Siege of Tel al-Zaatar

Siege of Tel al-Zaatar
	Part of the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1977)
	; The destroyed camp (from the ICRC archives)
Date	January–August 1976
Location	Tel al-Zaatar camp, Dekwaneh, Greater Beirut
Result	Decisive Lebanese Front victory
Belligerents
Lebanese Front Tigers Militia; Kataeb Party; Lebanese Youth Movement; Guardians of the Cedars; Al-Tanzim; Support:; Syria;	PLO Fatah; PFLP; PFLP-GC;
Commanders and leaders
Bachir Gemayel; Dany Chamoun ; William Hawi † ; Etienne Saqr ; Bashir Maroun el-Khoury	Yasser Arafat
Strength
LF: ~ 3,000	PLO: ~ 1,600-2,300
Casualties and losses
LF: 200 killed	3,000 Palestinians killed

The siege of Tel al-Zaatar (Arabic: حصار تل الزعتر), alternatively known as the massacre of Tel al-Zaatar, was an armed siege of Tel al-Zaatar (meaning Hill of Thyme in Arabic), a fortified, UNRWA-administered refugee camp housing Palestinian refugees in northeastern Beirut, that ended on August 12, 1976 with the massacre of at least 1,500 people. The siege began in January of 1976 with an attack by Christian Lebanese militias led by the Lebanese Front as part of a wider campaign to expel Palestinians, especially those affiliated with the opposing Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from northern Beirut. After five months, the siege turned into a full-scale military assault in June and ended with the massacre in August 1976.

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