Articles
The Gaza massacre is part of longstanding process of Israeli crimes
against humanity. This article describes one of the worst atrocities in modern
Middle Eastern history committed against the people of Palestine. This article
was first posted on Global Research in 2016.
On September 16, 1982, Christian Lebanese militiamen allied to Israel entered
the Palestinian refugee camp of Shatila and the adjacent neighborhood of Sabra
in Beirut under the watch of the Israeli army and began a slaughter that caused
outrage around the world. Over the next day and a half, up to 3500 Palestinian
and Lebanese civilians, mostly women, children, and the elderly, were murdered
in one of the worst atrocities in modern Middle Eastern history. The New York
Times recently published an op-ed containing new details of discussions held
between Israeli and American officials before and during the massacre. They
reveal how Israeli officials, led by then-Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, misled
and bullied American diplomats, rebuffing their concerns about the safety of the
inhabitants of Sabra and Shatila.
Lead Up
On June 6, 1982, Israel launched a massive invasion of Lebanon. It had been long
planned by Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, who wanted to destroy or
severely diminish the Palestine Liberation Organization, which was based in
Lebanon at the time. Sharon also planned to install a puppet government headed
by Israel’s right-wing Lebanese Christian Maronite allies, the Phalangist Party.
Israeli forces advanced all the way to the capital of Beirut, besieging and
bombarding the western part of city, where the PLO was headquartered and the
Palestinian refugee camp of Shatila and the adjacent neighborhood of Sabra are
located.
Israel’s bloody weeklong assault on West Beirut in August prompted harsh
international criticism, including from the administration of US President
Ronald Reagan, who many accused of giving a “green light” to Israel to launch
the invasion. Under a US-brokered ceasefire agreement, PLO leaders and more than
14,000 fighters were to be evacuated from the country, with the US providing
written assurances for the safety of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian
civilians left behind. US Marines were deployed as part of a multinational force
to oversee and provide security for the evacuation.
On August 30, PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat left Beirut along with the remainder of
the Palestinian fighters based in the city.
On September 10, the Marines left Beirut. Four days later, on September 14, the
leader of Israel’s Phalangist allies, Bashir Gemayel, was assassinated. Gemayel
had just been elected president of Lebanon by the Lebanese parliament, under the
supervision of the occupying Israeli army. His death was a severe blow to
Israel’s designs for the country. The following day, Israeli forces violated the
ceasefire agreement, moving into and occupying West Beirut.
The Massacre
On Wednesday, September 15, the Israeli army surrounded the Palestinian refugee
camp of Shatila and the adjacent neighborhood of Sabra in West Beirut. The next
day, September 16, Israeli soldiers allowed about 150 Phalangist militiamen into
Sabra and Shatila.
The Phalange, known for their brutality and a history of atrocities against
Palestinian civilians, were bitter enemies of the PLO and its leftist and Muslim
Lebanese allies during the preceding years of Lebanon’s civil war. The enraged
Phalangist militiamen believed, erroneously, that Phalange leader Gemayel had
been assassinated by Palestinians. He was actually killed by a Syrian agent.
Over the next day and a half, the Phalangists committed unspeakable atrocities,
raping, mutilating, and murdering as many as 3500 Palestinian and Lebanese
civilians, most of them women, children, and the elderly. Sharon would later
claim that he could have had no way of knowing that the Phalange would harm
civilians, however when US diplomats demanded to know why Israel had broken the
ceasefire and entered West Beirut, Israeli army Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan
justified the move saying it was “to prevent a Phalangist frenzy of revenge.” On
September 15, the day before the massacre began, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem
Begin told US envoy Morris Draper that the Israelis had to occupy West Beirut,
“Otherwise, there could be pogroms.”
Almost immediately after the killing started, Israeli soldiers surrounding Sabra
and Shatila became aware that civilians were being murdered, but did nothing to
stop it. Instead, Israeli forces fired flares into the night sky to illuminate
the darkness for the Phalangists, allowed reinforcements to enter the area on
the second day of the massacre, and provided bulldozers that were used to
dispose of the bodies of many of the victims.
On the second day, Friday, September 17, an Israeli journalist in Lebanon called
Defense Minister Sharon to inform him of reports that a massacre was taking
place in Sabra and Shatila. The journalist, Ron Ben-Yishai, later recalled:
‘I found [Sharon] at home sleeping. He woke up and I told him “Listen, there are
stories about killings and massacres in the camps.
