PHOTO ESSAY
50 years since the Lebanese Civil War, Palestinian refugees cling to renewed hope for liberation and return
The same reality that compelled Palestinian refugees in Lebanon to take up arms in the 1970s persist to this day. Today, the Palestinians of the camps view the resistance movement in Gaza with renewed hope for liberation.
By Sabah Haider
The same reality that compelled Palestinian refugees in Lebanon to take up arms in the 1970s persist to this day. Today, the Palestinians of the camps view the resistance movement in Gaza with renewed hope for liberation.
By Sabah Haider
April 13, 2025
MONDOWEISS
Revolutionaries-in-exile
After 1967, the PLO — and especially its largest party, Fatah, under the leadership of Yasser Arafat — gained significant influence across the Arab world, including within Jordan, where a large number of Palestinian refugees lived. Many of these refugees were housed in camps around the country, where the PLO operated with increasing autonomy, building parallel institutions and maintaining armed factions of fedayeen. It was this increasingly uncomfortable reality for the Jordanian monarchy that led to what Palestinians refer to as the Black September War.
The arrival of the Palestinian fedayeen in Lebanon in 1971 reshaped the country’s internal dynamics. With the Lebanese state unable or unwilling to absorb the Palestinian refugee population into its social and political fabric, the camps became self-sufficient, heavily policed, and politically radicalized. The PLO, especially Fatah, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the PFLP-GC (General Command), and other leftist factions turned southern Lebanon and parts of West Beirut into what was often described by Western journalists as “Fatahland” — a semi-autonomous zone from which operations against Israel could be launched. These journalists today are the ones who love to call any area where the Shia in Lebanon reside as a “Hezbollah stronghold.” The Fakhani neighborhood in West Beirut housing the PLO’s headquarters was commonly known as the “Fakhani Republic,” where the PLO functioned as a state-within-a-state.
Scapegoats
From the start of the Lebanese Civil War, Palestinian factions were framed by many groups as instigators and outsiders who had brought foreign wars into Lebanese soil — in reference to the PLO’s battle with Israel along South Lebanon’s borders. But this portrayal of the Palestinians in Lebanon also ignored the complex sectarian tensions and systemic inequities that had long plagued the Lebanese political order. Yet it was politically convenient.
Fawwaz Traboulsi, author of the widely cited A History of Modern Lebanon, said the Ain al-Rumman massacre was not the cause of the war, “but its pretext.” Traboulsi argues that the confrontation was long in the making, “rooted in unresolved class contradictions, sectarian anxiety, and the failure of the Lebanese state to adapt to changing regional and domestic realities.”
The Kataeb militiamen’s massacre was framed as retaliation for an earlier attack on Pierre Gemayel, their Maronite leader. Whether or not Palestinians were responsible remains disputed, but what followed was a devastating spiral: Christian militias targeted Palestinian civilians, PLO fighters responded, and within weeks, Beirut was split into a patchwork of armed zones.
Memory and myth
Today, the memory of Palestinian involvement in the Lebanese Civil War is a fragmented one. In some Lebanese political narratives, the PLO is cast as a destabilizing force that brought the country to ruin. In others, particularly among leftist circles, Palestinian fighters are remembered as comrades in a shared revolutionary front against imperialism and sectarianism. Among Palestinians themselves, the memory is more personal — shaped by loss, longing, and a mixture of inherited, lived, unresolved, and compounded trauma
From past to present
Fedayeen from Fatah at a rally in Beirut, Lebanon, January 1, 1979. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
On April 13, 1975, a busload of Palestinian civilians was ambushed in Ain al-Rummaneh, a predominantly Maronite Christian neighborhood in East Beirut, by Phalangist militiamen who committed a massacre. That moment, often cited as the spark of the Lebanese Civil War, did not emerge from a vacuum — it followed years of tension between the Lebanese state, sectarian militias, and the growing Palestinian armed presence in Lebanon, which started in 1971 when the PLO arrived after being forcibly expelled by the Jordanian state following the events of Black September.
