title: United Rugby Championship

text: Coverage of the tournament can be found in other territories – on beIN Sports in France, and on various Setanta Sports channels around the globe (including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South East Asia and the Middle East), as well as EuroSport.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: From 2004 to 2009, the Scottish and Irish rights were owned by Setanta Sports. Setanta closed down in Scotland in 2009, but Setanta Ireland and Setanta Sports 1 remained available to Irish subscribers. In 2010, RTÉ Sport, BBC Northern Ireland, TG4, BBC Wales, BBC Alba and SKY Italia came together to buy the Celtic League broadcasting rights.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: On 2 May 2013, Sky Sports announced that it had agreed a four-year deal to broadcast 33 live matches each season. This deal commenced at the start of season 2014–15, Sky have 30 exclusive matches but are only allowed to cover one set of fixtures; for instance, only one Leinster v Munster match was live on Sky with the other on TG4. Regional screening of matches continued, BBC Wales show Scrum V Live on Friday Night with S4C covering a match now on Sunday afternoons. BBC Alba also screened matches, with some also available in English on BBC Scotland, although BBC Alba did offer English language commentary via their Red Button service when the match was not shown on BBC Scotland. BBC Northern Ireland screened all Ulster matches not available on Sky Sports. RTÉ Sport dropped their coverage after the 2014 final due to budget cuts, making TG4 the only broadcasters of the competition in the Republic of Ireland. The semi-finals and finals are available to all broadcasters.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: On 31 August 2017, SuperSport announced that it had acquired the rights to broadcast matches within South Africa.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: On 30 April 2018, PRO14 Rugby signed a partnership with Premier Sports and FreeSports to broadcast every Pro14 game live in high definition across the UK for at least the next three years. The agreement, which came into effect for the 2018–19 season, also saw at least one match per round shown live free-to-air on FreeSports.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: The league is based on regionalised, provincial and franchise representation of the participating nations, except for Benetton which represents the city of Treviso itself. Benetton was selected for its long history after the project of a second Italian regional team, Praetorians Roma, failed.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: The Celtic League board met in November 2008 to explore the possibility of Italian participation; the chief executive of the Welsh Rugby Union, Roger Lewis, stated that the league was looking "favourably" on Italian participation.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: Following a 19 December 2008 board meeting of the Italian Rugby Federation (FIR) to discuss proposals to improve Italian rugby, FIR announced that it would submit a proposal to join the Celtic League.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: FIR had two possibilities – either entering four existing Italian clubs from the National Championship of Excellence into the league; or creating two teams of Italy-qualified players exclusively for the competition.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: On 18 July 2009, the FIR announced that Aironi and Praetorians Roma would compete in the Celtic League from the start of the 2010–11 season – beating bids from Benetton Treviso and Duchi Nord-Ovest. Praetorians would be based in Rome at the Stadio Flaminio, while Aironi would be based in Viadana but would play some matches in the city of Reggio Emilia.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: On 28 January 2010, the FIR declared that they had withdrawn from negotiations with the Celtic League regarding two Italian teams joining the tournament, with the main issue being a €3 million warranty asked for by the league, but by 7 February, the Italian clubs had come up with the required funding. By 8 March 2010, a deal had been finalised for Aironi and Benetton Treviso to enter the Celtic League from the 2010–11 season, with each team guaranteed a place in the Heineken Cup.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: At the end of the 2011–12 season, however, Aironi were no longer available to compete in future competitions as a regional club, as, on 6 April 2012, they were refused a licence to continue on financial grounds. They were replaced by another Italian side, Zebre (now Zebre Parma).


title: United Rugby Championship

text: After the successful negotiations with Italy, talks were held intermittently with South Africa about the possible expansion of the Pro12. A 24-team Rainbow Cup involving 11 Celtic, 9 South African and 4 Italian teams was announced in 2005, but the idea was abandoned because of financial issues on the European end of the deal and changes in the leadership of the South African Rugby Union (SARU).


title: United Rugby Championship

text: London Welsh expressed interest in 2006 in joining the Celtic League if promotion and relegation were to be removed from the English Premiership.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: In February 2009, South Africa was rumoured to be negotiating entry of its current Super Rugby teams into the Celtic League, to take effect when the media contract between SANZAR and News Corporation expires after the 2010 season; these rumours were immediately denied by SA Rugby, the commercial arm of SARU. In the end, nothing came of these rumours, and the competition remained a strictly European affair.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: In a 2016 interview with "The Irish Times", IRFU CEO Philip Browne indicated that the Pro12 was seriously considering establishing a US franchise on the country's Atlantic coast in the near future, seeing the recent growth of the sport in the US as an opportunity to help close some of the financial gap between Pro12 and Europe's two major domestic leagues, the English Premiership and France's Top 14. Browne added that Pro12 was also looking to expand further into Continental Europe by teaming with major association football clubs, some of which already have rugby sections.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: In August 2016, Pro12 officials began talks with the unions of both Canada and the United States about expansion before the end of the decade, with interest in putting teams on the east coasts of both countries. In September 2016, it emerged that Vancouver and Houston may be target cities, primarily due to weather considerations, though the distance from the other teams may make that more of a challenge.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: While the North American plan remains active, media attention turned in 2017 toward a new possibility of South African teams entering the competition. Following the decision of Super Rugby organiser SANZAAR to drop three teams from the competition (two from South Africa), multiple media reports indicated that the two likeliest South African sides to be axed, the Cheetahs and Southern Kings, could be added to Pro12 as early as the 2017–18 season. A later BBC report indicated that the Cheetahs and Kings would be added once their removal from Super Rugby was formally announced on 7 July, though neither Celtic Rugby Limited, the South African Rugby Union, nor the two teams would comment on the report. A week after the Cheetahs and Kings' departure from Super Rugby was confirmed, the BBC reported that Celtic Rugby Limited was expected to officially add those teams at the organisation's next board meeting on 18 July. While no announcement came on that date, media in both South Africa and Britain reported that SARU's chief executive was at Celtic Rugby's headquarters in Dublin to finalise the addition of the Cheetahs and Kings, with Reuters calling the expansion "the worst kept secret in rugby". The addition of the two South African teams was officially confirmed on 1 August 2017. The Southern Kings entered liquidation in September 2020 and therefore withdrew from the league.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: In September 2020 the league confirmed they were looking for a replacement team for Southern Kings and possible expansion to more teams in South Africa to enter the league in 2021. Later that month, SA rugby voted that their Super Rugby sides (Lions, Stormers, Sharks, Bulls) would enter the Pro 14 to replace the liquidated Kings and the Cheetahs, who were withdrawn before the 2021 season.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: Pan-Celtic tournaments were proposed throughout the early professional era, with the creation of the Heineken Cup in 1995 demonstrating that inter-domestic competitions were financially viable. From 1995 onwards, the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU), Scottish Rugby Union (SRU) and Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) discussed a number of Celtic league and cup competitions, discussions were also held with the Rugby Football Union (RFU) to form a British & Irish league. These discussions would eventually lead the WRU and the RFU to establish the Anglo-Welsh Cup in 2005, and all four unions to establish the British and Irish Cup in 2009.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: The first material steps toward a Celtic league were taken before the 1999–2000 season, when the Scottish districts Edinburgh and Glasgow were formally invited to join the fully professional Welsh Premier Division, creating the Welsh–Scottish League. By 2001, an agreement was made with the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) to bring in the four Irish provinces. The 2001–02 season saw additional matches and a new league structure played alongside the continuing Welsh–Scottish League and the Inter-Provincial Championship in Ireland. The new format was named the Celtic League. The Celtic League had developed by 2005, and the tournament became the sole professional league in Ireland and Scotland (the Anglo-Welsh Cup and semi-pro Welsh Premiership continued in Wales) and had entirely replaced both the Welsh–Scottish League, and the Inter-Provincial Championship.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: The first full season of a pan-Celtic competition saw 15 teams compete: the four Irish provinces (Connacht, Leinster, Munster and Ulster), two Scottish teams (Edinburgh Reivers and Glasgow) and all nine Welsh professional teams (Bridgend, Caerphilly, Cardiff RFC, Ebbw Vale, Llanelli, Neath, Newport, Pontypridd and Swansea).


