FATAHLAND

The name applied to the Arqub area of southernLebanoncontrolled by thePalestine Liberation Organization(PLO) from the late 1960s until theWar in Lebanon(1982), when much of the PLO military apparatus was forced to evacuate the country. Indeed, the name is derived fromFatah, the largest PLO faction headed byYasser Arafat. The PLO occupied the area, located in the foothills of Mount Hermon and bordered by the Hasbani River to the west andSyriato the east, when its leadership was evicted fromJordanfollowing the September 1970 civil war. Fatahland was the staging ground forterroristattacks on northern Israel throughout the 1970s, attacks that provoked massiveIsrael Defense Forcesretaliations such asOperation Litani(1978) and Operation Peace for Galilee (1982). There was also a vast network of PLO-controlled schools, nurseries, hospitals, andindustries— transforming Fatahland into a virtual "state within a state" in southern Lebanon.