Army of Free Lebanon Ibrahim Kulaylat Kamal Jumblatt George Hawi Muhsin Ibrahim Assem Qanso Inaam Raad Hagop Hagopian Yasser Arafat Zuheir Mohsen George Habash Nayef Hawatmeh Pierre Gemayel Bachir Gemayel William Hawi Camille Chamoun Dany Chamoun Etienne Saqr Tony Franjieh Obad Zouein Fawzi Mahfouz Bashir el-Khoury The Battle of the Hotels (Arabic: معركة الفنادق, Maʿrakah al-Fanādiq) was a subconflict within the 1975–77 phase of the Lebanese Civil War that occurred in the Minet-el-Hosn hotel district of downtown Beirut.

Among them were the Holiday Inn Beirut on Rue Omar Daouk, the Phoenicia Inter-Continental, the seafront Hotel St. Georges, the Melkart, the Palm Beach, the Excelsior, the Normandy and the Alcazar, some of them were high-rise towers.

The area, including the Holiday Inn, which opened in 1973, was a symbol of Lebanon's affluence in the period preceding the civil war, an icon in Beirut's rapidly growing landscape.

[2][3] The first rounds were exchanged on 23 October 1975, during the final phase of the Battle for the Kantari District, when a detachment of fighters – nicknamed the "Hawks of az-Zeidaniyya" (Arabic: صقور الزيدانية | Suqūr az-Zaydānīya, French: Faucons d'az-Zeidaniyya) – from the Al-Mourabitoun, the militia of the Independent Nasserite Movement (INM) led by Ibrahim Kulaylat occupied the empty Murr Tower[4] after they managed to dislodge its Christian Phalange Kataeb Regulatory Forces (KRF) defenders,[5] and began firing rockets and mortars from the upper floors into the Christian-held neighborhoods below.

[10][11] As a counter-move, Christian fighters of the Phalange KRF militia headed by William Hawi and Bashir Gemayel began to take positions between and around the main hotels, but quickly found themselves at a disadvantage as they were under constant observation and heavy machine gun fire from the Murr Tower.

A fierce five-day gun-battle between the INM, Phalange and NLP Tigers ensued, in which the Christian militias also attempted to retake the Murr Tower from its Muslim defenders in Kantari without success.

[14] Nevertheless, a ceasefire was called upon the belligerents by Prime Minister Rachid Karami on 29 October, in order to allow the evacuation of the staff and residents trapped in the hotels, such as the Holiday Inn, which held more than 200 people, most of them tourists.

Prime Minister Karami then tried to demilitarise the Hotel district, but the Phalangists and the NLP Tigers refused to vacate their positions at the Holiday Inn, Saint-Georges, Phoenicia Inter-Continental and neighbouring buildings until the Muslim militiamen who occupied the Murr Tower had been replaced by ISF Gendarmes.

Although Karami did manage to persuade the Al-Mourabitoun leader Ibrahim Kulaylat to withdraw his fighters from the Murr Tower, no identical move was ever made by the Phalange militiamen who remained at their positions.

[15] The operation was led by Ibrahim Kulaylat, the Al-Mourabitoun leader, who planned to occupy the district and inflict a crushing defeat on the Phalangist KRF militia that would eventually force them to sue for peace.

A Syrian delegation led by General Hikmat Chehabi arrived in Beirut on 18 December to mediate peace talks between the warring factions, the day in which 40 or 50 bodies were recovered from the Phoenicia Inter-Continental Hotel.

On 1 January, the Christian militias set up a blockade cutting off supplies to the Palestinian refugee camp of Tel al-Zaatar and adjacent Muslim-populated districts in East Beirut, which had been reduced to slums by heavy fighting.

Then on 21 March, a major assault by special Palestinian PLO 'Commando' units using armored vehicles lent by the LAA and supported by the leftist-Muslim militias – including the "Maarouf Saad Units and the Determination brigade" (Arabic: معروف معروف وحدات ولواء تقرير, Merouf Maeruf Wahadat wa Liwa' Taqrir, French: Unités Maarouf Saad et la brigade de la détermination) from the Al-Mourabitoun – finally managed to dislodge the Christian-rightist Kataeb Regulatory Forces (KRF) from the Holiday Inn.

[4] Having only been in control of the Holiday Inn for a few hours, the Palestinians therefore had to do the job all over again, and on 22 March, leftist-Muslim LNM forces backed by PLO guerrillas mounted a counter-attack in downtown Beirut, determined to eliminate any remaining Phalangist presence west of the Martyrs' Square.

Over the next two days and amid intense shelling, the Phalange were gradually pushed back to their defensive positions at Martyrs' Square and Rue Allenby, after a costly battle that resulted in 150 dead and 300 wounded.

The following day, 23 March, the Al-Mourabitoun recaptured the Holiday Inn and the area known as the "4th sector" or "4th district" (Arabic: المقاطعه الرابعه , Al-hayi al-ra'abie, French: 4ème secteur) from the Phalangists,[4] which meant that LNM militias now dominated most of the strategic points around central Beirut.

The new Christian Command felt it imperative to retain control of Beirut's port district and began raising an elaborate defence barricade made of concrete and rubble at Rue Allenby.

Officers and enlisted men from the AFL's Fayadieh barracks in south-east Beirut came to the aid of their beleaguered co-religionists, bringing with them much-needed armored vehicles and heavy artillery.

The LNM-PLO advance was finally stopped on 31 March at Rue Allenby, and after Syria threatened to cut the arms shipments to the Muslim factions, both the LNM and Lebanese Front leaders agreed to a ceasefire, which came into effect on 2 April.

The Lebanese Front leadership had grossly underestimated the military strength and organizational capabilities displayed by the Leftist-Muslim LNM coalition and their Palestinian allies in Lebanon, as well as the political and logistical support they would receive from some Arab countries.