title: United Rugby Championship

text: Played alongside each country's own domestic competitions, the teams were split into two groups (of eight and seven) and played a series of round-robin matches with each team playing the other only once. The top four teams from each group proceeded into the knock-out phase until a champion was found. Clashes between teams in the Welsh–Scottish League also counted towards the new competition.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: The 2001–02 competition was dominated by the Irish teams with all four sides reaching the last eight, three progressing to the semi-finals, and the thrilling final played at Lansdowne Road contested between Leinster and Munster with Leinster running out 24–20 winners.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: Champions Leinster failed to make the quarter-final stage in 2003. In their absence, Munster went on to win the competition by beating Connacht 33–3 in the quarter-finals, Ulster 42–10 in the semi-finals, and Neath 37–17 in the final played in Cardiff.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: The format of the Celtic League remained the same for the second season, but saw the addition of a third Scottish district, the newly re-established Scottish Borders. However, the Welsh-Scottish league structure ended permanently in 2002, allowing for the expansion of the Celtic league format in the following season.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: A major change in Celtic League came before the start of the 2003–04 season. The Welsh Rugby Union voted to create five new regional sides (Cardiff Blues, Celtic Warriors, Llanelli Scarlets, Neath–Swansea Ospreys and Newport Gwent Dragons). It was agreed that the Celtic League would become the sole professional league of the three countries, incorporating the four Irish, three Scottish and five new Welsh professional teams.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: Reformatted into a traditional league competition (double round-robin style, all clubs play each other twice, once home, once away), which meant that a season long 22-round match program was launched, and with a new strength in depth due to the amalgamation of Welsh teams and the continuing strengthening of Irish and Scottish teams through the re-signing and retention of star players, the league has been in rugby terms a success. Also introduced for the 2003–04 season was the Celtic Cup, a straight knock-out cup competition between the 12 Celtic League teams.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: However the unfortunate timing of the league's launch and poor organisation of a working calendar meant that first the 2003 Rugby World Cup and later the Six Nations Championship prevented many of the league's top stars from playing in over half the games. This caused the league to struggle commercially, especially regarding the newly adopted regions in Wales where the game has always traditionally been played on a club basis, not having the regional histories of Ireland or Scotland. The season ended with the Llanelli Scarlets running out as eventual winners, four points ahead of Ulster.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: The Welsh Rugby Union controversially purchased and liquidated the Celtic Warriors so that the 2004–05 season saw eleven teams compete in the Celtic League. The new format took the league into what many saw as a make-or-break season, clear of massive distractions such as the Rugby World Cup. With the Welsh regions partly embedded, the signs were that the Celtic League would be a competition that could continue. It was suggested that Italian sides might join an expanded Celtic League, an idea that eventually happened in 2010.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: The league format was further refined at the end of the 2003–04 season, with the participants better managing the dates of the matches so as to not interfere with the national squad set-ups and to make the league more commercially viable. The league was played until April, and then the Celtic Cup was contested among the top eight teams.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: The 2004–05 season was the first season that Ireland agreed to use the Celtic League standings to determine which provinces would enter the Heineken Cup. The IRFU had previously classed Connacht as a "development" team and so nominated Leinster, Munster and Ulster over Connacht.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: The IRFU also insisted on International squad training sessions taking precedence over Celtic League matches, with Irish provinces (especially Munster and Leinster) occasionally fielding virtual second teams for Celtic League games. Some claimed this had the effect of devaluing the competition. However, despite this approach, Munster finished second and Leinster third, with Munster winning the Celtic Cup. The Ospreys topped the league table, making it two in a row for Welsh regional sides.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: In 2005, there were discussions over a potential Anglo-Welsh Cup competition which some saw as undermining the Celtic League. Despite Welsh assurances that the proposed Anglo-Welsh tournament would not interfere with their commitments to either the Celtic League in its present format or an expanded 'Rainbow League', the WRU made arrangements to play games on five weekends that clashed with Celtic League fixtures. The SRU and IRFU then threatened to expel the Welsh sides from the Celtic League in June 2005. It was proposed that the competition would continue as a Scottish and Irish affair for the 2005–06 season, with the possible addition of four Italian sides and the re-admittance of Welsh sides for the 2006–07 season. However a deal was reached that allowed for the Celtic League to continue with the Anglo-Welsh cup fixtures involving Welsh clubs rescheduled.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: Despite these problems, the league enjoyed its most successful season, with the record attendance at a Celtic League match being broken four times, from 12,436 at the match between the Cardiff Blues and the Newport Gwent Dragons in December to 15,327 for the match between the Cardiff Blues and Leinster at the Millennium Stadium. The total attendances for the season were up nearly 50,000 at 571,331 compared to 521,449 for the previous season.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: The league went down to the last round with Ulster and Leinster both in contention. Following Leinster's victory over Edinburgh and with Ulster losing against the Ospreys, it looked like the cup would go to Dublin but David Humphreys kicked a last-minute drop goal from 40 metres to clinch the game and the league for Ulster.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: In May 2006, "Magners Irish Cider" were named as the competition sponsors for the next five seasons, and the league was renamed as the "Magners League". Although known as Bulmers Irish Cider in the Republic of Ireland, the Magners brand name was used there for the league. The sponsorship followed on from Magners' previous sponsorship deals with Edinburgh and the London Wasps.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: The Scottish Rugby Union announced that the Borders territory would be disbanded from the end of the 2006–07 season. It may be revived when the Scottish Rugby Union debt decreases enough to make it financially viable along with a possible fourth Scottish territory (four professional teams being the original plan for the SRU) with Falkirk, Stirling or a London-based team being possible locations; or even the Caledonia Reds, the forgotten Scottish region. In the meantime Scotland would have only two professional teams based in Edinburgh and Glasgow.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: The league's record attendance was smashed in this season with a full house at Lansdowne Road (48,000) for Leinster v Ulster. This was the last game in the stadium prior to its demolition, and was billed as "The Last Stand".


title: United Rugby Championship

text: The league was won by the Ospreys on the final day of fixtures. The Blues' home win over Leinster allowed the Ospreys to top the league by a single point and take the title with an away win at Borders.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: Only ten teams competed in the 2007–08 season, after the Borders were disbanded at the end of the 2006–07 season. Glasgow Warriors moved their home games to Firhill. After missing out on the title on the last day for the previous two seasons, Leinster finally won the 2007–08 title with one game remaining. They had been runaway leaders for much of the season.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: In April 2008 it was announced that the Celtic League was to introduce a play-off system commencing in the 2009–10 season to determine the winner, thus generating a greater climax to the season and bringing it in line with other major leagues such as the English Premiership and French Top 14.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: The 2008–09 season was decided quite early in the season as Munster claimed the title without playing, as they were preparing for their Heineken Cup semi-final against Leinster. The final challenge from Ospreys was snuffed out when the Dragons denied them a bonus point win on 30 April. Munster had led pretty much from the start of the season with a team largely captained by Mick O'Driscoll showing Munster's squad depth. Munster lost only four games, three to the other Irish teams, including a double loss to Ulster. Felipe Contepomi finished as league top scorer for Leinster, the year they went on to win the Heineken Cup.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: The 2009–10 season was the last 10-team league as the Italian teams joined in 2010–11. The league was one of the most competitive in years with perennial wooden-spooners Connacht challenging Ulster all the way for the third Irish Heineken Cup spot. Ulster needed a superb away bonus point win at Edinburgh to seal it, ending Edinburgh's own play-off hopes. Scarlets had a disappointing campaign as typical Welsh underdogs the Dragons had a great season, eventually finishing mid table and comfortably qualifying for the Heineken Cup. Luckily for the Scarlets, Cardiff Blues won the Amlin Cup and thereby earned Wales an extra Heineken Cup place. 2009–10 was also the first time a play-off was used to decide the champion, previously the top team at the end of the season was champion. The Scottish teams and particularly Glasgow came of age and had a fine season, finishing third in the end.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: The four qualifiers for the play-offs were Leinster, Ospreys, Glasgow and Munster in that order, each country having at least one team. In the semi-finals Leinster defeated Munster at the RDS, after Ospreys overcame Glasgow in Swansea. In the 2010 Celtic League Grand Final at the RDS in Dublin the Ospreys shocked Leinster, winning the title 17–12 with their first win in Dublin in five years.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: The 2010–11 saw the introduction of the two Italian sides, Aironi and Benetton Treviso. In the new 12 team format, the play-offs came down to Munster hosting the Ospreys in one semi-final, and Leinster hosting Ulster in the other.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: The two home sides went on to win their respective matches and the final was held in Thomond Park, home of Munster rugby, where they defeated Leinster (who had just been crowned champions of Europe a week earlier).


title: United Rugby Championship

text: The 2011–12 season saw a re-branding of the competition as the RaboDirect Pro12. Leinster were the runaway winners of the regular season, with a 10-point cushion over the Ospreys in second. The top four were Leinster, Ospreys, Munster and Warriors in that order.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: Ospreys easily overcame Munster at home in the first semi-final in Swansea while Leinster beat the Glasgow Warriors in the RDS after giving up a strong lead. In the final, also held at the RDS, Leinster were aiming to become the first Celtic League team to complete a domestic and European double, after beating Ulster the previous week in the Heineken Cup final. After trailing for most of the game, Ospreys took a late lead through a try by Shane Williams. Dan Biggar then landed a difficult conversion to give Ospreys their fourth title by a single point, 31–30.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: After two years in the competition Aironi played their final match, as their licence to compete was revoked by the FIR for financial reasons.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: With the demise of Aironi they were replaced with a new FIR controlled team to be based in Parma called Zebre, near the Aironi base in Viadana. The Welsh clubs chose to operate under a new self-imposed salary cap, which led to a number of departures from the Welsh teams as they strove to balance their books. Some high-profile Welsh players moved to the French Top 14, but other Pro12 teams also benefited with the likes of Casey Laulala going to Munster from Cardiff Blues, Sean Lamont to Glasgow from Scarlets, Dan Parks from Cardiff Blues to Connacht and Tommy Bowe from Ospreys back to Ulster.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: Ulster topped the table in the regular season, with Leinster, Glasgow and Scarlets completing the top 4 in that order. They then went on to comfortably beat Scarlets 28–17 in Belfast, while Leinster were hard pressed by Glasgow in a tense 17–15 win for the hosts. In the final (held in the R.D.S. due to redevelopment of Ravenhill) Leinster prevailed 24–18 to win their 3rd title.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: Rabo Direct announced that this was to be their last season as sponsors. This, combined with the ongoing uncertainty surrounding the future of the European Cup, meant that there were concerns over the future commercial viability of the tournament. However, despite all off-field issues it was a successful season with a new high for both total attendance and for a single game (51,700 for Leinster v Munster).


