Wimpy Operation

The Wimpy Operation (Arabic: عملية الويمبي) was an attack on Israeli soldiers in Hamra, a neighbourhood in the west of the Lebanese capital Beirut on September 24, 1982 during the 1982 Lebanon War.

[1][3][4] Located on Hamra Street, the Wimpy Cafe was a gathering point for the cosmopolitan intelligentsia of Beirut.

[2][5] In the afternoon on September 24, 1982 Khaled Alwan, a 19-year-old member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) opened fire on Israeli soldiers drinking coffee at the entrance to the Wimpy Cafe.

[6] In 2000, the site of the attack was renamed "Place Khaled Alwan" by the municipality of Beirut, in honour of his contributions to the resistance.

[1] In Memory and Conflict in Lebanon, Craig Larkin argues that the "[t]he mythical power of this act" enabled a narrative which helped subsume memories of intra-Lebanese violence in the Civil War in favour of a "more pressing narrative of Israeli aggression and violence".