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34-542: Rachaya is known for the Rashaya Citadel where Bshara El Khoury was jailed in 1943. It's the symbol of independence. Rashaya has a population of around 6,000 to 7,500 that are mostly Druze . It is still considered to be a traditional Lebanese town with its old cobbled streets and small shops, even though it witnessed in recent years a slight expansion of buildings. It retains a distinguished character of traditional stone houses with red tiled roofs. The small souk in

68-894: A Captain Granger between 20 and 24 November. The Druze eventually suffered their first major defeat to French reinforcements, with heavy casualties marking a turning point in the Druze invasion of southern Lebanon. Under the French Mandate and on 11 November 1943, Rashaya witnessed the arrest and the imprisonment of the Lebanese national leaders in its citadel by the Free French troops ( Bechara El Khoury (the first post-independence President of Lebanon ), Riad El-Solh (the Prime Minister ), Pierre Gemayel , Camille Chamoun , Adel Osseiran ). This led to

102-732: A career in football in the 1930s, captaining the Lebanon national team as a player. He also became the first Lebanese football referee to officiate matches internationally , and was the second president of the Lebanese Football Association , between 1935 and 1939. Pierre Gemayel was born on 6 November 1905 in Bikfaya , Lebanon into a Maronite family. His father Amine Bachir Gemayel, known as Abou Ali, and his uncle were forced to flee to Egypt after being sentenced to death in 1914 for opposing Ottoman rule, returning to Lebanon only at

136-624: A left-lateral strike-slip fault that cuts into Mount Hermon and is an extension of the Banias Fault. It suggested to be pre- Pliocene and may be active. The danger of earthquakes is not high and there have been none on record. It runs a few kilometers east of the Hasbaya Fault, which in turn runs parallel to the Jordan valley . The Rashaya Fault may have experienced up to 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) of Quaternary horizontal movement and small breaches on

170-473: A national and international pressure in demand for their release, and eventually obliging France to obey. On November 22, 1943, the prisoners were released, and that day was declared the Lebanese Independence Day . Rashaya is situated on a karst topography of grey or creamy-white, jurassic limestone with a thickness of up to 1 kilometre (0.62 mi). The Rashaya Fault has been defined as

204-569: A national monument, in Lebanon . It was built as a palace by the Shihab family in the 18th century, was used by the French Mandate , and is now stationed by the Lebanese Armed Forces . It is a tourist site that can be visited while under the army's surveillance. The castle includes vaulted rooms and overlooks the historic mountain town. The town of Rashaya overlooks the Taim Valley ,

238-477: A strategic position for fortress construction, and the present fort occupies an area where there are remains from more ancient fortifications including: Canaanite , Greco-Roman, Arab, Crusader and Ottoman rulers. The Shehab family refurbished the so-called Feather Tower on the site. In November and December 1925, the Great Druze Revolt rocked the area as 3,000 Druze under the command of Zayd Beg surrounded

272-512: A survey of 2002. The World Bank and U.S. Aid has financed development projects in the area with the assistance of the YMCA and other NGOs . Projects have included a $ 500,000 waste water treatment plant and redecoration of the town's guesthouse in 2007. Commonly grown crops include cherries , olives , apricots and grapes . Some wild cucumbers are also grown, however vegetables are less frequently grown due to low rainfall. Animal husbandry

306-447: Is also practiced, mainly with goats , of which the Labneh variety is a popular staple food for locals. Tree species such as oak , wild pistachio and sumac grow in the area. A variety of jackals and foxes , snakes , lizards and rodents live in the area along with various species of migratory birds . Rashaya Citadel The Rashaya Citadel or Citadel of Independence is

340-593: The Cairo Agreement of 1969 under enormous pressure from the international community, which allowed Palestinian guerrillas to set up bases on Lebanese soil, from which to carry out actions against Israel . He later defended his actions, saying that Lebanon really had no choice. In the 1970s, he came to oppose the armed Palestinian presence in Lebanon. The Kataeb created a military Security Council led by William Hawi , which came to be commanded by Gemayel's son Bachir upon

374-416: The summer season down to −5 °C (23 °F) in winter . The dominant wind direction is east to west from which the town is somewhat sheltered by the mountains. The economy of the town is primarily based on agriculture , the services and tourism industries. The town has two olive oil presses and three grape molasses factories. Rashaya was designated one of nine poverty areas within Lebanon in