title: United Rugby Championship

text: In the end Leinster topped the table, having led for most of the season. Glasgow had a late surge to finish 2nd overtaking Munster and Ulster in the process. All four teams showed they were worthy contenders in the next round with Leinster needing to score a late try to beat Ulster 13–9 in Dublin while Glasgow just got past Munster in Scotstoun by one point to win 16–15. The final in the R.D.S. was also a close game for most of the match with Leinster forced to defend for long periods. However they eventually pulled clear, adding two late scores which made the final result look somewhat lopsided at 34–12.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: The RaboDirect title sponsor was replaced by Guinness. With the Heineken Cup being replaced by the 20-team European Rugby Champions Cup in the 2014–15 season, the Pro12 table had a greater impact on qualification. Under the previous format, the Pro12 provided a minimum of 10 teams, with Scotland and Italy providing two teams each, and Ireland and Wales both providing three. The new system saw a total of seven teams, with one place now being reserved for the highest-finishing Pro12 team from each of four participating countries and three other qualifiers based solely on league position. The other teams were entered in the new second-tier competition, the European Rugby Challenge Cup.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: Leinster were the defending champions having beaten Glasgow Warriors in the previous season's playoff final, to become the first team in the league to successfully retain the trophy. Leinster were unable to defend their title as they failed to qualify for the end-of-season playoffs for the top four teams after the regular season. Glasgow Warriors finished the regular season on top of the table, and were crowned champions for the first time, beating second seeded team Munster 31–13 in the final. Thus, the Warriors became the first Scottish team to win a professional trophy, beating Edinburgh's appearance in the final of the 2014–15 European Rugby Challenge Cup.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: With the 2015 Rugby World Cup taking place during the opening months of the season, changes were made to the usual fixture schedule to minimise the effect on teams who released players to take part. The low number of games in the opening weeks of the season led to fixture congestion at the end of the tournament, with each team playing a game every weekend for 16 weeks straight from October 2015 to January 2016, including European matches.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: As in the previous season, qualification to the European Champions Cup was guaranteed to the top team from each country participating in the league, with the three highest placed team's not already qualified also earning a berth. Unlike in the previous season where the 20th tournament spot was decided by a play-off involving teams from the Pro12, France's Top 14 and the English Premiership, due to fixture congestion from the World Cup, the final spot in the tournament was reserved for the winner of the 2015 European Challenge Cup if not already qualified.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: The delayed start to the season, and absence of established international players during international Test and Six Nations windows, arguably gave some advantage to 'lesser' teams, and Connacht, coached by Pat Lam, duly led the league for much of the season. Despite not ultimately finishing top of the league, they converted their form into a maiden championship title in the post-league play-off matches, including a home semi-final victory over reigning champions Glasgow Warriors, and the Pro12 Final against league-topping Leinster at the neutral venue of Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: Despite losing their first three matches, the Scarlets finished third in the league. They became the first team in the Pro 12's history to win an away semi-final, beating Leinster 27–15 at the RDS Arena, before beating league-topping Munster 46–22 at the Aviva Stadium. Scarlets wing Steff Evans ended up as the league's top try scorer with 11 tries.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: Big changes happened this season with the addition of two South African teams and a change from a league format of home and away to a conference structure championship. The 14 teams were split into two conferences of seven teams each. They play each team in their own conference twice (12 games) and each team in the other conference once (7 games), plus two derby games against the team(s) in the other conference from their own country, making 21 matches in total. The team that finishes top in each conference qualifies directly, one for each of the semi-finals, while the teams that finish second and third in each conference qualify as the four quarter-finalists to determine the other two semi-finalists.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: Since its inception, the competition has been dominated by Irish teams; in 21 years of the competition, Ireland has provided 13 of the champions, and 13 runners-up. The dominant team in this era has been Leinster, who have appeared in ten out of 12 finals playoff finals, and have won 8 league titles in total. The two closest rivals to this dominance have been domestic and European rivals Munster with three titles and six runners-up spots, and Welsh flagship Ospreys with two titles in the round-robin era and two in the play-offs era. Ulster, Connacht, Scarlets (twice, once as Llanelli Scarlets, once as Scarlets), Glasgow Warriors and Stormers have also taken home the title. The 2021–22 tournament marked the first title won by a South African team: the Stormers. This year's competition also featured the first grand final not to contain a single Irish team as the losing finalists, the Bulls, are also South African.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: No Italian side has yet reached an ordinary league final. The best play-off performance from the nation was a single quarter-final appearance: in 2019 for Benetton Rugby for Italy. Benetton did however emerge as champions of the Covid-affected transitional championship, the Pro14 Rainbow Cup, which was designed to introduce the former Super Rugby sides to European rugby competition. Although not treated as a championship in the ordinary lineal line, the 2021 Rainbow Cup is considered an official URC competition, along with the defunct Celtic Cup knockout tournament. As such, every country in the competition has at least once taken home league-wide silverware.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: As of 2022, four Regional Shields will also be awarded annually. The inaugural winners of the Irish, Welsh, South African and Scottish-Italian URC Shields were Leinster, Ospreys, Stormers and Edinburgh respectively.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: The Celtic Cup was a short-lived single elimination knock-out competition, held alongside the Celtic League.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: The Pro14 Rainbow Cup was a one-off 'transitional' or 'Spring Season' tournament created to facilitate the integration of the four South African sides into the United Rugby Championship. ahead of the 2021–22 season. For the first time, an Italian team and a South African team reached the final of an official Celtic League/Pro Rugby competition, with Benetton Treviso winning Italy's first-ever trophy at Pro Rugby level.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: From the 2021–2022 season, a trophy will be awarded to each team that finishes top of its regional 'pool' (with Scottish and Italian teams sharing a trophy). The Irish Shield, Welsh Shield, South African Shield and Scottish-Italian Shield champions will also received guaranteed entry to the following season's European Rugby Champions Cup, regardless of position in the overall table.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: "Updated as of 21 August 2022" "Statistics do not include those from Celtic Cup or Rainbow Cup matches."


title: United Rugby Championship

text: From 2002 to 2003 and from 2010 to 2014, the higher ranked team in the final were the hosting team. Between 2003 and 2010, no play-off was held and final standings determined the champion. However, from the 2014–15 Pro12 season onward, a pre-determined stadium was chosen at the start of the season that would host the final. In 2021–22, the inaugural United Rugby Championship season, the competition reverted to the highest seeded team hosting the final.


title: United Rugby Championship

text: With 5 finals, RDS Arena, the home stadium of Leinster Rugby, has hosted the final most often. Of the five participating nations, only Italy have not yet hosted a linear final, although Benetton Rugby did host the transitional Pro14 Rainbow Cup final in their stadium, Stadio Comunale di Monigo.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: The 1982 Lebanon War, dubbed Operation Peace for Galilee ( "Mivtsa Shlom HaGalil" or "Mivtsa Sheleg") by the Israeli government, later known in Israel as the Lebanon War or the First Lebanon War (, "Milhemet Levanon Harishona"), and known in Lebanon as "the invasion" (, "Al-ijtiyāḥ"), began on 6 June 1982, when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) invaded southern Lebanon, after repeated attacks and counter-attacks between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) operating in southern Lebanon and the IDF that had caused civilian casualties on both sides of the border. The military operation was launched after gunmen from Abu Nidal's organization attempted to assassinate Shlomo Argov, Israel's ambassador to the United Kingdom. Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin blamed Abu Nidal's enemy, the PLO, for the incident, and used the incident as a "casus belli" for the invasion.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: After attacking the PLO – as well as Syrian, leftist, and Muslim Lebanese forces – the Israeli military, in cooperation with their Maronite allies and the self-styled Free Lebanon State, occupied southern Lebanon, eventually surrounding the PLO and elements of the Syrian Army. Surrounded in West Beirut and subjected to heavy bombardment, the PLO forces and their allies negotiated passage from Lebanon with the aid of United States Special Envoy Philip Habib and the protection of international peacekeepers. The PLO, under the chairmanship of Yasser Arafat, had relocated its headquarters to Tripoli in June 1982. By expelling the PLO, removing Syrian influence over Lebanon, and installing a pro-Israeli Christian government led by President Bachir Gemayel, Israel hoped to sign a treaty which Menachem Begin promised would give Israel "forty years of peace".


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: Following the assassination of Gemayel in September 1982, Israel's position in Beirut became untenable and the signing of a peace treaty became increasingly unlikely. Outrage following the IDF's role in the Phalangist-perpetrated Sabra and Shatila massacre of Palestinians and Lebanese Shias, as well as Israeli popular disillusionment with the war, led to a gradual withdrawal from Beirut to the areas claimed by the Free Lebanon State in southern Lebanon (later to become the South Lebanon security belt), which was initiated following the 17 May Agreement and Syria's change of attitude towards the PLO.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: After Israeli forces withdrew from most of Lebanon, the War of the Camps broke out between Lebanese factions, the remains of the PLO and Syria, in which Syria fought its former Palestinian allies. At the same time, Shi'a militant groups began consolidating and waging a low-intensity guerrilla war over the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, leading to 15 years of low-scale armed conflict. The Lebanese Civil War would continue until 1990, at which point Syria had established complete dominance over Lebanon.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: After the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, Lebanon became home to more than 110,000 Palestinian refugees, after their settlements in Palestine and Israel had been depopulated as a result of the war. After its founding in 1964 and the radicalization among Palestinians, which followed the Six-Day War, the PLO became a powerful force, then centred in Jordan. The large influx of Palestinians from Jordan after the Black September conflict caused an additional demographic imbalance within Lebanese society and its democratic institutions established earlier by the National Pact. By 1975, the refugees numbered more than 300,000 and the PLO in effect created an unofficial state-within-a-state, particularly in Southern Lebanon, which then played an important role in the Lebanese Civil War.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: Continual violence near the Lebanese border occurred between Israel and the PLO starting from 1968; this peaked, following the relocation of PLO bases to Lebanon after the civil war in Jordan.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: The violence between Israel and the PLO peaked during Operation Litani in 1978, provoked by the Coastal Road Massacre which was carried out by Palestinian militants. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was created after the incursion, following the adoption of United Nations Security Council Resolution 425 in March 1978 to confirm Israeli withdrawal from Southern Lebanon, restore international peace and security, and help the government of Lebanon restore its effective authority in the area.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: As early as 1976, Israel had been assisting Lebanese Christian militias in their sporadic battles against the PLO. During Operation Litani in 1978, Israel established a security zone in southern Lebanon with mostly Christian inhabitants, in which they began to supply training and arms to Christian militias which would later form the South Lebanese Army. But Israel's main partner was to be the Maronite Phalange party, whose paramilitary was led by Bashir Gemayel, a rising figure in Lebanese politics. Gemayel's strategy during the early stages of the Lebanese Civil War was to provoke the Syrians into retaliatory attacks on Christians, such that Israel could not ignore. In 1978, Menachem Begin declared that Israel would not allow a genocide of Lebanese Christians, while refusing direct intervention. Hundreds of Lebanese militiamen began to train in Israel, at the IDF Staff and Command College. The relationship between Israel and the Maronites began to grow into a political-strategic alliance, and members of the Israeli government like Ariel Sharon began to conceive of a plan to install a pro-Israel Christian government in Lebanon, as it was known that Bashir wanted to remove the PLO and all Palestinian refugees in the country.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: During the period June to December 1980 the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) recorded an increase in activities along the border zone. No attacks by Palestinian forces on Israel were recorded, while the IDF incursions across the armistice line into Lebanon increased markedly, with minefields being laid, gun posts established, and generally involving numerous violations of Lebanese air-space and territorial waters. This was formally protested by the Lebanese government to the UN Security Council and General Assembly in several communications as violations by Israel of United Nations Security Council Resolution 425. During the same period Israel protested numerous attacks by Palestinian forces, unrelated to the Lebanese border zone.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: In his report for the period of 12 December 1980 to 12 June 1981 on UNIFIL activities, the Security Council Secretary General noted that infiltrations into the border zone by Palestinian armed forces had decreased relative to the previous six months. In contrast the IDF had launched various attacks on Lebanese territory often in support of the Lebanese Christian militia. In doing so Israel had violated UN Security Council resolution 425 on hundreds of occasions [paragraph 58]. Where the initiator(s) of attacks could be identified in the report, in 15 cases Palestinian militants were to blame while on 23 occasions the Militia and/or the IDF were the instigators, the latter also being responsible for the most violent confrontation of the period on 27 April [paragraph 52].