Fifty years have passed, and the debate over the role of Palestinians — specifically Palestinian factions under the PLO — in the Lebanese Civil War remains mired in a murky combination of emotions, facts, myths, scapegoating, and to some extent, political erasure. Yet the story of the Palestinian fedayeen, the armed guerillas of the PLO and its associated factions, is integral to understanding their presence in the Lebanese Civil War itself. Their story of resistance, exile, and survival is essential to appreciating the systemic marginalization that Palestinians have faced in Lebanon from that period to the present day.
On April 13, 1975, a busload of Palestinian civilians was ambushed in Ain al-Rummaneh, a predominantly Maronite Christian neighborhood in East Beirut, by Phalangist militiamen who committed a massacre. That moment, often cited as the spark of the Lebanese Civil War, did not emerge from a vacuum — it followed years of tension between the Lebanese state, sectarian militias, and the growing Palestinian armed presence in Lebanon, which started in 1971 when the PLO arrived after being forcibly expelled by the Jordanian state following the events of Black September.
Fifty years have passed, and the debate over the role of Palestinians — specifically Palestinian factions under the PLO — in the Lebanese Civil War remains mired in a murky combination of emotions, facts, myths, scapegoating, and to some extent, political erasure. Yet the story of the Palestinian fedayeen, the armed guerillas of the PLO and its associated factions, is integral to understanding their presence in the Lebanese Civil War itself. Their story of resistance, exile, and survival is essential to appreciating the systemic marginalization that Palestinians have faced in Lebanon from that period to the present day.
Revolutionaries-in-exile
After 1967, the PLO — and especially its largest party, Fatah, under the leadership of Yasser Arafat — gained significant influence across the Arab world, including within Jordan, where a large number of Palestinian refugees lived. Many of these refugees were housed in camps around the country, where the PLO operated with increasing autonomy, building parallel institutions and maintaining armed factions of fedayeen. It was this increasingly uncomfortable reality for the Jordanian monarchy that led to what Palestinians refer to as the Black September War.
The arrival of the Palestinian fedayeen in Lebanon in 1971 reshaped the country’s internal dynamics. With the Lebanese state unable or unwilling to absorb the Palestinian refugee population into its social and political fabric, the camps became self-sufficient, heavily policed, and politically radicalized. The PLO, especially Fatah, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the PFLP-GC (General Command), and other leftist factions turned southern Lebanon and parts of West Beirut into what was often described by Western journalists as “Fatahland” — a semi-autonomous zone from which operations against Israel could be launched. These journalists today are the ones who love to call any area where the Shia in Lebanon reside as a “Hezbollah stronghold.” The Fakhani neighborhood in West Beirut housing the PLO’s headquarters was commonly known as the “Fakhani Republic,” where the PLO functioned as a state-within-a-state.
Palestinian fighters in Southern Lebanon, 1976. (Photo: Palestinian Museum Digital Archive, Yusef al-Qutob Collection).
For many Palestinian refugees living decades in exile in Lebanon, joining the Palestinian armed struggle in Lebanon was both a political necessity and a personal one. Stateless and under siege, they saw their fight not only as a battle against Israel but also as part of a broader anticolonial movement spanning the Arab world and beyond.
I interviewed countless former Palestinian fedayeen during my PhD fieldwork over many years, and I would always ask them what had motivated them to join. The most common answer was always, “With Fatah, we had hope that we could free our country.”
I recall one particular interview with a Palestinian fedayi originally from Nablus who led a battalion of fedayeen in South Lebanon for several years. He told me, “Fatah was organized and we trusted they had a plan. Of course, we wanted to free our country. There was dignity in that. There was no dignity in being a refugee.”
During the PLO’s heyday in Lebanon, its military and symbolic presence in the country, especially in Beirut, is now recalled as legendary by the elders in the camps. Posters of strength, of slogans, of images depicting victory, were seen not only all over West Beirut but across leftist spaces in the global south. When Fatah was strong, elders recount how it offered Palestinians in Lebanon a semblance of dignity in an otherwise precarious existence. However, to many Lebanese factions, particularly the Kataeb — the Phalangist party of the Christian far right — the Palestinian presence in Lebanon was perceived as a threat to national sovereignty and demographic balance.
