The 2006 Lebanon-Israel war was not the first time in recent history that Lebanon has been mired in violence. Between 1975 and the early 1990s a civil war between the country’s Christian, Sunni and Shiite population killed up to 100,000 people and left much of the country and its economy in ruins. The civil war ‘ended’ only with a peace imposed by Syria’s army.

The period of peace and rebuilding that followed was shattered on July 12, 2006 when Israel launched a major land, sea and air offensive after Hezbollah, the country’s powerful Shiite militia, seized two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid.

Israel’s bombing campaign killed over one thousand Lebanese and crippled the country. The airport was bombed making it unusable and all main highways and bridges leading to Beirut were bombed making them impassable. Hezbollah responded with rocket attacks on northern Israel, killing at least 43 civilians.

A UN-brokered ceasefire came into force on 14 August, 2006 with Israeli troops still in position in south Lebanon. The war devastated Lebanon. News sources recorded about 1,100 civilian deaths, thousands of others left homeless and about 900,000 forced to flee their homes. According to government figures, the total cost of rebuilding infrastructure and compensating those who have lost their houses is estimated at $1.75 billion.

Though largely on the sidelines of the Hezbollah-Israel war, Palestinians have not been spared. Lebanon hosts an estimated 400,000 Palestinian refugees, descendants of those who left what is now Israel, plus a dwindling population of refugees who fled or were forced from their homes in 1948-49. These make up a minority of the global Palestinian population, but their predicament has perhaps been the harshest of the whole Diaspora.

Since their arrival in Lebanon nearly 50 years ago, the experience of Palestinian refugees has been one of marginalization, suffering, repression and armed violence. They were considered a threat to the Lebanese people and were treated as foreigners. Unlike Palestinian refugees elsewhere, Palestinians in Lebanon have been denied basic social and economic rights for a substantial portion of their 52 years in exile. Palestinians still are kept apart from the Lebanese population and not allowed to assimilate even if they want to. It thus came as no particular surprise to Palestinians when violence erupted in the Nahr-el bared camp in southern Lebanon in May 20.

The ghosts of 1975-90 and those of 1948-49 have most likely risen again. The fighting between the Lebanese army and the Fateh al-Islam Palestinian militant group at the besieged refugee camp has claimed at least 88 Lebanese soldiers, 60 militants and 40 civilians.