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: In the subsequent period 16 June to 10 December 1981, a relative quiet was reported continuing from 29 May 1981 until 10 July. This was broken when "Israeli aircraft resumed strikes against targets in southern Lebanon north of the UNIFIL area. (The Israeli strikes) led to exchanges of heavy firing between armed elements (Palestinians), on the one hand, and IDF and the de facto forces (Christian Militia) on the other. On 13 and 14 July, widespread Israeli air-strikes continued. Armed elements (Palestinians) fired into the enclave and northern Israel." Israeli-initiated attacks had led to rocket and artillery fire on northern Israel. This pattern continued in the coming days.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: Israel renewed its air strikes in an attempt to trigger a war that would allow it to drive out the PLO and restore peace to the region. On 17 July, the Israel Air Force launched a massive attack on PLO buildings in downtown Beirut. "Perhaps as many as three hundred died, and eight hundred were wounded, the great majority of them civilians." The Israeli army also heavily targeted PLO positions in south Lebanon without success in suppressing Palestinian rocket launchers and guns. As a result, thousands of Israeli citizens who resided near the Lebanese border headed south. There patterns of Israeli-initiated airstrikes and Palestinian retaliations with attacks on northern Israel are in contrast with the official Israeli version "A ceasefire declared in July 1981 was broken: the terrorists continued to carry out attacks against Israeli targets in Israel and abroad, and the threat to the northern settlements became unbearable."


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: On 24 July 1981, United States Undersecretary of State Philip Habib brokered a ceasefire badly needed by both parties, the best achievable result from negotiations via intermediaries, aimed at complying with the decisions of UN Security Council resolution 490. The process was complicated, requiring


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: shuttle diplomacy between Damascus, Jerusalem, and Beirut, United States. Philip Habib concluded a ceasefire across the Lebanon border between Israel and the PLO. Habib could not talk to the PLO directly because of Kissinger's directive, so he used a Saudi member of the royal family as mediator. The agreement was oral – nothing could be written down since Israel and the PLO did not recognize each other and refused to negotiate with each other – but they came up with a truce. ... Thus the border between Lebanon and Israel suddenly stabilized after over a decade of routine bombing.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: Between July 1981 and June 1982, as a result of the Habib ceasefire, the Lebanese-Israeli border "enjoyed a state of calm unprecedented since 1968." But the 'calm' was tense. US Secretary of State, Alexander Haig filed a report with US President Ronald Reagan on Saturday 30 January 1982 that revealed Secretary Haig's fear that Israel might, at the slightest provocation, start a war against Lebanon.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: The 'calm' lasted nine months. Then, on 21 April 1982, after a landmine killed an Israeli officer while he was visiting a South Lebanese Army gun emplacement in Taibe, Lebanon, the Israeli Air Force attacked the Palestinian-controlled coastal town of Damour, killing 23 people. Fisk reports further on this incident: "The Israelis did not say what the soldier was doing ... I discovered that he was visiting one of Haddad's artillery positions (Christian militia) and that the mine could have been lain [sic] as long ago as 1978, perhaps even by the Israelis themselves".


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: On 9 May 1982, Israeli aircraft again attacked targets in Lebanon. Later that same day, UNIFIL observed the firing of rockets from Palestinian positions in the Tyre region into northern Israel, but none of the projectiles hit Israeli towns – the gunners had been ordered to miss. Major-General Erskine (Ghana), Chief of Staff of UNTSO reported to the Secretary-General and the Security Council (S/14789, S/15194) that from August 1981 to May 1982, inclusive, there were 2096 violations of Lebanese airspace and 652 violations of Lebanese territorial waters. The freedom of movement of UNIFIL personnel and UNTSO observers within the enclave remained restricted due to the actions of Amal and the South Lebanon Army under Major Saad Haddad's leadership with the backing of Israeli military forces.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: Prior to establishing ceasefire in July 1981, U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim noted: "After several weeks of relative quiet in the area, a new cycle of violence has begun and has, in the past week, steadily intensified." He further stated: "There have been heavy civilian casualties in Lebanon; there have been civilian casualties in Israel as well. I deeply deplore the extensive human suffering caused by these developments." The President of the U.N. Security Council, Ide Oumarou of Niger, expressed "deep concern at the extent of the loss of life and the scale of the destruction caused by the deplorable events that have been taking place for several days in Lebanon".


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: From the ceasefire, established in July 1981, until the start of the war, the Israeli government reported 270 militant attacks by the PLO in Israel, the occupied territories, and the Jordanian and Lebanese border (in addition to 20 attacks on Israeli interests abroad).


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: In Ariel Sharon's biography by his son, Gilad Sharon, the author referring to the Habib ceasefire, comments: "However, the agreement was explicit only regarding preventing terror from Lebanon, which is why my father encouraged the cabinet not to accept the offer as presented by the Americans."


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: The cease-fire, as both the PLO and the Americans saw it, did not include terror attacks stemming from Lebanon and carried out against Jews in Europe and other locales. In a meeting my father had with Alexander Haig and Philip Habib on 25 May 1982, Habib repeated what he had already said many times before: "Terrorist attacks against Israelis and Jews in Europe are not included in the cease-fire agreement.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: Arafat pressured the radical factions to maintain the ceasefire because he did not wish to provoke the Israelis into an all-out attack. The PLO acceptance of the ceasefire had led to dissension even within Fatah itself. A faction sympathetic to Abu Nidal forced a military confrontation, with accompanying arrests and executions — an event unprecedented in PLO internal disputes'. Arafat even attempted to distance himself from Palestinian unrest on the West Bank to prevent an Israeli attack. In contrast, Begin, Sharon and Eitan were searching for any excuse to neutralize their military opponents through a breach of the ceasefire. They believed that Arafat was buying time to build up his conventional forces. The Israeli interpretation of the conditions for the ceasefire placed responsibility for any act of Palestinian violence on Arafat's shoulders. It presumed that Arafat had complete control, not only over all factions within the PLO such as the rejectionist Popular Front of George Habash,


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: but also over those outside such as Abu Nidal's Fatah Revolutionary Council and Ahmed Jibril's Popular Front — General Command. Moreover, in Begin's eyes, the ceasefire was not geographically limited to the Lebanese border. He argued that if Palestinian terrorism struck internationally, then this too would be regarded as a breach of the ceasefire. Begin thus took a stand-off in a local battle as applying to the entire war anywhere in the Middle East or any incident internationally. Eitan commented that there was no difference if a militant threw a grenade in Gaza or fired a shell at a Northern settlement — all such acts broke the ceasefire. Sharon similarly did not wish to draw distinctions between different Palestinian factions, since all blame had to be attached to the PLO. He dismissed attempts at more rational evaluation as masking the real issue. In a speech to a Young Herut conference in April 1982, he accused those who tried to take a more objective standpoint of erecting 'a protective wall around the PLO inside and outside Israel'.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: Further support comes from George Ball, that the PLO had observed the ceasefire. Israel, he said, continued looking for the "internationally recognized provocation" that Secretary of State Alexander Haig said would be necessary to obtain American support for an Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Secretary Haig's critics have accused him of "greenlighting" the Israeli Invasion of Lebanon in June 1982. Haig denies this and says he urged restraint. In the biography of ceasefire broker Philip Habib, Alexander Haig is cited as leaving the worst impression of all in the lead up to Israel's Lebanon invasion:


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: Haig thus comes off very badly: not a team player, not able to keep the rest of the administration informed of what was going on beforehand, not willing to tell anyone in the White House why Sharon was so confident during the invasion, hoping that Reagan's special envoy would fail in his mission, and having little sense of what the national security of the United States required—which was not a confrontation between Israeli and Soviet tanks on the road from Beirut to Damascus.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: The American reaction was that they would not apply any undue pressure on Israel to quit Lebanon as the Israeli presence in Lebanon may prove to be a catalyst for the disparate groups of Lebanon to make common cause against both Syrian and Israeli forces. Haig's analysis, which Ronald Reagan agreed with, was that this uniting of Lebanese groups would allow President Elias Sarkis to reform the Lebanese central Government and give the Palestinian refugees Lebanese citizenship. Additional evidence that the United States approved the Israeli invasion comes from longtime CIA analyst Charles Cogan, who says that he was in the room during a May 1982 meeting in The Pentagon during which Sharon explained to Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger "in great detail how the Israelis were going to invade Lebanon ... Weinberger just sat there and said "nothing"."


