1975 Beirut bus massacre
Open-knowledge reference entry
The 1975 Beirut bus massacre (Arabic: مجزرة بوسطة عين الرمانة ,مجزرة عين الرمانة), also known as the Ain el-Rammaneh incident and Black Sunday, was the collective name given to a short series of armed clashes involving Phalangist and Palestinian elements in the streets of central Beirut, which is commonly presented as the spark that set off the Lebanese Civil War in the mid-1970s.
Background
Early in the morning of April 13, 1975, outside the Church of Notre Dame de la Delivrance at the predominantly Maronite inhabited district of Ain el-Rammaneh in East Beirut, an altercation occurred between half a dozen armed Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) guerrillas (Arabic: Fedaiyyin) in a passing vehicle performing the customary wavering and firing their automatic rifles into the air (Arabic: Baroud) and a squad of uniformed militiamen belonging to the Phalangist Party's Kataeb Regulatory Forces (KRF) militia, who were diverting the traffic at the front of the newly consecrated church where a family baptism was taking place. As the rowdy Palestinians refused to be diverted from their route, the nervous Phalangists tried to halt their progress by force and a scuffle quickly ensued, in which they shot the PLO driver of the vehicle.
At 10:30 a.m. when the congregation was concentrated outside the front door of the church upon the conclusion of the ceremony, a gang of unidentified gunmen approached in two civilian cars – rigged with posters and bumper stickers belonging to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a PLO faction – and suddenly opened fire on the church and at the individuals present, killing four people.
Among the dead in the drive-by shooting were Joseph Abu Assi, an off-duty Phalange militant and father of the baptised child, and three bodyguards – Antoine Husseini, Dib Assaf and Selman Ibrahim Abou, shot while attempting to return fire on the assailants – of the personal entourage of the Maronite za'im (political boss) Pierre Gemayel, the powerful leader of the right-wing Phalangist Party, who escaped unscathed. The attackers fled the scene under fire by the surviving bodyguards and KRF militiamen.
Bus attack
In the commotion that followed, armed Phalangist KRF and NLP Tigers militiamen took to the streets, and began to set up roadblocks at Ain el-Rammaneh and other Christian-populated eastern districts of the Lebanese Capital, stopping vehicles and checking identities, while in the mainly Muslim western sectors the Palestinian factions did likewise.
Believing that the perpetrators were Palestinian guerrillas who carried the attack in retaliation for the earlier killing of the driver, and outraged by the audacity of the attempt on the life of their historical leader, the Phalangists planned an immediate response.
Shortly after mid-day, a PLO bus carrying unsuspecting Palestinian Arab Liberation Front (ALF) supporters and Lebanese sympathizers (returning from a political rally at Tel el-Zaatar held by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC) passed through Ain el-Rammaneh on its way to Sabra refugee camp.
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