Incidents in the Gaza War (2008–09) including Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades (affiliated with Fatah), the Abu Ali Mustapha Brigades (armed wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine), the Quds Brigades and the Popular Resistance Councils. A Fatah official stated that the rocket attacks by his faction contradicted the official position of Mahmoud Abbas, Fatah leader and President of the Palestinian National Authority. Abbas had called on all sides to cease hostilities unconditionally. Militants fired over 750 rockets and mortars from Gaza into Israel during the conflict. Bersheeba and Gedera were the furthest areas hit by rocket or mortars. The rockets killed three civilians and
Fatah itself with the communist and Nasserist Lebanese National Movement (LNM). Although originally aligned with Fatah, Syrian President Hafez al-Assad feared a loss of influence in Lebanon and switched sides. He sent his army, along with the Syrian-backed Palestinian factions of as-Sa'iqa and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC) led by Ahmad Jibril to fight alongside the Christian forces against the PLO and the LNM. The primary component of the Christian militias was the Maronite Phalangists. Phalangist forces killed twenty-six Fatah trainees on a bus in April 1975, marking the official start of the 15-year-long