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: According to Avi Shlaim, the real driving force behind the Israeli invasion to Lebanon was the defense minister Ariel Sharon. One of his aims was the destruction of PLO military infrastructure in Lebanon and undermining it as a political organization, in order to facilitate the absorption of the West Bank by Israel. The second aim was the establishment of the Maronite government in Lebanon, headed by Bashir Gemayel and signing the peace treaty between two countries, the third aim was the expelling of the Syrian Army from Lebanon. Also, according to Shlaim, with the completion of Israeli withdrawals from Sinai in March 1982, under the terms of the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty, the Likud-led government of Israel hardened its attitude to the Arab world and became more aggressive.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: According to Zeev Maoz in "Defending the Holy Land: A Critical Analysis of Israel's National Security and Foreign Policy" the goals of the war were primarily developed by then Minister of Defense Ariel Sharon and were fourfold:


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: 4) "Sign a peace treaty with the Lebanese government that would solidify the informal Israeli-Christian alliance and convert it into a binding agreement." George Ball testified before the U.S: Senate's Foreign Affairs Committee that Sharon's long-term strategy, as revealed in conversations, was one of "squeezing the Palestinians out of the West Bank . .allowing only enough of them to remain for work."


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: The military plan with the code name "Big Pines", prepared by IDF, envisaged invasion to Lebanon up to the highway Damascus-Beirut and linking with Maronite forces. It was first presented to Israeli cabinet on 20 December 1981 by Begin, but rejected by the majority of ministers. According to Avi Shlaim, Sharon and chief of staff Rafael Eitan, realizing that there was no chance in persuading the cabinet to approve a large-scale operation in Lebanon, adopted a different tactic and intended to implement "Operation Big Pines" in stages by manipulating enemy provocations and Israeli responses.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: On 3 June 1982 Israel's ambassador to the United Kingdom, Shlomo Argov was shot and seriously wounded in London by militants belonging to the Iraqi-backed Abu Nidal militant organization. The attack was ordered by the Iraqi Intelligence Service. Following the attack, the assassins drove to the Iraqi embassy in London, where they deposited the weapon. In his memoirs, Sharon stated that the attack was "merely the spark that lit the fuse". Israeli prime Minister Begin used this as the "internationally recognized provocation" necessary to invade Lebanon. The fact that the Abu Nidal organization was the longtime rival of PLO, that its head was condemned to death by the PLO court, and that the British police reported that PLO leaders were on the "hit list" of the attackers did not deter Begin. Iraq's motives for the assassination attempt may have been to punish Israel for its destruction of Iraq's nuclear reactor in June 1981, and to provoke a war in Lebanon that Iraqi leaders calculated would be detrimental to the rival Ba'ath regime in Syria—whether Syria intervened to help the PLO or not!