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408-520: The 6th millennium or earlier. The Rashaya Citadel , also known as the Citadel of Independence, has been declared a national monument, having been first built as a palace by the Shihab family in the 18th century. It is now stationed by the Lebanese Armed Forces and can be visited and seen under the army's surveillance. In June 1860, the town was the scene of a massacre, where two hundred and sixty five Christians were killed by Druze forces, some within

442-765: The Central Europe after the 1936 Olympic games, and employed the doctrine of this movement while founding the Kataeb party. Kataeb Party is described as a right-wing Christian Party. The foundation of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party by Antun Saadeh in 1932 was the trigger for the establishment of the Kateb Party, since the former actively tried to influence Lebanon towards the Syrian interests, leading to direct challenge for Lebanese nationalists. The founders of

476-675: The Druze community in Rashaya in the 19th century and a branch, now called the Aryain family still inhabit the town. Rashaya has four churches and a dozen of Druze khalwaat . There is a Greek Catholic Church and a Syriac Catholic Church along with the Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church . There have been findings of Paleolithic and Heavy Neolithic Stone Age tools near the town of Qaraoun along with Trihedral Neolithic material recovered nearby at Joub Jannine , both in

510-605: The Kataeb Party was limited. It survived a French attempt to forcibly dissolve it in 1937 and took part in an uprising against the French Mandate in 1943, but despite its membership of 35,000, it operated on the fringes of Lebanese politics . In the Civil War of 1958 , Gemayel emerged as a leader of the right-wing nationalist (mainly Christian) movement that opposed a Nasserist and Arab-nationalist inspired attempt to overthrow

544-481: The Kataeb Party were young, French-educated and middle-class professionals who committed to independent and Western-oriented Lebanon. Charles Helou , who later served as Lebanon's president from 1964 to 1970, was one of the founders. By the time of his presidency, however, Helou was no longer a party member, and Gemayel unsuccessfully opposed him in the presidential election of 1964. In the years before and after Lebanon's independence, Gemayel's influence and that of

578-517: The Western Bekaa province. The remains of a Roman temple can be seen on the left side of the road leading from Rashaya to the village of Aaiha , one of several Temples of Mount Hermon . Neolithic flints were also found in the hills 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) north of the town. There is also a significant Neolithic site nearby at Kawkaba where fragments of agricultural tools such as basalt hoes have been found with very faded dating suggesting

612-626: The assassination of Hawi. Gemayel was also to reverse his position on the Syrian intervention in the Lebanese Civil War of 1975 to 1990. He initially welcomed Syrian intervention on the side of the Christians and against the Lebanese National Movement , but he soon became convinced that Syria was occupying Lebanon for reasons of its own. In 1976, he joined other mainly Christian leaders, including former president Camille Chamoun ,

646-444: The associated strands from it have developed small basins. The danger of earthquakes is not high and there have been none recorded from the fault. Rashaya receives between 650 millimetres (26 in) and 750 millimetres (30 in) of rainfall each year with around two fifths of this amount falling between November and March. It has an average annual temperature of 15 °C (59 °F), varying between 35 °C (95 °F) in

680-429: The citadel. Around one thousand victims were killed in the areas of Hasbaya and Rashaya between 10 and 13 June. In November and December 1925, the town was engulfed and nearly obliterated by one of the largest battles of the Great Druze Revolt , when four hundred and twenty nine Christian homes were either damaged or destroyed. Three thousand Druze under Zayd Beg besieged the citadel of French legionnaires under

714-942: The diplomat Charles Malik , and the Guardians of the Cedars leader Étienne Saqr , to oppose the Syrians. On 11 October 1978, Gemayel bitterly denounced the Syrian military presence, and the Lebanese Front joined the Lebanese regular army in a successful " Hundred Days War " against the Syrian army. On 4 June 1979, an attempt was made to assassinate Pierre Gemayel. The previous month, 13 May, Amine Gemayel also escaped an assassination attempt. Gemayel saw his younger son, Bachir Gemayel , elected president of Lebanon on 23 August 1982, only to be assassinated on 14 September, nine days before his scheduled inauguration. Bachir's older brother, Amine Gemayel

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748-626: The end of World War I . Gemayel was educated at Jesuit school. He went on to study pharmacy at the French faculty of medicine in Beirut , where he later opened a pharmacy. He owned a pharmacy in Haifa , Palestine. The pharmacy was located in Sahat Al Hanatir (Carriage Square). Gemayel also took an interest in sport, playing football . In 1935 he became president of the Lebanese Football Association (LFA);