For many Palestinian refugees living decades in exile in Lebanon, joining the Palestinian armed struggle in Lebanon was both a political necessity and a personal one. Stateless and under siege, they saw their fight not only as a battle against Israel but also as part of a broader anticolonial movement spanning the Arab world and beyond.
I interviewed countless former Palestinian fedayeen during my PhD fieldwork over many years, and I would always ask them what had motivated them to join. The most common answer was always, “With Fatah, we had hope that we could free our country.”
I recall one particular interview with a Palestinian fedayi originally from Nablus who led a battalion of fedayeen in South Lebanon for several years. He told me, “Fatah was organized and we trusted they had a plan. Of course, we wanted to free our country. There was dignity in that. There was no dignity in being a refugee.”
During the PLO’s heyday in Lebanon, its military and symbolic presence in the country, especially in Beirut, is now recalled as legendary by the elders in the camps. Posters of strength, of slogans, of images depicting victory, were seen not only all over West Beirut but across leftist spaces in the global south. When Fatah was strong, elders recount how it offered Palestinians in Lebanon a semblance of dignity in an otherwise precarious existence. However, to many Lebanese factions, particularly the Kataeb — the Phalangist party of the Christian far right — the Palestinian presence in Lebanon was perceived as a threat to national sovereignty and demographic balance.
Scapegoats
From the start of the Lebanese Civil War, Palestinian factions were framed by many groups as instigators and outsiders who had brought foreign wars into Lebanese soil — in reference to the PLO’s battle with Israel along South Lebanon’s borders. But this portrayal of the Palestinians in Lebanon also ignored the complex sectarian tensions and systemic inequities that had long plagued the Lebanese political order. Yet it was politically convenient.
Fawwaz Traboulsi, author of the widely cited A History of Modern Lebanon, said the Ain al-Rumman massacre was not the cause of the war, “but its pretext.” Traboulsi argues that the confrontation was long in the making, “rooted in unresolved class contradictions, sectarian anxiety, and the failure of the Lebanese state to adapt to changing regional and domestic realities.”
The Kataeb militiamen’s massacre was framed as retaliation for an earlier attack on Pierre Gemayel, their Maronite leader. Whether or not Palestinians were responsible remains disputed, but what followed was a devastating spiral: Christian militias targeted Palestinian civilians, PLO fighters responded, and within weeks, Beirut was split into a patchwork of armed zones.
A PLO poster titled “Look…these are the 3000 Martyrs of the Tal al-Zaatar Massacre,” issued by the Unified Information of the PLO in 1976.
(Photo: Palestinian Museum Digital Archive, The Ali Kazak Collection)
The late Lebanese historian and journalist Samir Kassir said that the Civil War did not begin because of the Palestinians, but “because of what Lebanon had refused to address for decades — inequality, sectarian fear, and a ruling class willing to let the country burn rather than share power.”
What followed over the next 15 years was a brutal civil war in which Palestinian refugee communities came under continuous attack. The 1976 Tel al-Zaatar massacre, in which thousands of Palestinian refugees were killed by rightwing militias after a prolonged siege, underscored the ferocity of anti-Palestinian violence. The 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon culminated in the Sabra and Shatila massacre, where Christian Lebanese Phalangists — under the watch of the Israeli army — massacred thousands of civilians in the camps.
The late British journalist Robert Fisk, a longtime Beirut resident, was one of the first Western reporters to enter Sabra and Shatila after the massacre in September 1982. His description of what he saw remains haunting to this day:
“I had never seen anything like it. There were women lying in houses with their skirts torn up to their waists and their legs spread apart, children with their throats cut, rows of young men shot in the back after being lined up at an execution wall. There were babies – blackened babies – because they had been slaughtered more than 24 hours earlier and their small bodies were already in a state of decomposition”
Despite these atrocities, Palestinians have often been reduced to players in broader Lebanese historiography — present mainly when blamed, invisible when grieving. Rosemary Sayigh, a British-born anthropologist and one of the foremost scholars of Palestinian refugee experiences in Lebanon, says Palestinians have largely been characterized as a “problem” in Lebanon, with their narratives “of dispossession, resistance, and repeated victimization” ignored and relegated to the margins. “When violence is enacted against them, they are largely invisible; when accused of provoking violence, they dominate the frame,” Sayigh writes.
