Damour massacre The Damour massacre took place on January 20 , 1976 , during the 1975 – 1990 Lebanese Civil War . Damour , a Christian town on the main highway south of Beirut , was attacked by the Palestine Liberation Organisation units . Part of its population died in battle or in the massacre that followed , and the remainder were forced to flee . Background . The Phalangist militia based in Damour and Dayr al Nama had been blocking the coastal road . The Damour massacre was a response to the Karantina massacre of January 18 , 1976 , in which Phalangists killed from 300 up to 1 , 500 people . It occurred as part of a series of events during the Lebanese Civil War , in which Palestinians joined the Muslim forces , in the context of the Christian - Muslim divide , and soon Beirut was divided along the Green Line , with Christian enclaves to the east and Muslims to the west . Events . Twenty Phalangist militiamen were executed , and then civilians were lined up against a wall and sprayed with machine - gun fire . None of the remaining inhabitants survived . An estimated 582 civilians died . Among the killed were family members of Elie Hobeika and his fiancé . Following the Battle of Tel al - Zaatar later the same year , the PLO resettled Palestinian refugee s in Damour . After the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 , the Zaatar refugees were expelled from Damour , and the original inhabitants brought back . According to Thomas L . Friedman , the Phalangist Damouri Brigade , which carried out the Sabra and Shatila massacre during the 1982 Lebanon War sought revenge not only for the assassination of Bashir Gemayel , but also for what he describes as past tribal killings of their own people by Palestinians , including those at Damour . According to an eyewitness , the attack took place from the mountain behind the town . " It was an apocalypse , " said Father Mansour Labaky , a Christian Maronite priest who survived the massacre . " They were coming , thousands and thousands , shouting ' Allahu Akbar ! ( God is great ! ) Let us attack them for the Arabs , let us offer a holocaust to Mohammad ! ' , and they were slaughtering everyone in their path , men , women and children . " Perpetrators . The attack and subsequent massacre was carried out by a mixed crew of Palestinian militiamen aligned with the Lebanese National Movement ( LNM ) . According to journalist and author Robert Fisk , the attack was led by Colonel Abu Musa , a senior commander of the PLO and Fatah , and later leader of the anti - Arafat Fatah Uprising faction . Cedarland . org names Zuheir Mohsen , leader of as - Sa ' iqa , a Damascus - based Palestinian faction operating directly on Syrian orders , and claims that he was known in Lebanon as the " Butcher from Damour " . The bulk of the attacking forces seems to have been composed of brigades from the Palestinian Liberation Army and as - Sa ' iqa , as well as other militias , including Fatah . Some sources also mention the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine ( PFLP ) , the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine ( DFLP ) , and the Muslim Lebanese al - Murabitun militia among the attackers . There are reports that PLO forces were additionally joined by militiamen from Syria , Jordan , Libya , Iran , Pakistan and Afghanistan , and possibly even Japanese Red Army terrorists who were then undergoing training by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in Lebanon .