Today, we remember Tal Al-Zaatar, Hill of Thyme, where 3,000 Palestinians were martyred by zionist-backed Christian militias.



The tragedy of Tal El Zaatar is one of darkest chapters written in the history of the liberation for Palestine. It is a crime that was committed against people who had been already dispossessed, displaced, murdered, and forgotten. It was an attempt to dispossess, displace, murder, and forget them again. 

The Tal El Zaatar refugee camp for Palestinian refugees was established in 1950, an UNRWA administered refugee camp for Palestinian refugees in northeastern Beirut. The area housed, alongside Palestinian refugees, a Lebanese working class, the majority of whom had come to work under harsh conditions from the southern regions of Lebanon. The population of the area was 25,000, half of whom were Palestinians.

On April 13, 1975, an assassination attempt targeted Pierre Gemayel, the leader of the fascist Christian Kataeb Party. Gemayel accused Palestinians of being behind it. On the same day and in the same area, the Kataeb Party targeted a bus in Ain El-Rummaneh heading to the Tal El Zaatar camp, opening fire on its passengers killing 27 people. This would be the start of 15 years of bloodshed in Lebanon after the right-wing parties in Lebanon announced their war on Palestinian presence and the Lebanese parties allied with them.  

The siege on the camp began in January of 1976. On June 17th, fascist forces began their attack on Tal El Zaatar. More than 8,000 bombs fell on the camp that day. Electricity, water, and roads were cut off. Hundreds of civilians were martyred or injured. On August 12th, a large attack started following Syria’s entry. All kinds of atrocities were carried out, with indiscriminate killing of women, children, and elderly. Women were raped, and pregnant mothers had their bellies cut.  

The survivors tell countless stories and testimonies. 

A Kataeb fighter asked a Palestinian nurse for his name, and he replied: “Elias.”
The fighter said, “Palestinian, and named Elias too!”
He shot him, leading to his martyrdom. (“The Siege of Tal El Zaatar: Testimonies and Analysis” by Ali Hussein Khalaf, 1976.)

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