According to Ronen Bergman , the FLLP was set up in the wake of a massacre of an Israeli family at Nahariya in 1979 by militants , such as Samir Kuntar , belonging to the Palestine Liberation Front . The operations , mostly unauthorized , which it carried out against the Palestinian Liberation Organization in Lebanon were coordinated by Meir Dagan , reportedly without informing the IDF , the Israeli Defense Ministry , the Israeli government and its various defense agencies . David Agmon at the time head of Israel 's northern command was one of the few people who were briefed on its operations . Lebanese operatives on the ground from the Maronite , Shiite and Druze communities were recruited . The aim of the series of operations was to : 'cause chaos among the Palestinians and Syrians in Lebanon , without leaving an Israeli fingerprint , to give them the feeling that they were constantly under attack and to instill them with a sense of insecurity . ' The group made its début in July 1981 with a bomb attack on the Palestine Liberation Organization ( PLO ) offices at Fakhani Road in West Beirut , though it only reached the peak of its activities later in September by unleashing a spate of car-bombings that created havoc in the Muslim quarters of Sidon , Tripoli , Chekka and West Beirut until February 1982 . In the latter case , the car-bombs were combined with a powerful command-detonated explosive device planted at a packed cinema – followed suit by another in early October – that left 300 civilians dead or wounded ; other attacks undertaken that same month targeted Syrian troops of the Arab Deterrent Force , followed by a failed assassination attempt on the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon John Gunther Dean
massacre of an Israeli family at Nahariya
1979 Nahariya attack
Front for the Liberation of Lebanon from Foreigners