"When identity crisis and structural imbalance are reinforced by military defeat, a society's militancy potential increases markedly. Military defeat followed by foreign occupation opens the way for militant movements fostering political organization or employing guerrilla warfare and enjoying widespread grassroots support. (Hamzeh, 2004: 15) This is what happened when Israel invaded Lebanon in 1978 (Operation Litani) and 1982 (Lebanon War), actions which, according to Hamzeh were undertaken in order to remove the PLO from Lebanon and disassociate Lebanon from Syria's influence. Israel hoped that "a Lebanon freed from Syria and the PLO, with a Christian-dominated regime, would bring peace and closer connections between the two countries." (Hamzeh, 2004: 16) But these operations oppressed Shi'a which lived in south Lebanon. The Israelis killed more than one thousand civilian Shias, leading to a mass exodus of yet more Shia refugees to the Beirut slums. Israel's 1982 invasion and occupation of Lebanon bolstered the fortunes of Hizbullah by "providing a politic-military environment that legitimated the group and gave a rationale for its guerrilla warfare. Similarly, the presence of the Western foreign troops in Lebanon, particularly of the U.S. Marines, also boosted the fortunes of Hezbollah, which considered fighting such forces to be as legitimate as fighting the Israeli occupation." (Hamzeh, 2004: 16).