The killings were led by Joseph Saade, a Phalangist whose son was killed in Fanar earlier that day along with 3 other young men while heading to a cinema in Brumana. The four young Christian men were found dead with axes and gunshots wounds on the Fanar road in Lebanon. Saade's first son was also murdered by Palestinian gunmen while participating in a rally paper in Bekaa earlier in 1975. [5]
The massacre set Beirut ablaze, and accelerated the rapidly escalating civil war.[2]
^ abTamimova, May (2018). "The Black Saturday Massacre of 1975: the discomfort of assembling the Lebanese civil war narrative". Contemporary Levant. 3 (2): 123–136. doi:10.1080/20581831.2018.1531531. S2CID165385219.
^ abMay Tamimova (2018) The Black Saturday Massacre of 1975: the discomfort of assembling the Lebanese civil war narrative, Contemporary Levant, 3:2, 123-136, DOI: 10.1080/20581831.2018.1531531