The Sabra and Shatilla Massacre

Compiled by: Syed Muhammad Bokreta
Algiers, Algeria
* Date: 16th of September 1982
* Place: Sabra & Shatila Camps, Lebanon
* Main Historic Figures: The oppressed Palestinians, the Phalangists & the accursed dead filth Sharon.
The slaughter that has occurred 30 years ago in the two contiguous camps at Sabra and Shatilla took place from 18:00 at night on September 16, 1982 until 8:00 in the morning on September 18, 1982, in an area under the control of the “Israeli” Defense Forces (IDF).
The perpetrators were members of the Phalangist (Kata'eb, in Arabic) militia, the Lebanese force that was armed by and closely allied with “ Israel ” since the onset of Lebanon ’s civil war in 1975. The victims during the 62-hour rampage included infants, children, women including pregnant women, and the elderly, some of whom were mutilated or disembowelled before or after they were killed.
Twenty eight years ago, from September 16th-18th, 1982, the people of Palestine and Humanity at large were assaulted by a horrendous crime the bloody massacres at Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps in Beirut , Lebanon . Sabra and Shatilla, home to thousands of Palestinian refugees forced from Palestine in 1948 during the Zionist occupation of their homes and lands, were encircled and sealed off as part of the Zionist assault upon, and occupation of Beirut.
Zionist forces, under the command of Ariel Sharon, then defence minister and today "guest" in Hell sealed off the camps, by then largely empty of resistance fighters and home mostly to Palestinian and Lebanese women and children. At that point, Sharon ordered the entry of the Lebanese Forces, a right-wing Phalangist militia with close ties to the Zionist occupiers, and the South Lebanon Army, the proxy army of the Zionist entity in Lebanon , into Sabra and Shatilla.
For the two days that followed, aided by night flares and other support from the Zionist army surrounding the camps, these militias tortured, raped, and murdered thousands of Palestinian refugees, with the full knowledge and support of the Zionist invaders, the blood of thousands of Palestinian refugees in the camps of Sabra and Shatilla remains on the hands of Ariel Sharon as he continues his brutal slaughter of Palestinians to this day.
The roots of the massacre in Sabra and Shatilla trace back to 1948 and the dispossession and the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during the Zionist colonization and occupation of their land. Palestinians were forced into refugee camps throughout the Arab homeland, denied their rights and identity, and targeted for extermination as a nation. Since 1948, Palestinians have been assaulted everywhere they live, their rights and lives under constant and vicious attack; the war crimes and massacres at Sabra and Shatilla stand as a prime and terrible example.
In 1983, an “ Israeli” state inquiry found that Sharon, then defense minister, “indirectly” responsible for the killing of hundreds of men, women and children at Sabra and Shatilla camps during Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon." , and on December 16, 1982 the United Nations General Assembly condemned the massacre and declared it to be an act of genocide. Sharon resigned as defense minister, but later became Israeli Prime Minister.
The massacre was recently investigated by the BBC and the conclusions were damning. The BBC team reported on their investigation, and included this interesting comment: In Beirut we confronted the man accused of leading the slaughter. There was in Lebanon a sense of surprise that we would wish to revisit such an event. As one former militia leader said: “For God's sake if you prosecuted for war crimes here we'd all be in jail.”
The precise number of victims of the massacre may never be exactly determined. The International Committee of the Red Cross counted 1,500 at the time but by September 22 this count had risen to 2,400. On the following day 350 bodies were uncovered so that the total numbers in the aftermath of this tragedy exceeded the 3500 figure.
On June 18, 2001, twenty three survivors of the massacres filed an accusatory instrument before the Belgian National Court , thus commencing the first potentially successful attempt to hold the former General accountable. To be sure, the path to holding Sharon accountable has been a treacherous one, with the Prosecution encountering pitfalls and dramatic obstacles.
Since the trial was announced, key witnesses have been tracked down and assassinated: A potential key witness in the Belgian war crimes case against the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, was blown up outside his house in Beirut in January 25th, together with three bodyguards. Elie Hobeika, a Lebanese warlord involved in the massacre of more than 1,000 Palestinians in the Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps in 1982, mysteriously died only a few days after saying he would give evidence in Belgium.
The secrets of the Sabra and Chatilla Palestinian camp massacres in 1982 have gone to the grave with yet another former Phalangist militiaman, the third Lebanese to die mysteriously in little more than two months. Michael Nassar, who was a former associate of Elie Hobeika the Phalangist leader murdered in a car bombing in Beirut in January, was shot dead in Brazil by a man firing a pistol equipped with a silencer.
But it is impossible to long for illusory justice for the innocent victims while the so called master mind and butcher of this massacre is given the red carpet treatment in the so called human rights protecting land of America, as President George W. Bush met his friend (Sharon) with photographs scattered across American newspapers of them shaking hands and sharing a common vision and praising him as “a man of peace”, thousands of miles away the families of the surviving victims of the massacres at Sabra and Shatilla have quite a different perspective, but Thanks Allah the butcher sharon died and has been thrown in the dust bin of history.
To them, Ariel Sharon is a genocidal megalomaniac who is guilty of war crimes. Indeed, mere mention of the words Sabra and Shatilla, particularly among Arabs, conjures up visions of Ariel Sharon; the man deemed “indirectly responsible” by the “Israeli” government for directing the Phalangists to liquidate the civilian population.
The communities of Sabra and Shatilla will never be the same; and the massacres that took place in 1982 have left an indelible mark on the psyche of its residents. However, for these families and the communities at large, the 1982 massacre was not the first crime to be carried out by the Zionist entity, but much to the deep Palestinian’s chagrin, the dead silence from the world community, the Arab and Muslim states is just depressing and revolting!!!
Still those “Brave and Broad Hearted” Palestinian Men and Women, despite despair, frustration and poverty they are still close to the Sabra & Shatilla mass graves in which their loved ones were buried, but mostly important they remain close and ready at any moment to make the final return journey, God –willing to the Blessed and Historic Palestine, for the Quranic promise is beyond any doubt: “And we wished to be gracious to those who were depressed on earth, to make them leaders and make them heirs”. Holy Quran 28-05.