782-500: The end of the 1960s, the Kataeb Party held 9 seats in the National Assembly, making it one of the largest groupings in Lebanon's notoriously fractured and sectarian parliament. Although his bids for the presidency in 1964 and 1970 were unsuccessful, Gemayel continued to hold cabinet posts intermittently throughout the remaining quarter-century of his life. For instance, he was minister of finance from 1960 to 1961 and in 1968, and

816-542: The first post-independence president of Lebanon ), Riad El-Solh (later the prime minister ), Salim Takla , Camille Chamoun , Adel Osseiran and Abdelhamid Karameh . This led to national and international pressure for their release and France soon relented. On November 22, 1943, the prisoners were released. That day was declared the Lebanese Independence Day . Pierre Gemayel Pierre Amine Gemayel , also spelled Jmayyel , Jemayyel or al-Jumayyil ( Arabic : بيار الجميّل ; 6 November 1905 – 29 August 1984),

850-457: The fort and its French legionnaires under Captain Granger until French reinforcements arrived. Under the French Mandate, on 11 November 1943, the arrest and imprisonment of Lebanese national leaders in the citadel was ordered by Commissioner Jean Helleu, delegate general of the Free French authorities, and carried out by Free French troops. The prisoners included ( Bechara El Khoury (later

884-485: The government of president Camille Chamoun and supported the return of foreign troops to Lebanon. In the aftermath of the war, Gemayel was appointed a cabinet minister in a four-member Unity government. Two years later, Gemayel was elected to the National Assembly , from a Beirut constituency, a seat he held for the rest of his life. In 1958, Gemayel was appointed deputy to then prime minister Rashid Karami . By

918-455: The middle of the town offers various shops selling local crafts and inexpensive goods. There is a recently renovated goldsmiths selling an assortment of gold and silver jewelry in Byzantine and other styles. The nearby Faqaa forest is classified as a protected area and Pine nuts from the local conifer trees are used in traditional cooking. The Al-Aryan family was a prominent part of

952-583: The minister of public health and communications in the cabinet led by then prime minister Karami. Gemayel was still in office when he died of a heart attack in Bikfaya on 29 August 1984. He was at the age of 78. Gemayel's body was buried next to Bashir Gemayel's grave in Bikfaya on 30 August 1984. Gemayel was married to Genevieve Gemayel , and they celebrated the 50th anniversary of their marriage in August 1984. They had six children. His younger son, Bachir Gemayel

986-605: The minister of public works in 1970. Lebanon has long been a battleground in the Israeli-Arab conflict , and Gemayel's position was always solid and consistent advocating a Lebanon separated from the other Arab states and linked to France and the West. He opposed the presence of the Palestinian refugees . His supporters viewed this as a sign of strength and patriotism, while his detractors saw it as incoherent. Gemayel reluctantly signed

1020-692: The same year he became Lebanon's first referee to officiate internationally . As captain of the Lebanon national team , Gemayel attended the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin , alongside Hussein Sejaan , the former LFA president. After the games, he also visited various Central European countries. Gemayel remained president of the LFA until 1939. On his return to Lebanon from Europe, in 1936 Gemayel founded Al Kataeb Al Loubnaniyyah party (Kataeb Party) with Georges Naqqache, Charles Helou, Chafic Nassif and Hamid Franjieh, who

1054-636: Was a Lebanese political leader. A Maronite Catholic , he is remembered as the founder of the Kataeb Party (also known as the Phalangist Party), as a parliamentary powerbroker, and as the father of Bachir Gemayel and Amine Gemayel , both of whom were elected to the presidency of the republic in his lifetime. He opposed the French Mandate over Lebanon in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and advocated an independent state, free from foreign control. He

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1088-498: Was elected to replace him. Pierre Gemayel himself initially stayed out of Amine Gemayel's government, but in early 1984, after participating in two conferences in Geneva and Lausanne , Switzerland, aimed at ending the civil war and the occupation of the country by Israeli troops in 1982, he agreed to serve in a cabinet of national unity that was formed by Rashid Karami in May 1984. He served as

1122-487: Was known for his deft political maneuvering, which led him to take positions which were seen by supporters as pragmatic, but by opponents as contradictory, or even hypocritical. Although publicly sympathetic to the Palestinian cause , he later changed his position due to Palestinian support of the Lebanese National Movement and its calls to end the National Pact and establish non-sectarian democracy. Gemayel also had

1156-503: Was later replaced with Emile Yared, modelling the party after the Spanish and Italian Fascist parties he had observed there. At first, the goal of the party was to enhance people's patriotism and civic-mindedness, but later on turned into a political resistance to the French authorities in the region. Gemayel was also influenced from the Sokol movement of Czechoslovakia during this visit to

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