, Chouf, Lebanon shrine in
Niha village, Chouf, Lebanon and
Druze shrine in Maaser el Chouf: Historically, the
Druze and the
Christians in the Shuf Mountains have lived in complete harmony. In the early eighteenth century, the communities lived side by side in relative harmony. However, in 1848, 1860, and again in 1983-1984, during the
Lebanese Civil War (
Mountain War,
Arabic:
Harb el-Jabal), fighting broke out between the Christian and
Druze communities in the Chouf. At the end of January 1989,
Druze leader
Walid Jumblatt, who lived at the Jumblatt palace in the town of
Moukhtara, came up with a plan to help Christians return to their homes after an estimated 300,000 had fled during the fighting. The initiative was supported by
Dany Chamoun. In March the plan was shelved following General
Michel Aoun’s blockade of the Druze port at
Jieh, his shelling of
Souq El Gharb and the assassination of one of Jumblatt’s top aides. Reconciliation between the Druze and Christian communities was achieved on August 8, 2001, when the
Maronite Patriarch of Antioch,
Cardinal Mar Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir made a historic visit to the Chouf and met with Jumblatt. In 1989, Israel carried out air-strikes on the Chouf a few yards from a school. Two militants were killed and several schoolchildren were wounded in the attack. ==Demographics==