The late Lebanese historian and journalist Samir Kassir said that the Civil War did not begin because of the Palestinians, but “because of what Lebanon had refused to address for decades — inequality, sectarian fear, and a ruling class willing to let the country burn rather than share power.”
What followed over the next 15 years was a brutal civil war in which Palestinian refugee communities came under continuous attack. The 1976 Tel al-Zaatar massacre, in which thousands of Palestinian refugees were killed by rightwing militias after a prolonged siege, underscored the ferocity of anti-Palestinian violence. The 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon culminated in the Sabra and Shatila massacre, where Christian Lebanese Phalangists — under the watch of the Israeli army — massacred thousands of civilians in the camps.
The late British journalist Robert Fisk, a longtime Beirut resident, was one of the first Western reporters to enter Sabra and Shatila after the massacre in September 1982. His description of what he saw remains haunting to this day:
“I had never seen anything like it. There were women lying in houses with their skirts torn up to their waists and their legs spread apart, children with their throats cut, rows of young men shot in the back after being lined up at an execution wall. There were babies – blackened babies – because they had been slaughtered more than 24 hours earlier and their small bodies were already in a state of decomposition”
Despite these atrocities, Palestinians have often been reduced to players in broader Lebanese historiography — present mainly when blamed, invisible when grieving. Rosemary Sayigh, a British-born anthropologist and one of the foremost scholars of Palestinian refugee experiences in Lebanon, says Palestinians have largely been characterized as a “problem” in Lebanon, with their narratives “of dispossession, resistance, and repeated victimization” ignored and relegated to the margins. “When violence is enacted against them, they are largely invisible; when accused of provoking violence, they dominate the frame,” Sayigh writes.
Destroyed house in the Shatila refugee camp during the War of the Camps, October 8, 1987. (Photo: Palestinian Museum Digital Archive, Palestinian Red Crescent Society Collection)
Memory and myth
Today, the memory of Palestinian involvement in the Lebanese Civil War is a fragmented one. In some Lebanese political narratives, the PLO is cast as a destabilizing force that brought the country to ruin. In others, particularly among leftist circles, Palestinian fighters are remembered as comrades in a shared revolutionary front against imperialism and sectarianism. Among Palestinians themselves, the memory is more personal — shaped by loss, longing, and a mixture of inherited, lived, unresolved, and compounded trauma
.
A PLO poster titled “Long Live Palestinian-Lebanese Unity.”
(Photo: Palestinian Museum Digital Archive, The Ali Kazak Collection)
Today there are officially 12 Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon: 3 in Beirut, 5 in South Lebanon, Dbayeh Camp in the Mount Lebanon area north of Beirut, and Weivel Camp in Baalbek in the Beqaa Valley. There are several additional unofficial Palestinian “gatherings,” as they are referred to throughout the country. During the Lebanese Civil War, at least five other camps were either destroyed or forcibly dismantled — Tal al-Zaater and Khaldeh are the most widely known.
Part of the reason that conditions in the other already crowded camps became so dire in the years that followed is that they absorbed the twice-displaced residents of the destroyed camps into their own.
I recall, in the summer of 2009, being taken on a walk by a Palestinian friend through the ruins of Ouzai — the dilapidated coastal neighborhood of South Beirut, which is visible when planes land in Beirut. That area used to boast luxury beach resorts, which were destroyed during the Lebanese Civil War. My friend’s family, while historically from Acre, Palestine, had settled in Tal al-Zaatar camp. After the camp was destroyed in 1976, they and many other families displaced from Tal al-Zaatar, built shelters and eventually homes on the ruins of the luxury hotels. I visited his house — a poorly constructed two-story lodging, in a cluster of the same, less than 100 meters from the sea. He recounts growing up during the Civil War playing soccer on the beach every day.
Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps, gatherings, and informal communities are simultaneously incredible repositories of memory, and living memorials of a past that has never ended. Graffiti of martyrs, community centers with fading posters, and children’s artwork generated through some foreign NGO’s art workshops can be found in every camp in Lebanon. So can groups of older men who were once hopeful but now sit together drinking coffee. Surrounded by clouds of cigarette smoke, they can be seen around every corner. These camps carry decades of history absent from textbooks in the schools. After all, Lebanon hasn’t had an updated, unified history curriculum since the 1970s. Every attempt to update the history books has failed due to political disagreements over what should be included. This means sensitive issues like the Palestinian refugee presence in the country, and the Lebanese Civil War are left out or glossed over to avoid stirring controversy.
