Shafik Wazzan; Lebanese Leader During 1982 Israeli Invasion

Shafik Wazzan, 74, the former Lebanese prime minister who oversaw the 1982 withdrawal of Palestinian guerrillas from Israeli-besieged Beirut, died Thursday in his Beirut home of a heart attack.

Lebanon had been without a government for 137 days at the height of its 15-year civil war when Wazzan, a Sunni Muslim lawyer, became the compromise choice for prime minister in October 1980.

When Israel invaded Lebanon in June 1982 and besieged Beirut to force Palestine Liberation Organization guerrillas out, Wazzan’s government acted as intermediary between the United States and the PLO. Negotiations led to the deployment of U.S. Marines as part of a multinational peacekeeping force and the withdrawal of thousands of Palestinian and Syrian fighters from Beirut.

Wazzan gained attention for standing up for the rights of the Lebanese Muslims of West Beirut as well as for those of the Palestinians.

When the Israelis surrounded West Beirut, Wazzan refused to cross their checkpoints to East Beirut and boycotted the negotiations there until the Israelis pulled back.

Wazzan’s government negotiated an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in 1983, but the concession-laden deal was never implemented and the Israeli forces remained. For this, Wazzan earned the wrath of his Muslim community and was shunned by other Muslim leaders.

In 1983 he narrowly escaped assassination when a car bomb was detonated near his passing limousine.

In 1984, he was forced from office in the midst of wide-scale fighting between the Lebanese Army and Muslim militia forces.