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: At the Israeli Cabinet meeting the following day, both Begin and Eitan belittled intelligence reports that the likely culprit was the Abu Nidal group. Begin cut short his own advisor on terrorism, arguing that all Palestinian militants were members of the PLO, while Eitan ridiculed the intelligence staff for splitting hairs and demanded to strike at the PLO. Yet Abu Nidal had broken with Arafat and PLO in 1974 over a fundamental principle: namely, that the Palestinian national movement would adopt a phased piecemeal approach to secure a Palestinian state and embark on a political path. The lack of understanding of the difference between Palestinian groups and the total ignorance of Palestinian politics on the part an overwhelming majority of Israelis and Jews played into the hands of those who did not wish to distinguish between the PLO and the Abu Nidal group. Thus, instead of an initiative to locate the Abu Nidal group in Damascus or Baghdad, the plan to invade Lebanon was activated.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: The PLO denied complicity in the attack, but Israel retaliated with punishing air and artillery strikes against Palestinian targets in Lebanon, including the PLO camps. Sabra and the Shatila refugee camp were bombed for four hours and the local "Gaza" hospital was hit there. About 200 people were killed during these attacks. The PLO hit back firing rockets at northern Israel causing considerable damage and some loss of life. According to another source, twenty villages were targeted in Galilee and 3 Israelis were wounded.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: According to Shlaim, Yasser Arafat, at that time being in Saudi Arabia, told the Americans through the Saudis that he was willing to suspend cross-border shelling. But that message was disregarded by the Israeli government. President Reagan also sent a message to Begin urging him not to widen the attack.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: A Mossad document declassified in 2022 revealed that planning for the invasion began in mid-1981 and that the Lebanese Christian leader Pierre Gemayel was informed of it in January 1982. According to the document, Israel's Lebanon policy was mostly dictated by the military rather than the government.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: On 6 June 1982, Israeli forces under direction of Defense Minister Ariel Sharon launched a three-pronged invasion of southern Lebanon in "Operation Peace for Galilee". Roughly 60,000 troops and more than 800 tanks, heavily supported by aircraft, attack helicopters, artillery, and missile boats, crossed the Israel–Lebanon border in three areas. Simultaneously, Israeli armor, paratroopers, and naval commandos set sail in amphibious landing ships from Ashdod towards the Lebanese coast north of Sidon. Israel's publicly stated objective was to push PLO forces back to the north.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: The westernmost Israeli force was to advance up the coastal road to Tyre. Its mission was to bypass Tyre and destroy three PLO camps in the area, then move up the coast towards Sidon and Damour, while Israeli forces would simultaneously conduct an amphibious landing north of Sidon to cut off the retreat of PLO forces there. In the center, two divisions were to advance both north and south of the high ground overlooked by Beaufort Castle, which was being used as a PLO stronghold, and take the road junction at Nabatieh, while an elite reconnaissance battalion was to take the castle itself. The two divisions were then to split, with one heading west to link up with the forces along the coast, and another towards Jezzine and from there along the right flank of Syrian forces in the Bekaa Valley. The easternmost Israeli force, the largest of the three, advanced into the Bekaa Valley. Its mission was to prevent Syrian reinforcements from being sent and to stop Syrian forces from attempting to interfere with the operation on the coastal road.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: The advance along the coastal road was preceded by heavy artillery bombardment and airstrikes, but quickly became bogged down and was soon behind schedule. The narrowness of the road forced a slow advance, and Israeli armor became stuck in a large traffic jam. Several armored vehicles were knocked out by PLO fighters with anti-tank weaponry hiding in three groves along the road. One of the lead battalions, which was supposed to bypass Tyre and establish a blocking position to the north of the city, made a wrong turn and found itself in the center of the city, where it was ambushed. At eight in the evening the force finally crossed the Litani River and headed towards Sidon. In the central sector, the mission went as planned. The two Israeli divisions bypassed Beaufort Castle on both sides. Although an order to postpone the capture of Beaufort Castle was issued, it did not reach Israeli forces in time to prevent the operation, and Israeli troops of the Golani Brigade captured the castle in the fiercely-fought Battle of the Beaufort. The road junction at Nabatieh was also secured by the end of the first day. Meanwhile, the easternmost force penetrated into the Bekaa Valley and bore down on the Syrian positions. One division bypassed Mount Hermon via a road bulldozed by Israeli military engineers and cleared the town of Hasbaiya before swinging right and advancing towards Rachaiya. Though Israeli forces halted in the floor of the valley, they were flanking Syrian forces from the east and west. The Syrians put up minimal resistance and conducted some harassing artillery fire. By the end of the first day, the operation had gone almost entirely according to plan, though the advance along the coastal road was behind schedule.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: Despite the delays, the Israeli advance along the coastal road continued steadily. This advance was supported by heavy air attacks against PLO positions that included the use of cluster bombs. Israeli missile boats also employed 76mm cannons to destroy targets along the coast, firing 3,500 shells during ten days of fighting. Israeli armor continued to advance towards Sidon, while other Israeli infantry attacked the three Palestinian refugee camps in the area that were used as PLO bases: Rashidiya, Burj ash-Shamali, and al-Bass. The camps were all crisscrossed with networks of bunkers, trenches, and firing positions. The Israelis took each camp section by section using the same method: warnings were blared by loudspeaker urging civilians to leave, before air and artillery bombardment commenced, followed by an infantry assault. Israeli infantry had to engage in fierce urban combat in narrow streets. The PLO defenders put up strong resistance and sometimes used civilians as human shields. It took four days of combat to secure Rashidiya and three days to secure the other two camps. At the same time, an Israeli amphibious operation was conducted north of Sidon, beginning with a diversionary bombardment of targets away from the landing zone by missile boats and aircraft. Two groups of commandos from the Shayetet 13 naval commando unit then came ashore to probe enemy defenses and secure the landing site, one of which swam to the mouth of the Awali River and another which came ashore on the landing beach in rubber dinghies. After a brief gunbattle with armed Palestinians, the main landings began, with paratroopers coming ashore in rubber dinghies to establish a beachhead followed by three landing craft that unloaded troops and armor. Over the following days, the three landing ships would run between Israel and Lebanon, shuttling more troops and armor onto the beachhead. The PLO response was limited to ineffective mortar fire, while Israeli missile boats and aircraft attacked Palestinian positions in response, and in total, about 2,400 soldiers and 400 tanks and armored personnel carriers were landed. From the beach, these forces advanced on Sidon, supported by naval gunfire from missile boats. At the same time, Israeli forces in the central sector advanced towards Jezzine while those in the eastern sector remained in place, but began setting up heavy artillery positions that put Syrian SAM units in artillery range.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: Meanwhile, Israeli forces advancing along the coastal road reached the outskirts of Sidon, but were delayed by heavy resistance in the main streets and the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp on the southeastern edge of the city, and after an attempt by paratroopers to capture the city center and secure the south–north route through the city failed, the city was bypassed via a detour through the hills to the east. After linking up with the forces that had landed north of Sidon, while another force of paratroopers and armor with heavy air and artillery support advanced through central Sidon and cleared a south–north route through the city in fierce fighting. Another Israeli division passed through the city to link up with the forces north of Sidon.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: In the center, most Israeli forces advancing towards Jezzine bypassed the town to continue advancing towards the main highway in the area, leaving a blocking force in the area that was soon joined by an armored brigade. Fighting broke out in Jezzine between the Israelis and Syrian forces holding the town. In the Battle of Jezzine, Israeli forces consisting of two tank battalions supported by a reconnaissance company and engineering platoon took Jezzine in a fierce daylong battle against a Syrian battalion, then repulsed a fierce counterattack by dozens of Syrian commandos during the night in combat that lasted until dawn. Meanwhile, Israeli forces continued to advance along the Syrians' right flank.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: Israeli forces advancing along the coast also completed the capture of Sidon. Paratroopers attacked the Kasbah while a combined force of Golani Brigade infantry and tanks attacked Ain al-Hilweh. The Kasbah was secured in three days; the paratroopers advanced cautiously and managed to take it without suffering any casualties. However, the fighting at Ain al-Hilweh was to prove some of the fiercest of the entire war. The camp was heavily fortified and defended by PLO fighters and Islamic fundamentalists. The defenders fought fiercely over every alley and house, with civilians who wanted to surrender shot by the fundamentalists. The Israeli advance was slow and was supported by massive air and artillery bombardment. The IDF employed its previous tactics of urging civilians to leave with loudspeakers before attacking an area. It took about eight days for the camp to fall, with the battle culminating in a last stand by the defenders at the camp mosque, which was blown up by the IDF.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: In an effort to establish air superiority and greater freedom of action, the Israeli Air Force launched Operation Mole Cricket 19 on 9 June. During the course of the operation, the Israeli Air Force scored a dramatic victory over the Syrians, shooting down 29 Syrian planes and also destroying 17 Syrian anti-aircraft missile batteries, employing electronic warfare methods to confuse and jam the Syrian radars. The Israelis' only known losses were a single UAV shot down and two fighter jets damaged. Later that night, an Israeli air attack destroyed a Syrian armored brigade moving south from Baalbek, and the IAF attacked and destroyed six more Syrian SAM batteries the following day. The easternmost Israeli force, which had been stationary, resumed its advance forward up the Bekaa Valley.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: In the center, Israeli forces were ambushed by the Syrians as they approached Ain Zhalta, and were pinned down by Syrian forces firing from superior positions. The Israelis were bogged down, and an infantry battalion was sent in by helicopter to reinforce them. The town was only captured after a two-day armored and infantry battle. The battle cost the Israelis 11 killed and 4 tanks, while the Syrians lost approximately 100 killed and 35 tanks. After Ain Zhalta fell, the Israelis advanced to the town of Ain Dara, which overlooked the Beirut-Damascus highway, and captured the heights overlooking the town. Along the road to Ain Dara, the Israelis encountered Syrian tank and commando units, and found themselves bogged down as the Syrians took advantage of the terrain. The Israelis called in air support, and Israeli attack helicopters that took advantage of ravines to fly in low beneath their targets to gain an element of surprise proved particularly effective against Syrian tanks. After a daylong battle, the Israelis had surrounded Ain Dara and were in a position to strike on the highway.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: On 10 June 1982, the Israeli air force mistook a column of IDF Nahal Brigade forces for a Syrian commando unit. An IAF F-4 Phantom attacked the Battalion 931, advancing in open APCs in south-eastern Lebanon with cluster ammunition. The unit suffered 24 fatalities and 108 wounded, with a further 30 soldiers shell-shocked.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: In the east, Israeli forces advanced along four main routes towards Joub Jannine, along both sides of the Qaraoun reservoir. The Syrians resisted fiercely. Syrian infantrymen armed with anti-tank weapons staged ambushes against Israeli tanks, and Syrian Gazelle helicopters armed with HOT missiles proved effective against Israeli armor. However, the Israelis managed to capture the valley floor, and the Syrians retreated. The Israelis captured Rachaiya, advanced through Kfar Quoq, and took the outskirts of Yanta. Joub Jannine also fell to the Israelis. The extent of Israeli advances ensured that Syrian reinforcements were blocked from deploying west of the Qaraoun reservoir. An Israeli armored battalion then probed past Joub Jannine to the town of Sultan Yacoub, and was ambushed by Syrian forces lying in wait. In the Battle of Sultan Yacoub, the Israelis fought fiercely to extricate themselves, and called in reinforcements and artillery fire to cover the withdrawal. After six hours, the Israelis managed to retreat, having lost 10 tanks and 3 armored personnel carriers. In addition, another major air battle erupted in which the Israeli Air Force shot down 25 Syrian jets and 4 helicopters.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: To the west, as IDF troops mopped up remaining resistance in Tyre and Sidon, the Israeli advance on Beirut continued, and Syrian tank and commando units were then deployed south of Beirut to reinforce the PLO. When the Israelis reached the Beirut suburb of Kafr Sill, they met a joint Syrian-PLO force for the first time, and fought a difficult battle to take it. The IDF temporarily halted its advance in the western sector at Kafr Sill.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: On 11 June, Israel and Syria announced that they had agreed to a cease-fire at noon, which would not include the PLO. The cease-fire was to come into effect at noon. Just before the cease-fire was to take effect, the Syrians moved a column of T-72 tanks so as to position it against Israeli forces in the valley. Israeli infantry teams armed with BGM-71 TOW anti-tank missiles ambushed the Syrian column, destroying 11 tanks. Another air battle also occurred, with the Israelis shooting down 18 more Syrian jets.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: The Israeli advance on Beirut pressed forward in the west, reaching Khalde on 11 June. Six miles south of Beirut, the town was the last PLO position in front of Beirut Airport. The PLO fighters, led by Abdullah Siyam, fought a rearguard action which held up the Israeli advance for six days. Siyam was killed in the fighting. The Israelis, who stood on the outskirts of Beirut, advanced towards the airport, and engaged in frequent combat with PLO and Syrian units as Israeli warplanes continued to bomb PLO positions in Beirut. The PLO's situation gradually grew worse as the Israeli advance gained ground, threatening to trap the PLO and a Syrian brigade deployed with them in the city. With the Israelis advancing on the south and the eastern sector of Beirut held by Lebanese Christian forces, the only way out was on the Beirut-Damascus highway, and the Israelis were building up forces at Ain Dara in the eastern sector, which were in a position to strike at the highway and block any PLO attempt to escape. On 12 June, the Israeli-Syrian cease-fire was extended to the PLO. As the Israeli advance halted, the Israelis turned their attention to the zone they already occupied in southern Lebanon, and began a policy to root out any PLO remnants. Israeli troops began searches for arms caches, and suspected PLO members were systematically rounded up and screened, and taken to a detention camp on the Amoun Heights.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: On 13 June, less than twelve hours after the Israeli-PLO ceasefire had gone into effect, it fell apart, and heavy fighting erupted around Khalde. As the fighting raged, an IDF armored unit struck northeast, attempting to bypass Khalde and advance on Baabda, which overlooked the airport and could be used as another staging point to cut the Beirut-Damascus highway. By 14 June, Syrian forces were being deployed to Khalde. Syrian units in Beirut and three commando battalions armed with anti-tank weaponry took up defensive positions southwest of the airport to block any Israeli attempt to capture it. The Israelis attempted to flank these defenses by moving off the road past Shuweifat, up a narrow, steep, and winding road towards Baabda, but were ambushed by a Syrian commando battalion. The Syrians attacked Israeli armor with rocket-propelled grenades and anti-tank missiles at close range. Israeli infantry dismounted and engaged the Syrians. Fierce fighting took place, with the Israelis calling in artillery at very close range to themselves. The Israelis advanced relentlessly, and after fourteen hours of fierce combat that raged up through Ain Aanoub and Souq el-Gharb, they broke through the Syrian positions and entered Baabda. The IDF then immediately sent reinforcements to the column in Baabda to enable it to carry out further operations. From Baabda, the Israeli force split into three columns, one of which struck across the highway and entered the mountainous area to the northeast, one swung west and took up positions in the steep hills west of Beirut, and one turned toward Kahale, which was further down the highway. To the south, the IDF drove PLO forces out of Shuweifat, but no major battles occurred. The Israelis had now cut the Beirut-Damascus highway, cutting off all PLO and Syrian forces in the city.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: On 15 June, Israel offered free passage to all Syrian forces in Beirut if they would withdraw from the city to the Bekaa Valley in the east, but the Syrian government refused and sent further reinforcements to its units along the highway and north of the highway near Beirut. The Israelis faced Syrian strongpoints reinforced by armor and artillery all along the highway. However, between 16 June and 22 June, the fighting was limited to artillery duels and minor firefights between Israeli and Syrian forces, as both sides reinforced their troops.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: As the two sides prepared for combat, the IDF deemed capturing the Beirut-Damascus highway to be of critical importance. With the Syrians in control of most of the highway, occupying the towns along the highway and to the north, the Israelis could not prevent Syrian and PLO forces from escaping or launch further operations into Beirut without risking a Syrian flanking attack, and the Israelis also wanted a clear transit to Christian-held eastern Beirut.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: On 22 June, the IDF launched an operation to capture the highway. The Israeli Air Force flew highly effective missions against Syrian positions and vehicles, with Israeli pilots reporting 130 enemy vehicles destroyed in a single air attack alone. Israeli long-range artillery targeted Syrian strongpoints to the north. Israeli armored forces with artillery support attacked Syrian positions along the highway, with the objective of driving them from the highway all the way back to the edge of the Bekaa Valley. With air and artillery support mostly limited to targets north of the highway, the fighting was fierce, especially to the south. By the end of the day, Israel accepted an American request for a cease-fire and halted its offensive, but the cease-fire collapsed the following day and the fighting resumed. As the Israelis pushed forward, and managed to trap a large Syrian force, Syrian defenses began to collapse. For the first time in the war, Syrian troops began to break and run. At Aley, which was defended by Iranian volunteers sent to fight for the PLO, the Israelis encountered fierce resistance.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: The Israelis managed to push to the eastern Bekaa Valley, and on 24 June, began to shell the outskirts of Chtaura, which was at the northern mouth of the Bekaa Valley and served as headquarters of all Syrian forces there. It was also the last major obstacle before the Syrian border, as well as Syria's capital Damascus itself. The Israelis managed to reach the mountain pass near the village of Dahr el-Baidar, which was the last obstacle before Cthaura. The Syrians fought fiercely to hold the pass, and the Israeli advance halted, with the Israelis holding their ground and harassing the Syrians with artillery fire. By 25 June, with the remaining Syrian positions on and north of the highway no longer tenable, the Syrians withdrew. The Israelis allowed the withdrawal to occur but conducted artillery harassment and continued to shell the outskirts of Chtaura. The Syrians attempted to deploy a SAM battery in the Bekaa Valley at midnight, but Israeli intelligence detected this, and the battery was destroyed in an Israeli air attack. By the end of the day, a cease-fire was announced. The Israelis stopped at their present positions.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: The Siege of Beirut had begun on 14 June: Israeli forces had completed the encirclement of the city the previous day. The Israelis chose to keep the city under siege rather than forcibly capture it, as they were unwilling to accept the heavy casualties that the heavy street fighting required to capture the city would have resulted in. Israeli forces bombarded targets within Beirut from land, sea, and air, and attempted to assassinate Palestinian leaders through airstrikes. The Israeli Navy maintained a blockade on the port of Beirut with a ring of missile boats and patrol boats supported by submarines. The siege lasted until August, when an agreement was reached in August 1982. More than 14,000 PLO combatants evacuated the country in August and September, supervised by the Multinational Force in Lebanon, an international peacekeeping force with troops from the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Italy. About 6,500 Fatah fighters relocated from Beirut to Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, both North and South Yemen, Greece, and Tunisia—the latter of which became the new PLO headquarters. Israel withdrew its forces from west Beirut on 29 September, officially ending Operation Peace for Galilee. Philip Habib, Ronald Reagan's envoy to Lebanon, provided an understanding (i.e., assurance) to the PLO that the Palestinian civilians in the refugee camps would not be harmed. However, increased hostilities against the US resulted in the April 1983 United States Embassy bombing. In response, the US brokered the May 17 Agreement, in an attempt to stall hostilities between Israel and Lebanon. However, this agreement eventually failed to take shape, and hostilities continued. These attacks were attributed to Iranian-backed Islamist guerrillas. Following this incident, international peacekeeping forces were withdrawn from Lebanon.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: Following the departure of the PLO and international peacekeepers, Islamist militants began launching guerrilla attacks against Israeli forces. Suicide bombings were a particularly popular tactic, the most serious being the Tyre headquarters bombings, which twice devastated IDF headquarters in Tyre, and killed 103 Israeli soldiers, border policemen, and Shin Bet agents, as well as 49–56 Lebanese. The IDF subsequently withdrew from the Shouf Mountains but continued occupying Lebanon south of the Awali River.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: An increased number of Islamic militias began operating in South Lebanon, launching guerrilla attacks on Israeli positions and on pro-Israeli Lebanese militias. Israeli forces often responded with increased security measures and airstrikes on militant positions, and casualties on all sides steadily climbed. In a vacuum left with eradication of PLO, the disorganized Islamic militants in South Lebanon began to consolidate. The emerging Hezbollah, soon to become the preeminent Islamic militia, evolved during this period. However, scholars disagree as to when Hezbollah came to be regarded as a distinct entity. Over time, a number of Shi'a group members were slowly assimilated into the organization, such as Islamic Jihad members, Organization of the Oppressed on Earth, and the Revolutionary Justice Organization.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: In February 1985, Israel withdrew from Sidon and turned it over to the Lebanese Army, but faced attacks: 15 Israelis were killed and 105 wounded during the withdrawal. Dozens of pro-Israeli Lebanese militiamen were also assassinated. From mid-February to mid-March, the Israelis lost 18 dead and 35 wounded. On 11 March, Israeli forces raided the town of Zrariyah, killing 40 Amal fighters and capturing a large stock of arms. On 9 April, a Shiite girl drove a car bomb into an IDF convoy, and the following day, a soldier was killed by a land mine. During that same period, Israeli forces killed 80 Lebanese guerrillas in five weeks. Another 1,800 Shi'as were taken as prisoners.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: Israel withdrew from the Bekaa valley on 24 April, and from Tyre on the 29th. In June 1985, the IDF unilaterally withdrew to a security zone in southern Lebanon along with its principal Lebanese ally, the South Lebanon Army, completing its troop withdrawal to the security zone on 5 June.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: Despite this being considered the end of the war, conflict would continue. Hezbollah continued to fight the IDF and SLA in the South Lebanon conflict until Israel's final withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: During the course of combat operations, the Israeli Air Force conducted successful ground attack missions against Syrian and PLO targets, with Israeli attack helicopters inflicting heavy losses on Syrian armor. Israeli jets shot down between 82 and 86 Syrian aircraft in aerial combat, without losses. A single Israeli A-4 Skyhawk and two helicopters were shot down by anti-aircraft fire and SAM missiles. This was the largest aerial combat battle of the jet age with over 150 fighters from both sides engaged. Syrian claims of aerial victories were met with skepticism even from their Soviet allies.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: The Soviets were so shaken by the staggering losses sustained by their allies that they dispatched the deputy head of their air defense force to Syria to examine how the Israelis had been so dominant. The Israeli Air Force also performed ground attacks, notably destroying the majority of Syrian anti-aircraft batteries stationed in Lebanon. AH-1 Cobra helicopter gunships were employed against Syrian armour and fortifications. IAF Cobras destroyed dozens of Syrian Armored fighting vehicles, including some of the modern Soviet T-72 main battle tanks.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: The war also witnessed the Israeli Merkava MBT make its first combat debut, squaring off against Syrian T-72 tanks. During these engagements, the Israelis claimed that the Merkava proved superior to the T-72, destroying a number of them without sustaining a single loss to T-72 fire. Former IAF commander, David Ivri would later recall a meeting with a high-ranking member of the Warsaw Pact, in which he was told that the dominance of Israeli and U.S. technology and tactics during the war was one of the factors that changed Soviet mind-set, leading to Glasnost and ultimately, the fall of the Soviet Union. However, defense analysts and the Syrians claimed the opposite, saying that their T-72s were highly effective and that none were lost. The T-72 tanks of the Syrian 2nd Armored Division were credited with not only halting the advance of an Israeli armored brigade on Rashaya on 10 June but pushing them back. They tallied the destruction of 33 tanks and the capture of an M60 Patton, which was sent to Damascus and thence transported to Moscow. Syrian tanks saw similar success against Israeli armor in Ain Zhalta and Sultan Yacoub in fighting on 8–10 June, stemming their advance to capture the Beirut-Damascus highway.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: On 14 September 1982, Bachir Gemayel, the newly elected President of Lebanon, was assassinated by Habib Shartouni of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party. Israeli forces occupied West Beirut the next day. At that time, the Lebanese Christian Militia, also known as the Phalangists, were allied with Israel. The Israeli command authorized the entrance of a force of approximately 150 Phalangist fighters' into Sabra and the Shatila refugee camp. Shatila had previously been one of the PLO's three main training camps for foreign militants and the main training camp for European militants; the Israelis maintained that 2,000 to 3,000 terrorists remained in the camps, but were unwilling to risk the lives of more of their soldiers after the Lebanese army repeatedly refused to "clear them out." Between 460 and 3,500 civilians, mostly Palestinians and Lebanese Shiites were massacred by the Phalangists, who themselves suffered only two casualties. The Lebanese army's chief prosecutor investigated the killings and counted 460 dead, Israeli intelligence estimated 700–800 dead, and the Palestinian Red Crescent claimed 2,000 dead. 1,200 death certificates were issued to anyone who produced three witnesses claiming a family member disappeared during the time of the massacre. Nearly all of the victims were men. Israeli troops surrounded the camps with tanks and checkpoints, monitoring entrances and exits. Further, Israeli investigation by the Kahan Commission of Inquiry found that Ariel Sharon bore "personal responsibility" for failing to prevent the massacre, and for failing to act once he learned of the massacre. The Commission recommended that he be removed as Defense Minister and that he never hold a position in any future Israeli government. Sharon initially ignored the call to resign, but after the death of an anti-war protester, resigned as Israel's Defense Minister, remaining in Begin's cabinet as a Minister without portfolio.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: The 1982 Lebanon War was at first a conventional war up to and including when the PLO were expelled from Beirut. The war was limited by both Israel and Syria because they were determined to isolate the fighting, not allowing it to turn into an all-out war. Israeli forces were numerically superior, allowing Israel to maintain both the initiative and an element of surprise. The Syrian Army fielded six divisions and 500 aircraft, while Israel used five divisions and two brigades, plus 600 aircraft. There were numerous other factions involved.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: IDF forces totalled 78,000 men, 1,240 tanks and 1,500 armoured personnel carriers. IDF troops were deployed in five divisions and two reinforced brigade-size units. The IDF maintained additional forces on the Golan Heights as an area reserve. IDF forces were divided into three main axis of advances called sectors:


