Assassination of Bachir Gemayel

On 14 September 1982, a bomb was detonated during a party meeting in the Kataeb Party headquarters in Achrafieh, Beirut which killed Lebanese president-elect Bachir Gemayel and 25 other affiliates of the party.

The attack was carried out by Habib Shartouni, a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP), and allegedly planned by Nabil al-Alam who were both believed by many to have acted on instructions of the Syrian government of President Hafez al-Assad. The next day, Israel moved to occupy the city, allowing Phalangist members under Elie Hobeika's command to enter the centrally located Sabra and the Shatila refugee camp; a massacre followed, in which Phalangists killed between 762 and 3,500 (number is disputed) civilians, mostly Palestinians and Lebanese Shiites, causing great international uproar.

Background
Habib Tanious Shartouni, a Maronite Christian, was born in a small village called Chartoun (شرتون) in Aley, Mount Lebanon. In the early 1970s, only a few years before the outbreak of the civil war, he was inspired and became affiliated with the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP). When the Lebanese Civil War broke out, he volunteered to serve in one of the SSNP stations in Aley. Shartouni fled to France where he attended a university in Paris and obtained a degree in business until the late summer of 1977 during which he officially joined the SSNP upon his first visit to Lebanon and became an active member ever since. Upon his return to France, he carried all the necessary contacts pertaining to the party's delegates in Paris and started attending some of their secret meetings, wherein he met Nabil Alam, the chief of interior of the party at the time. Alam made a significant impression on Shartouni, which paved the way for Bachir's assassination.

Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982. Defense Minister of Israel, Ariel Sharon, met with Gemayel months earlier, telling him that the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) were planning an invasion to uproot the PLO threat to Israel and to move them out of Lebanon. While Gemayel did not control Israel's actions in Lebanon, the support Israel gave the Lebanese Forces, militarily and politically, angered many Lebanese leftists. Gemayel had planned to use the IDF to push the Syrian Army out of Lebanon and then use his relations with the Americans to pressure the Israelis into withdrawing from Lebanese territory. On 23 August 1982, being the only one to declare candidacy, Gemayel was elected president in an election boycotted by Muslim MPs, as he prevailed over the National Movement. Israel had relied on Gemayel and his forces as a counterbalance to the PLO, and as a result, ties between Israel and Maronite groups, from which hailed many of the supporters of the Lebanese Forces, had grown stronger.

Assassination
On 14 September 1982, Bashir Gemayel was addressing fellow Phalangists at their headquarters in Achrafieh for the last time as their leader and for the last time as commander of the Lebanese Forces. At 4:10 PM, an estimated 180 kilograms of TNT was detonated, killing Gemayel and 23 other Phalange politicians. The first testimonies stated that Gemayel had left the premises on foot or in an ambulance (bearing the number 90). For several hours after the explosion it was believed that Gemayel survived the blast. Some reported that he is in an ongoing treatment of leg bruises at the nearby Hotel Dieu hospital. In reaction to this Church bells were rung in celebration of his reported survival. Then the commander of military intelligence Jonny Abdu reported that Bachir Gemayel had been taken to a hospital in Haifa by helicopter. The search and rescue teams on the field were unable to find him or his body. His body was finally identified five and a half hours after the explosion by a Mossad agent in a church close to the site of the explosion where the dead were being collected. The face on the body was unrecognizable; he was identified by the white-gold wedding ring he was wearing and two letters he was carrying addressed to Bachir Gemayel. It was concluded that he had been one of the first people moved to the church after the explosion. Rumors persisted that Gemayel had survived, until it was confirmed the following morning by the Lebanese Prime Minister Shafik Wazzan that he had indeed been killed in the attack.

Aftermath
Bachir Gemayel's older brother Amine Gemayel was not long after elected president, serving from 1982 to 1988. The parliament had 80 of the 99 MPs present for the elections. Amine Gemayel was elected during the first round of voting. 77 votes for Amine Gemayel and 3 blank ballots. Rather different in temperament, Amine Gemayel was widely regarded as more moderate than his brother. Gemayel never promised the Israelis anything in order to be elected president, but he promised that he would follow the path of his brother Bashir whatever that path was. He left his post in the Kataeb Party after being elected president. Once elected, he refused to meet any Israeli official.

Trial
Shartouni was handed over to Lebanese justice. Amine Gemayel, Bachir's elder brother, succeeded him to the presidency seat after his assassination. Habib had spent eight years held captive in Roumieh prison without an official trial, until 13 October 1990 when he escaped during the final Syrian offensive in Lebanon that was aimed at toppling the government headed by Michel Aoun. Shartouni was sentenced to death in absentia by the Lebanese court on 20 October 2017 after admitting his part in the assassination. In interviews with Lebanese newspaper al-Akhbar in 2012 and 2017, Shartouni stated that after his escape, he resided in Syria between 1994 and 2004, and did not disclose his current whereabouts. He also denied that he visited Lebanon since his escape from prison in 1990.

On 20 October 2017, the Judicial Council, Lebanon's highest state security court, sentenced Habib Shartouni and Nabil al-Alam to death in absentia in the case of the 1982 assassination of President-elect Bashir Gemayel. The Council also stripped former Syrian Social National Party members Shartouni and Alam of their civil rights.

Reactions
Condemnations poured in from around the world, including the United Nations Security Council in Resolution 520 as well as from American President Ronald Reagan. Reagan had been one of Gemayel's staunchest supporters, saying "this promising young leader had brought the light of hope to Lebanon."

The then prime minister Shafik Wazzan said while conforming the death of Bachir Gemayel, "I face this shocking news with the strongest denunciation for this criminal act."

On the evening of 14 September, following the news that Bashir Gemayel had been assassinated, Prime Minister Begin, Defense Minister Sharon and Chief of Staff Eitan agreed that the Israeli army should invade West Beirut. The public reason given was to be that they were there to prevent chaos. In a separate conversation, at 20:30 that evening, Sharon and Eitan agreed that the IDF should not enter the Palestinian refugee camps but that the Phalange should be used. Shortly after 6.00 am 15 September, the Israeli army entered West Beirut, This Israeli action breached its agreement with the United States not to occupy West Beirut and was in violation of the ceasefire. Between 762 and 3,500 civilians, mostly Palestinians and Lebanese Shiites, were massacred by members of the Phalange, which was overlooked by the IDF, in an alleged retaliation for the assassination of Gemayel.

Protests broke out in Beirut during the third trial investigating the assassination. Separated by the riot police, supporters of both the SSNP and the Kataeb Party blocked the road in front of the Justice Palace. A SSNP member on Al-Jadeed said that Shartouni "is a hero the size of a nation".