Yet remembering alone cannot compensate for structural marginalization. Palestinians in Lebanon are still denied basic rights: they cannot own property, face restrictions in over 70 professions, and live in deteriorating camp conditions due to the state’s policy not to integrate them. The goal of such a policy is that the refugees go back to where they came from. Despite contributing to Lebanon’s labor force for decades, they remain politically and economically disenfranchised. As of March 2023, UNRWA reports approximately 489,292 registered Palestine refugees in Lebanon. I often hear people say that actual numbers may be less now due to unreported migration, although significantly less seems unlikely.
Today there are officially 12 Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon: 3 in Beirut, 5 in South Lebanon, Dbayeh Camp in the Mount Lebanon area north of Beirut, and Weivel Camp in Baalbek in the Beqaa Valley. There are several additional unofficial Palestinian “gatherings,” as they are referred to throughout the country. During the Lebanese Civil War, at least five other camps were either destroyed or forcibly dismantled — Tal al-Zaater and Khaldeh are the most widely known.
Part of the reason that conditions in the other already crowded camps became so dire in the years that followed is that they absorbed the twice-displaced residents of the destroyed camps into their own.
I recall, in the summer of 2009, being taken on a walk by a Palestinian friend through the ruins of Ouzai — the dilapidated coastal neighborhood of South Beirut, which is visible when planes land in Beirut. That area used to boast luxury beach resorts, which were destroyed during the Lebanese Civil War. My friend’s family, while historically from Acre, Palestine, had settled in Tal al-Zaatar camp. After the camp was destroyed in 1976, they and many other families displaced from Tal al-Zaatar, built shelters and eventually homes on the ruins of the luxury hotels. I visited his house — a poorly constructed two-story lodging, in a cluster of the same, less than 100 meters from the sea. He recounts growing up during the Civil War playing soccer on the beach every day.
Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps, gatherings, and informal communities are simultaneously incredible repositories of memory, and living memorials of a past that has never ended. Graffiti of martyrs, community centers with fading posters, and children’s artwork generated through some foreign NGO’s art workshops can be found in every camp in Lebanon. So can groups of older men who were once hopeful but now sit together drinking coffee. Surrounded by clouds of cigarette smoke, they can be seen around every corner. These camps carry decades of history absent from textbooks in the schools. After all, Lebanon hasn’t had an updated, unified history curriculum since the 1970s. Every attempt to update the history books has failed due to political disagreements over what should be included. This means sensitive issues like the Palestinian refugee presence in the country, and the Lebanese Civil War are left out or glossed over to avoid stirring controversy.
Yet remembering alone cannot compensate for structural marginalization. Palestinians in Lebanon are still denied basic rights: they cannot own property, face restrictions in over 70 professions, and live in deteriorating camp conditions due to the state’s policy not to integrate them. The goal of such a policy is that the refugees go back to where they came from. Despite contributing to Lebanon’s labor force for decades, they remain politically and economically disenfranchised. As of March 2023, UNRWA reports approximately 489,292 registered Palestine refugees in Lebanon. I often hear people say that actual numbers may be less now due to unreported migration, although significantly less seems unlikely.
From past to present
Burj al-Barajneh refugee camp, Lebanon, 2025. (Photo: Sabah Haider)
The echoes of the Lebanese Civil War still reverberate today, not only in Beirut’s urban ruins but also in the lived experience of Palestinians who remain refugees two and three generations later. Many of the grievances that drove Palestinians to take up arms in the 1970s — statelessness, exclusion, Israeli aggression — are still a reality for them today.
October 7, 2023, was an undeniable turning point in the history of the Palestinian liberation struggle.
Every day since then, as Gaza burns under siege and genocide and West Bank cities face settler violence and military raids, the image of the Palestinian fighter has reentered the public imagination.