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: The largest concentration was in the Bekaa Valley where the 1st Armoured Division consisting of the 58th Mechanised and the 76th and 91st Armoured Brigades. The 62nd Independent Armored Brigade and ten commando battalions were also assigned to the division. Syria deployed around 400 tanks in the Bekaa Valley. 19 surface-to-air missile batteries, including SA6's, were also deployed in the Bekaa Valley.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: In Beirut and the Shouf Mountains were the 85th Infantry Brigade, the PLA, As-Sa'iqa and 20 commando battalions. Syria deployed around 200 tanks in this area. Their primary mission was to protect the Beirut-Damascus Highway, which was Syria's primary supply line in the region.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: Lebanese Army – By 1982 the Lebanese Army had largely disintegrated and what was left was a Christian-staffed force of about 10,000 men in five brigades (the 5th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th) plus some smaller independent units. The Lebanese Army was officially neutral and followed the orders of the Lebanese government, but provided tacit and active support to the Lebanese Front. The Army had lost much of its heavy equipment due to defections of its units.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: A Lebanese national army unit of 1,350 was under the operational control of the UNIFIL commander, HQ located at Arzun with sub-units attached to UNIFIL Battalions.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: Lebanese Navy: The mostly Christian manned force operated several patrol boats and was loyal to the government. It played little or no part in the war.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: Lebanese Air Force: This largely Christian force operated a force of jet fighters, helicopters and other aircraft and it too played little part in the war.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: Palestinian Liberation Organization forces continued to grow in Lebanon, with full-time military personnel numbering around 15,000 fedayeen, although only 6,000 of these – including 4,500 regulars – deployed in the south. They were armed with 80 aging tanks, many of them no longer mobile, and with 100 to 200 pieces of artillery. According to Israeli analysts Schiff and Ya'ari (1984), the PLO more than quadrupled its artillery from 80 cannons and rocket launchers in July 1981 to 250 in June 1982. The same authors also refer to Israeli intelligence estimates of the number of PLO fighters in southern Lebanon of 6,000 as


