Why did the IDF destroy the Beirut synagogue1982?

There has for decades been a Zionist policy of trying to compel Jews to move to Israel, destroying the synagogue (if in fact they did, not saying they did or didn't) would have sent the message to any Jews in Lebanon that the time had come to move south, to their "homeland".

@ Shay P Damaged ? Can't the professional IDF even see a Synagogue.? The very same excuse was made in the Gaza war when Israel claimed it did not target civilians and yet still managed to kill 1400 with high explosive and phosphorus bombs even in the relative safety of UN compounds despite being given the co-ordinates.

Ignore Y.K. Cherson, he's an idiot. He doesn't know what he's talking about.

He comes here and talks crap about islam. Islam doesn't teach "hide in hospitals or churches" lol.

I'm a muslim and it's just crap. I like how ignorant people come here and talk crap about something they don't know anything about. You just come here and spit out what's in your small crappy brain lol.

Yes some muslims do that, and actually a lot of muslims are bad muslims. But so ******* what?

Everybody use cheap tricks. We are only humans.

Westerners use cheap tricks sometimes too. For getting the "cause" for invading a country they sometimes repaint their airplanes to UN airplanes and claim the ones they want to invade have shot down a UN plane.

Anyways ignore the idiot.

Actually, according to the New York Times, they were shelling the neighbourhood at the time and a shell hit the synagogue.

In other words, they did not deliberately hit it, and they did not destroy it.

There is someone here who falsely claims 60 people were killed in the synagogue and to this day is unable to provide any evidence that this was so.

In 1970's civil war, most Jews fled & the synagogue was badly damaged by fighting between Christians & Muslims.

In 1982, PLO was attacking Israelis daily, in Israel. Including sniper shooting at children's school buses. Israel went into Lebanon to clean that up. They had reasonable intelligence the synagogue was being used to hide weapons by PLO. Same as they used mosques & churches. It was only roof damage, nothing compared to prior damage.

Once you add the previous events, changes the story doesn't it?

AntiIsraelis tend to claim everything Israel & IDF do was mistaken -- but somehow they are finding lots of secondary explosions when they bomb hidden weapons stores in mosques & religious buildings. I don't know what they recorded with the synagogue -- but you use intelligence data in war, & how well you survive often depends on it. Israel's been doing pretty well at surviving....

@Irish313

Nice antiIsrael myth. However, the community had already left -- see my answer. And there's a long list of official laws passed & riots happening in Muslims & Arab countries that motivated Jews to leave... where Israel didn't have to do "anything."

@Michael

It was 1200, mostly MILITANTS who WERE fighting. Not civilians & not 1400. Civilians were OUTSIDE safety zones, near but outside, while Hamas fired from within them.

Broadly, they knew the US would protect the Israelis from punishment for war crimes committed during their invasion of Lebanon.

Specifically the Israeli suspected that it was being used as a weapons store.

Like Y.K. Cherson, Simple Simon, Kevin and others who don't let facts get in the way of a good story, they had no evidence of this.

As so often, Israeli intelligence (in common with it's most fervent supporters) was wrong.

This is a normal trend with IAF and IDF.

Israel has a serious problem with the information gathered by their Intelligence Agencies.

Israelis claim that the Maghen Abraham Synagogue in Beirut was bombed on August 12, 1982 by IDF in error.

Facts, the synagogue was damaged, not destroyed and there is no evidence that Israel deliberately targeted it

Because muslims of Yasir Arafat's PLO forces used it as a weapon store . It´s quite usual for muslims to use Churches, Sinagogues and even mosques as the shooting positions and weapon stores, as well as ambulances and hospitals.

Very low trick, in my opinion - but islam is all a low trick after all.

It was being used by Muslim fundamentalist terrorists as a base to attack innocent people