But this time it’s different; it’s not the fedayi in the keffiyeh, but the black-masked Hamas fighters who are celebrated as heroes for many of the Palestinians in Lebanon’s camps.
The echoes of the Lebanese Civil War still reverberate today, not only in Beirut’s urban ruins but also in the lived experience of Palestinians who remain refugees two and three generations later. Many of the grievances that drove Palestinians to take up arms in the 1970s — statelessness, exclusion, Israeli aggression — are still a reality for them today.
October 7, 2023, was an undeniable turning point in the history of the Palestinian liberation struggle.
Every day since then, as Gaza burns under siege and genocide and West Bank cities face settler violence and military raids, the image of the Palestinian fighter has reentered the public imagination.
But this time it’s different; it’s not the fedayi in the keffiyeh, but the black-masked Hamas fighters who are celebrated as heroes for many of the Palestinians in Lebanon’s camps.
A poster of Fatah founder Yasser Arafat above green graffiti in support of Hamas’s Qassam Brigades head, Muhammad al-Deif, Burj al-Barajneh refugee camp, Lebanon, 2025. (Photo: Sabah Haider)
For decades, the camps in Lebanon were covered in photos and posters of Arafat, and Fatah flags and slogans. That iconography and those images represented hope and strength to the Palestinians during the Lebanese Civil War due to the strength of the Palestinian armed struggle, and since the Civil War, due to longing and nostalgia for the golden years of the Palestinian armed struggle.
But things have changed, and Hamas support is visibly more pronounced in the camps. A few weeks ago I briefly visited the Burj al-Barajneh camp in Beirut and couldn’t help but notice the images of Hamas and the late Hamas Politburo head, Ismail Haniyeh, around the camp, alongside and sometimes instead of images from a more distant past. To the young men and women in the camps now, Hamas represents a renewed hope that their homeland can be liberated and that the Palestinian struggle is not dead.
Toward reckoning
As Lebanon marks the 50th anniversary of the war, reckoning with the Palestinian dimension is essential — not just as a historical footnote, but as a window into how stateless people navigate the violent political landscapes.
The story of the Palestinians in Lebanon is not one of pure victimhood or romanticized resistance. It is a story with many contradictions: of being guests in a host country, of being feared. Of being forgotten.
I often think of the work of the gifted photographer Dalia Khamissy, who has been working on her powerful ongoing project on the Missing of Lebanon for the past 15 years. For this project, she has meticulously documented and told the stories of the estimated 17,000 people who went missing during the Lebanese Civil War. She has given a voice to countless mothers whose loved ones went out during the war and never came home. To this day, they wait for them. For many, the Lebanese Civil War never ended.
Sabah Haider
Sabah Haider is a visual anthropologist and journalist based between Beirut and Paris.
For decades, the camps in Lebanon were covered in photos and posters of Arafat, and Fatah flags and slogans. That iconography and those images represented hope and strength to the Palestinians during the Lebanese Civil War due to the strength of the Palestinian armed struggle, and since the Civil War, due to longing and nostalgia for the golden years of the Palestinian armed struggle.
But things have changed, and Hamas support is visibly more pronounced in the camps. A few weeks ago I briefly visited the Burj al-Barajneh camp in Beirut and couldn’t help but notice the images of Hamas and the late Hamas Politburo head, Ismail Haniyeh, around the camp, alongside and sometimes instead of images from a more distant past. To the young men and women in the camps now, Hamas represents a renewed hope that their homeland can be liberated and that the Palestinian struggle is not dead.
Toward reckoning
As Lebanon marks the 50th anniversary of the war, reckoning with the Palestinian dimension is essential — not just as a historical footnote, but as a window into how stateless people navigate the violent political landscapes.
The story of the Palestinians in Lebanon is not one of pure victimhood or romanticized resistance. It is a story with many contradictions: of being guests in a host country, of being feared. Of being forgotten.
I often think of the work of the gifted photographer Dalia Khamissy, who has been working on her powerful ongoing project on the Missing of Lebanon for the past 15 years. For this project, she has meticulously documented and told the stories of the estimated 17,000 people who went missing during the Lebanese Civil War. She has given a voice to countless mothers whose loved ones went out during the war and never came home. To this day, they wait for them. For many, the Lebanese Civil War never ended.
