Lebanon · War Crimes & Atrocities

The Darkest Hours

The Lebanese Civil War was marked by systematic atrocities committed by virtually every armed faction in the conflict. Unlike wars with clear perpetrators and victims, Lebanon's violence was characterized by cycles of massacre and retaliation, each side committing acts of mass violence against civilian populations while justifying them as responses to prior atrocities by opponents. The war produced at least a dozen significant massacres, thousands of political assassinations and targeted killings, a systematic hostage industry targeting Western civilians, and the car bombing of densely populated civilian areas as routine political practice. The most internationally recognized atrocity — the Sabra and Shatila massacre — was unique in generating formal international accountability, but it was neither the first nor the deadliest massacre of the war. Palestinian refugee populations bore disproportionate civilian casualties, suffering successive sieges, massacres, and collective punishments across the fifteen-year conflict.