page_title: Pierre Gemayel
section_title: Later years and death
hierarchical_section_title: Pierre Gemayel / Later years and death
caption_attribution_description: English: Sheikh Pierre Gemayel Memorial Bikfaya
context_page_description: Sheikh Pierre Gemayel, also spelled Jmayyel, Jemayyel or al-Jumayyil, was a Lebanese political leader. He is remembered as the founder of the Kataeb Party, as a parliamentary powerbroker, and as the father of Bachir Gemayel and Amine Gemayel, both of whom were elected to the Presidency of the Republic in his lifetime.
  He opposed the French Mandate over Lebanon in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and advocated an independent state, free from foreign control. He was known for his deft political maneuvering, which led him to take positions which were seen by supporters as pragmatic, but by opponents as contradictory, or even hypocritical. Although publicly sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, he later changed his position due to Palestinian support of the Lebanese National Movement and its calls to end the National Pact and establish non-sectarian democracy.
  Gemayel also had a career in football in the 1930s, captaining the Lebanon national team as a player. He also became the first Lebanese football referee to officiate matches internationally, and was the third president of the Lebanese Football Association, between 1935 and 1939.
context_section_description: Gemayel saw his younger son, Bachir Gemayel, elected president of Lebanon on 23 August 1982, only to be assassinated on 14 September, nine days before his scheduled inauguration. Bachir's older brother, Amine Gemayel was elected to replace him. Pierre Gemayel himself initially stayed out of Amine Gemayel's government, but in early 1984, after participating in two conferences in Geneva and Lausanne, Switzerland, aimed at ending the civil war and the occupation of the country by Israeli troops in 1982, he agreed to serve once more in a cabinet of national unity that was formed by Rashid Karami in May 1984. He served as the minister of public health and communications in the cabinet led by then prime minister Karami.
  Gemayel was still in office when he died of a heart attack in Bikfaya on 29 August 1984. He was at the age of 78. Gemayel's body was buried next to Bashir Gemayel's grave in Bikfaya on 30 August 1984.
caption: The Sheikh Pierre Gemayel Memorial, in Gemayel's hometown Bikfaya, Lebanon
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