Sabah Haider
Sabah Haider is a visual anthropologist and journalist based between Beirut and Paris.
Lebanon’s civil war anniversary poll: Half of respondents fear conflict could return
Dozens of Palestinian women leave the Bourj Barajneh refugee camp in Beirut southern suburb 25 March 1987, to look for some food at the nearby market. (File/AFP)
Arab News
April 11, 2025
63.3% favor abolishing sectarian political system for secular state model
42.5% report direct personal or family harm from recent conflict
BEIRUT: As Lebanon marks 50 years since the outbreak of its civil war on April 13, a new poll has revealed half of the Lebanese people questioned are worried the conflict could return amid a fragile ceasefire.
The survey, conducted jointly by Annahar newspaper and International Information, sampled 1,200 Lebanese citizens across all regions between March 25 and April 2.
It showed that 51.7 percent expressed varying degrees of concern about the war’s return, while 63.3 percent believed establishing a secular civil state by abolishing the sectarian political system represented the best path forward for the country.
A total of 42.5 percent of respondents reported direct harm to themselves or family members, including deaths or injuries (23.7 percent), property damage (19.9 percent), and forced displacement (19.5 percent).
In assessing Lebanese attitudes toward Iran’s role in Lebanon, 78.6 percent of respondents evaluated this role as negative, and 75.3 percent identified Israel as Lebanon’s primary adversary.
The survey came as Israel resumed attacks on Lebanon, claiming it is targeting Hezbollah infrastructure.
In a statement, Annahar’s management described the poll as an essential tool to understand present realities by examining present and past questions, noting the significant timing on the half-century mark of a conflict whose full lessons remain unlearned.
Public opinion remains deeply divided on how to characterize the war that erupted on April 13, 1975, with 40.7 percent describing it as a Lebanese civil war while 38.5 percent view it as a war for others “fought on our soil.”
A smaller segment (8.8 percent) consider it primarily a war related to Palestinian settlement issues.
Information about the war continued to be transmitted largely through personal channels, with 81.9 percent citing family and friends as their primary source of knowledge, followed by media (44.8 percent), personal experience (28.3 percent), and academic sources (13.4 percent), according to the poll.
Dozens of Palestinian women leave the Bourj Barajneh refugee camp in Beirut southern suburb 25 March 1987, to look for some food at the nearby market. (File/AFP)
Arab News
April 11, 2025
63.3% favor abolishing sectarian political system for secular state model
42.5% report direct personal or family harm from recent conflict
BEIRUT: As Lebanon marks 50 years since the outbreak of its civil war on April 13, a new poll has revealed half of the Lebanese people questioned are worried the conflict could return amid a fragile ceasefire.
The survey, conducted jointly by Annahar newspaper and International Information, sampled 1,200 Lebanese citizens across all regions between March 25 and April 2.
It showed that 51.7 percent expressed varying degrees of concern about the war’s return, while 63.3 percent believed establishing a secular civil state by abolishing the sectarian political system represented the best path forward for the country.
A total of 42.5 percent of respondents reported direct harm to themselves or family members, including deaths or injuries (23.7 percent), property damage (19.9 percent), and forced displacement (19.5 percent).
In assessing Lebanese attitudes toward Iran’s role in Lebanon, 78.6 percent of respondents evaluated this role as negative, and 75.3 percent identified Israel as Lebanon’s primary adversary.
The survey came as Israel resumed attacks on Lebanon, claiming it is targeting Hezbollah infrastructure.
In a statement, Annahar’s management described the poll as an essential tool to understand present realities by examining present and past questions, noting the significant timing on the half-century mark of a conflict whose full lessons remain unlearned.
Public opinion remains deeply divided on how to characterize the war that erupted on April 13, 1975, with 40.7 percent describing it as a Lebanese civil war while 38.5 percent view it as a war for others “fought on our soil.”
A smaller segment (8.8 percent) consider it primarily a war related to Palestinian settlement issues.
Information about the war continued to be transmitted largely through personal channels, with 81.9 percent citing family and friends as their primary source of knowledge, followed by media (44.8 percent), personal experience (28.3 percent), and academic sources (13.4 percent), according to the poll.
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