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: divided into three concentrations; about 1,500 south of the Litani River in the so-called Iron Triangle (between the villages of Kana, Dir Amas, and Juya), Tyre, and its surrounding refugee camps; another 2,500 of the Kastel Brigade in three districts between the Litani and a line running from Sidon to northeast of Nabatiye; and a third large concentration of about 1,500–2,000 men of the Karameh Brigade in the east, on the slopes of Mount Hermon.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: PLO primary forces consisted of three conventional brigades – each of 2,000 to 2,500 men – and of seven artillery battalions. Each brigade comprised contingents of the many PLO factions. The Yarmouk Brigade was stationed along the coastal strip while the Kastel Brigade was in the south. The Karameh Brigade was stationed on the eastern slopes of Mount Hermon in the area called Fatahland.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: The PLO had around 15,000 to 18,000 fighters (of whom about 5,000 to 6,000 were alleged to be foreign mercenaries (or volunteers) from such countries as Libya, Iraq, India, Sri Lanka, Chad and Mozambique) deployed as follows:


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: Heavy weapons consisted of about 60 T-34, T-54 and T-55 tanks (most of them dug in as pillboxes), up to 250 130mm and 155 mm artillery, many BM21 Katyusha multiple-rocket launchers plus heavy mortars.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: Palestinian groups in the radical Rejectionist Front fought on the Muslim-leftist side. The alliance did nothing to improve cooperation between member factions, and internecine bloodshed continued. The following were members of the Rejectionist Front:


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: Some, such as As-Sa'iqa, the Arab Liberation Front, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) were essentially mercenary armies for foreign governments (Syria, Iraq, and Libya, respectively).


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: The Christian Lebanese Front, was a coalition of mainly Christian parties formed in 1976, during the Lebanese Civil War. It was intended to act as a counter force to the Lebanese National Movement (LNM) of Kamal Jumblatt and others. Combined Lebanese Front forces totalled about 30,000 fighting men and women. These forces were mostly Phalangist, though there were some men from Saad Haddad's "Free Lebanon forces" and other smaller right-wing militias, including al-Tanzim.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, or UNIFIL, was created by the United Nations, with the adoption of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 425 and the United Nations Security Council Resolution 426 on 19 March 1978, to confirm Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon which Israel had invaded five days prior, restore international peace and security, and help the Government of Lebanon restore its effective authority in the area. The first UNIFIL troops were deployed in the area on 23 March 1978; these troops were reassigned from other UN peacekeeping operations in the area (namely the United Nations Emergency Force and the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force Zone). During the 1982 Lebanon War, UN positions were overrun, primarily by the South Lebanon Army forces under Saad Haddad.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: By the end of the first week, 14 June 1982, International Red Cross and Lebanese police figures claimed that 9,583 had died and 16,608 injured. By the end of the second week, they claimed up to 14,000 people died and 20,000 were injured, mostly civilians.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: During the Siege of Beirut, by late August 1982, Lebanese sources put the death toll in Beirut at 6,776. This figure included victims of the 4 June 1982, bombing, which occurred two days before the operation officially started. Lebanese police and international doctors serving in Beirut put the number of civilian casualties at about 80%. According to American military analyst Richard Gabriel, all factions in the conflicts agree that between 4,000 and 5,000 civilians died during the siege caused by military activity of all sides. He states that most of the observers that were present on the ground and other relevant sources in Lebanon agree that estimates of 8,000–10,000 are too high.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: Accurate numbers of total casualties are hard to estimate, due to "[t]he chaos of warfare, the destruction of city neighborhoods and refugee camps, the haste with which bodies were buried in mass graves and the absence of impartial agencies". Many officials in Beirut, including those of the International Red Cross, claimed that the number of deaths were extremely difficult to estimate correctly. At least one official from a relief organization claimed that in the South about 80% of deaths were civilian and only 20% military.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: In early September 1982, the independent Beirut newspaper "An Nahar" published an estimate of deaths from hospital and police records covering the period from 6 June to 31 August 1982. It claimed that 17,285 people were killed: 5,515 people, both military and civilian, in the Beirut area; and 2,513 civilians, as well as 9,797 military forces, including PLO and Syrians, outside of the Beirut area.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: The Lebanese authorities gave a figure of 19,085 killed and 30,000 wounded with combatants accounting for 57% of the dead and civilians 43% in 1982. They do not include the estimated 800–3,500 killed in the Sabra and Shatila massacre.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: Richard Gabriel estimated that roughly 2,400 PLO fighters were killed during the war, of whom about 1,400 were killed throughout southern Lebanon and another 1,000 killed during the Siege of Beirut. Gabriel also estimated that between 5,000 and 8,000 civilians died during the war. Some later estimates have put the total figure at 18–19,000 killed and more than 30,000 wounded, most of them civilians. 80% of villages in South Lebanon were damaged, with some completely destroyed. The Israeli government maintained that about 1,000 Palestinian fighters and 800 Lebanese civilians died during the invasion, excluding the siege of Beirut. Anthony Tucker-Jones estimated that about 1,500 PLO fighters were killed. Kenneth Pollack estimated that 1,200 Syrian soldiers were killed and about 3,000 wounded during the war.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: According to Israeli figures, Israeli losses in Operation Peace for Galilee were 368 dead and 2,383 wounded, from 6 June until 10 October. The highest ranking IDF casualty of the war was Brigadier General Yekutiel Adam, who was Deputy Chief of Staff of the IDF and had been appointed to be the next Director-General of the Mossad. He was killed by a Palestinian fighter while seeking protection in a house in Dawha, near Damour, during a mortar attack. Other Israeli fatalities included one Colonel, two Lieutenant Colonels; 19 Majors, 28 Captains, 46 Lieutenants, 132 Sergeants, 90 Corporals, and 49 Privates. According to Kenneth Pollack, Israeli losses in action against the Syrians were 195 dead and 872 wounded. 130 Israeli tanks were destroyed or damaged by the Syrians, as were 175 APCs.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: The IDF's total casualties in the First Lebanon War from June 1982 to June 1985 amounted 654 killed and 3,887


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: The IDF continued to occupy a substantial part of Lebanon even after the withdrawal to security zone in June 1985. Resistance continued and IDF losses continued to mount. By the time IDF withdrew from Lebanon in May 2000 the total number of IDF fatalities had reached 1,216 killed since June 1982.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: IDF lost six soldiers as Missing in action in the Battle of Sultan Yacoub. Two prisoners and the bodies of another two were later returned to Israel but two soldiers remain missing.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: Palestinian factions captured 11 IDF soldiers during the war, including one of the soldiers missing from Sultan Yaacoub, an Israeli air force pilot in the Beaufort battle, a soldier during the Siege of Beirut and eight soldiers in the raid on an IDF observation post in Bhamdoun. All eleven prisoners were subsequently released in prisoner exchanges.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: Israeli civilian casualties from cross-border shelling numbered 9–10 killed and at least 248 wounded between June 1982 and 1999.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: In September 1982, the PLO withdrew most of its forces from Lebanon. With U.S. assistance, Israel and Lebanon reached an accord in May 1983, that set the stage to withdraw Israeli forces from Lebanon while letting them patrol a "security zone" together with the Lebanese Army.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: The instruments of ratification were never exchanged, however, and in March 1984, under pressure from Syria, Lebanon cancelled the agreement.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: In January 1985, Israel started to withdraw most of its troops, leaving a small residual Israeli force and an Israeli-supported militia, the South Lebanon Army in southern Lebanon in a "security zone", which Israel considered a necessary buffer against attacks on its northern territory. The Israeli withdrawal to the security zone ended in June 1985. Israel withdrew fully from Lebanon in 2000.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: The political vacuum resulting from the 1985 Israeli withdrawal would eventually lead to the "de facto" Syrian occupation of Lebanon. Syria would gain much more power over Lebanon than what it enjoyed before 1982, but it would no longer align with the PLO. In the War of the Camps that followed the Israeli withdrawal, Syria fought their former Palestinian allies.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: Following Arafat's decision of June 1982, by September 1982, the PLO had withdrawn most of its forces from West Beirut. Syria backed the anti-Arafat PLO forces of Abu Musa in the Beka valley from May 1983. When Arafat castigated the Syrian government for blocking PLO supplies in June 1983, the Syrian government declared Arafat a "persona non-grata" on 24 June 1983.


title: 1982 Lebanon War

text: With the withdrawal of the PLO leadership from Tripoli in December 1983 there was an Egyptian-PLO rapprochement, this was found to be encouraging by the Reagan administration but was condemned by the Israeli government.