 1982.
Palestinians never held to be responsible for anything
Hence, no-one has ever challenged Palestinian leaders on their militias’ role in the slaughter at Damour and other such atrocities or asked them for an apology. It’s nothing short of extraordinary that when Yasser Arafat passed away in 2004, his role in the slaughter in Damour or at the very least, his failure to act to prevent it was ignored.
This is just one more way in which the world continues to give Palestinian leaders a free pass with regard to what they have done in the past and what they are doing today, holding them responsible for nothing. It’s been 49 years since the Damour massacre and it’s long past time for this to end. The world must acknowledge the role that the PLO played in the Damour massacre and other atrocities against Maronite Christians and apologise for ignoring and forgetting them.