A lot of our officers know about it and tell me about it, and if they know it,
the whole world will know about it. You can still stop it.” I didn’t know that
the massacre actually started 24 hours earlier. I thought it started only then
and I said to him “Look, we still have time to stop it. Do something about it.”
He didn’t react.”‘
On Friday afternoon, almost 24 hours after the killing began, Eitan met with
Phalangist representatives. According to notestaken by an Israeli intelligence
officer present: “[Eitan] expressed his positive impression received from the
statement by the Phalangist forces and their behavior in the field,” telling
them to continue “mopping up the empty camps south of Fakahani until tomorrow at
5:00 a.m., at which time they must stop their action due to American pressure.”
On Saturday, American Envoy Morris Draper, sent a furious message to Sharon
stating:
‘You must stop the massacres. They are obscene. I have an officer in the camp
counting the bodies. You ought to be ashamed. The situation is rotten and
terrible. They are killing children. You are in absolute control of the area,
and therefore responsible for the area.’
The Phalangists finally left the area at around 8 o’clock Saturday morning,
taking many of the surviving men with them for interrogation at a soccer
stadium. The interrogations were carried out with Israeli intelligence agents,
who handed many of the captives back to the Phalange. Some of the men returned
to the Phalange were later found executed.
About an hour after the Phalangists departed Sabra and Shatila, the first
journalists arrived on the scene and the first reports of what transpired began
to reach the outside world.
Casualty Figures
Thirty years later, there is still no accurate total for the number of people
killed in the massacre. Many of the victims were buried in mass graves by the
Phalange and there has been no political will on the part of Lebanese
authorities to investigate.
An official Israeli investigation, the Kahan Commission, concluded that between
700 and 800 people were killed, based on the assessment of Israeli military
intelligence.
An investigation by Beirut-based British journalist Robert Fisk, who was one of
the first people on the scene after the massacre ended, concluded that The
Palestinian Red Crescent put the number of dead at more than 2000.
In his book, Sabra & Shatila: Inquiry into a Massacre, Israeli journalist Amnon
Kapeliouk reached a maximum figure of 3000 to 3500.
Aftermath
Israel
Following international outrage, the Israeli government established a committee
of inquiry, the Kahan Commission. Its investigation found that Defense Minister
Sharon bore “personal responsibility” for the massacre, and recommended that he
be removed from office. Although Prime Minister Begin removed him from his post
as defense minister, Sharon remained in cabinet as a minister without portfolio.
He would go on to hold numerous other cabinet positions in subsequent Israeli
governments, including foreign minister during Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu’s first term in office. Nearly 20 years later, in March 2001, Sharon
was elected prime minister of Israel.
In June 2001, lawyers for 23 survivors of the massacre initiated legal
proceedings against Sharon in a Belgian court, under a law allowing people to be
prosecuted for war crimes committed anywhere in the world.
In January 2002, Phalangist leader and chief liaison to Israel during the 1982
invasion, Elie Hobeika, was killed by a car bomb in Beirut. Hobeika led the
Phalangist militiamen responsible for the massacre, and had announced that he
was prepared to testify against Sharon, who was then prime minister of Israel,
at a possible war crimes trial in Belgium. Hobeika’s killers were never found.
In June 2002, a panel of Belgian judges dismissed war crimes charges against
Sharon because he wasn’t present in the country to stand trial.
In January 2006, Sharon suffered a massive stroke. He remains in a coma on life
support.
The United States
For the United States, which had guaranteed the safety of civilians left behind
after the PLO departed, the massacre was a deep embarrassment, causing immense
damage to its reputation in the region. The fact that US Secretary of State
Alexander Haig was believed by many to have given Israel a “green light” to
invade Lebanon compounded the damage.
In the wake of the massacre, President Reagan sent the Marines back to Lebanon.
Just over a year later, 241 American servicemen would be killed when two massive
truck bombs destroyed their barracks in Beirut, leading Reagan to withdraw US
forces for good.
The Palestinians
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Thank you.
For Palestinians, the Sabra and Shatila massacre was and remains a traumatic
event, commemorated annually. Many survivors continue to live in Sabra and
Shatila, struggling to eke out a living and haunted by their memories of the
slaughter. To this day, no one has faced justice for the crimes that took place.
For Palestinians, the Sabra and Shatila massacre serves as a powerful and tragic
reminder of the vulnerable situation of millions of stateless Palestinians, and
the dangers that they continue to face across the region, and around the world.
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