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Decades of conflict in Lebanon, Israel
(cri/cnn)
Updated: 2006-08-09 10:25

December 1968: Israeli commandos attack Beirut International Airport on
December 28, 1968, damaging or destroying more than a dozen airplanes in
retaliation for an attack on an Israeli civilian airplane at the airport
in Athens, Greece. Two Palestinians were charged in the Athens attack
that left an Israeli passenger dead.

November 1969: Lebanese army commander in chief Emile Bustani and Arafat
sign an agreement in Cairo that recognizes the "Palestinian revolution"
and allows Palestinians in Lebanon "to join in the armed struggle without
undermining Lebanon's sovereignty and welfare." This agreement will stay
in effect for nearly 20 years, until Lebanon rescinds it in May 1987.

1970-1971: Faced with fighting in Jordan that left thousands dead, the
PLO moves its base to Lebanon, where it carries out raids on Israel. A
Palestinian terrorist group linked to the PLO is formed. Its name is
"Black September" -- a reference to the Jordanian crackdown on
Palestinians in September 1970.

1972: Black September attacks the Israeli Olympic team during the games
in Munich, Germany. After a struggle that left a coach and an athlete
dead, the terrorists take nine Israeli athletes hostage, demanding the
release of Palestinian prisoners in return for the hostages' release.
Israel refuses, and a shootout between the attackers and West German
authorities leaves all nine hostages, four terrorists and a policeman
dead.

April 1973: Israeli elite commandos -- dressed as women and led by future
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak -- kill three PLO leaders in Beirut.

1975: Civil war breaks out in Lebanon, pitting Palestinians and
pro-Palestinian Lebanese militias against Lebanon's Christian militias.
The war would last nearly 15 years, officially ending in 1990.

1976: Syria sends military peacekeepers during the early months of the
civil war to help end it. The troops would remain there nearly 30 years,
until April 2005.

March 1978: A PLO attack on a bus in northern Israel prompts Israeli
military forces to move into Lebanon to push the PLO back from the
border. Israel withdraws after the U.N. Security Council passes a
resolution for the immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces. Under the
leadership of Lebanese army Maj. Saad Haddad, an Israeli ally, a 12-mile
wide "security zone" is established to protect Israeli territory from
cross-border attacks.

September 1978: The Camp David Accords, brokered by U.S. President Jimmy
Carter, lead to a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. The accords lay
the groundwork for a similar treaty between Israel and Lebanon, as well
as its other Arab neighbors.

July 17, 1981: Israeli forces bomb PLO headquarters in West Beirut,
killing more than 300 civilians. The attack leads to a U.S.-brokered
cease-fire between Israel, the PLO and Syria, whose troops were in
Lebanon.

1982: The cease-fire lasts until June 6, 1982, when Israel invades
Lebanon with about 60,000 troops in a push to destroy the PLO, after an
assassination attempt on Israel's ambassador to Britain. Arafat and the
PLO flee Lebanon in August and settle in Tunis, Tunisia, where they
remain until moving to Gaza in 1994.

The Israel-backed Lebanese president-elect, Bashir Gemayel, is
assassinated September 14, shortly before his inauguration. Israeli
troops enter West Beirut a day later, and the following day, nearly 800
Palestinian refugees are massacred at the hands of Lebanese Christian
militias in the Sabra and Shatila camps. Israel is accused of doing
nothing to prevent or stop the massacre.

Hezbollah, a fundamentalist Shiite Muslim militant group, emerges as a
force in Beirut, the Bekaa Valley and southern Lebanon. Sponsored by
Iran, modeled after Iran's Revolutionary Guards and supported by Syria,
Hezbollah aims to establish a Shiite Islamic state in Lebanon and force
Western interests like Israel and the United States out of the region.

April 18, 1983: A suicide attack by Hezbollah on the U.S. Embassy in West
Beirut kills 63 people, a harbinger of future attacks against U.S. and
Western interests.

May 17, 1983: Lebanon and Israel sign a U.S.-brokered peace agreement,
spelling out terms of Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, conditional on the
withdrawal of Syrian forces. Syria opposes the agreement.

October 23, 1983: A Hezbollah suicide bomber blows up the headquarters of
U.S. Marine and French forces in Beirut, killing 298 people -- 241 of
them U.S. Marines and other military personnel. U.S. troops are withdrawn
from Lebanon a few months later.

January 18, 1984: American University of Beirut President Malcolm Kerr is
assassinated.

March 1984: With pressure mounting from Syria, Lebanon cancels the May
17, 1983, peace agreement.

September 20, 1984: The U.S. Embassy annex in East Beirut is bombed, and
23 people are killed.

June 1985: Israel withdraws from most of Lebanon but keeps control of the
12-mile-wide security zone in the south. Israel remains there until May
2000.

1990: Lebanon's 15-year civil war officially ends.

July 1993: Israel attacks southern Lebanon in a weeklong operation aimed
at ending Hezbollah attacks on Israeli towns.

April 1996: Israel and Hezbollah militants engage in a 16-day battle, in
which at least 137 people, mostly Lebanese civilians, are killed.

May 2000: Israeli troops withdraw from southern Lebanon, and the United
Nations establishes the "Blue Line" as a border between the two countries.

September 2003: Israeli warplanes hit southern Lebanon in response to
Hezbollah's firing antiaircraft missiles at Israeli planes in the area.

October 2003: Israel and Lebanon exchange gunfire in the disputed area
known as Shebaa Farms.

February 14, 2005: Former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri is
assassinated. Pressure builds on Syria to withdraw its remaining troops
from Lebanon, which it does in April.

July 2006: Hezbollah militants cross into Israel, kill three Israeli
soldiers and kidnap two others in a bid to negotiate a prisoner exchange,
a demand rebuffed by Israel. Another five Israeli soldiers are killed
after the ambush. Israel responds with a naval blockade and by bombing
hundreds of targets in Lebanon, including Beirut's airport and
Hezbollah's headquarters in southern Beirut. Hezbollah responds with
rocket attacks targeting northern Israeli cities. Fighting leaves dozens
of Lebanese civilians dead and coincides with a two-week-old Israeli
military campaign in Gaza in response to the kidnapping of an Israeli
soldier by Palestinian militants.

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