Lebanese Civil War
1975–1990 Civil War in Lebanon
The Lebanese Civil War (Arabic: الحرب الأهلية اللبنانية, al-ḥarb al-ahliyyah al-libnāniyyah) was a multifaceted armed conflict fought in Lebanon from 1975 to 1990. It resulted in an estimated 120,000 deaths, displaced nearly one million people, and caused widespread destruction across the country.
The war arose from longstanding political and sectarian tensions within Lebanon's confessional system, compounded by demographic change, the presence of Palestinian armed groups following the Arab–Israeli conflict, and the influence of regional rivalries and the Cold War. Fighting initially broke out between Christian militias and Palestinian factions, principally the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), allied with Lebanese Muslim, leftist, and pan-Arab groups. As the conflict escalated, it developed into a complex, multi-sided war involving shifting alliances among Lebanese factions and the military intervention of Syria, Israel, Iran, and other foreign actors.
Throughout the conflict, numerous militias fought for political, sectarian, and territorial objectives, with alliances frequently changing over time. While much of the fighting occurred between opposing sectarian and ideological coalitions, significant violence also took place within individual communities. International peacekeeping forces, including the Multinational Force in Lebanon and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), were deployed during different stages of the war.
The 1989 Taif Agreement laid the foundation for ending the conflict, and most militias were disbanded following the war's conclusion in 1990. In 1991, the Lebanese Parliament enacted a general amnesty for political crimes committed during the conflict.
The public source identifies “Lebanese Civil War” as 1975–1990 Civil War in Lebanon. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Lebanese, Civil and Lebanon.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q208484. The first chronological checks are 1975, 1990, 1989 and 1991.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Lebanese Civil War” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.