Fatahland or Fatah-land was the term which originally referred to the occupied land in Lebanon, which was controlled for about 10 years by the Fatah organization and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). There are no official boundaries to this area, but it is generally considered to include the south-eastern area of Lebanon (the Beqaa Valley), adjacent to the Lebanese border with Israel, especially in the Mount Hermon area. History The Palestinian terror organizations, headed by the Fatah which were deported from Jordan in Black September in 1970, settled in the south-eastern part of Lebanon. They had big support from the population in that area which was mostly Palestinian refugees which the Lebanese government allowed to stay in refugee camps in that region, provided that they would not attack Israel from there. This support allowed Yasser Arafat to establish the infrastructure needed to fight Israel from that area. These operations occured during the Lebanese civil war, following which, Yasser Arafat gained control over that region. Later on, the Fatah members started launching Katiosha rockets attacks at the Israeli villages in the north of Israel, and sent out terrorists to commit terror attacks within Israel, including the Coastal Road massacre and in Misgav Am. At that point, the Lebanese government didn't have an organized well constructed army and therefore could not prevent any actions carried out by Arafat and the terrorist organizations in the area in which they governed. In 1975 the Syrian army entered southern Lebanon, and Arafat's people were sponsored by Syria without any interruption. In 1978, as part of "Operation Litani", the IDF occupied the territory from the international border until the Litani River, and cooperated with the South Lebanon Army in the command of Saad Haddad. The PLO, which had to flee from that area, settled in region north of the Litani River and in the Mount Dov region, and from there they continued to launch Katiosha rockets attacks and terror attacks at Israel. In 1982 the IDF invaded Southern Lebanon forcing the Arafat's forces and the terror organizations to flee towards Beirut, and from there Arafat and his people were deported to Tunisia. Later use of the term The term became in use again after the Hamas seized the Gaza Strip in June 2007 as part of the Fatah-Hamas conflict in the Gaza Strip. This situation, in which the Gaza Strip is controlled by the Hamas and the West Bank is controlled by the Fatah, was described in the mass media as the division of the Palestinian Authority into two entities - Hamastan and Fatahland.
