Black Saturday was a series of massacres and armed clashes in Beirut, that occurred in the first stages of the Lebanese Civil War. On Saturday December 6, 1975, the bodies of four members of the rightist Phalange Party, an organization grouping primarily Maronite Christians, were found in an abandoned car outside the state-owned electricity plant in Christian-dominated East Beirut. The word massacre has a number of meanings, but most commonly refers to individual events of deliberate and direct mass killing, especially of noncombatant civilians or other innocents, that would often qualify as war crimes or atrocities. ... Beirut ( translit: ) is the capital, largest city, and chief seaport of Lebanon. ... Combatants Lebanese Front Syrian Army LNM PLO Commanders Bachir Gemayel Dany Chamoun Kamal Jumblatt Yasser Arafat The multi-sided Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990) had its origin in the conflicts and political compromises after the end of Lebanons administration by the Ottoman Empire and was exacerbated by the nation... December 6 is the 340th day (341st on leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1975 (MCMLXXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday. ... The Kataeb Party, better known in English-speaking countries as the Phalange, is a Lebanese political party that was first established as a Maronite nationalist youth movement in 1936 by Pierre Gemayel. ... Maronites (Marunoye ܡܪܘܢܝܐܶ; in Syriac, Mâruniyya مارونية in Arabic) are members of an Eastern Catholic Church in full communion with the Pope of Rome. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Christianity. ... Beirut ( translit: ) is the capital, largest city, and chief seaport of Lebanon. ...

The Phalange's militiamen in the city went into a frenzied rage, blaming the killings on the Lebanese National Movement (LNM), dominated by leftist Muslims and Palestinians. Phalange forces attacked Muslims throughout Christian-dominated East Beirut, indiscriminately firing into crowds. Tens or hundreds of Muslim hostages were snatched off city streets and either killed or later released for ransom. The Lebanese National Movement was led by Kamal Jumblat, a prominent Druze. ...

Fighters allegedly led by Joseph Saad, whose son was one of the four murdered, began putting up checkpoints on major roads. At these, passing cars and pedestrians were intercepted and ordered to show identification cards. Any Palestinians (who as refugees were stateless and had no ID cards) or Muslims (Lebanese ID cards indicated religious affiliation) were killed on the spot. A saved game is a piece of digitally stored information about the progress of a player in a computer or video game. ... The term Palestinian has other usages, for which see definitions of Palestinian. ... A stateless person is someone with no state or nationality, usually because the state that gave their previous nationality has ceased to exist and there is no successor state. ...

In an orgy of bloodletting, several hundred people were murdered in a few hours, most of them civilian. Estimations of the total number of victims range between 200 and 600. Phalangist headquarters released a communiqué the next day claiming the revenge was supposed to have been limited to hostage-taking, but had escalated into a massacre because of "hysteria" and "elements who would not listen to orders of their superiors". In times of armed conflict a civilian is any person who is not a combatant. ...

Immediately afterwards, the LNM attacked Phalangist positions in retaliation. Major combat raged in the capital, and much of the surrounding countryside, until January 22, 1976, but was soon to resume again. January 22 is the 22nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1976 (MCMLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Thursday. ...

External links

• Lebanese Civil War December 6, 1975 Saturday The assassination of four young Phalangists on the Fanar road provoked horrible killings in the streets of Beirut. The capital was rapidly set ablaze. It was the apocalypse.