the Sabra and Shatila massacre
Two days before Land Day and the GMJ, we visit Sabra and Shatila. An impoverished Beirut neighbourhood and Palestinian refugee camp in the same vicinity, Sabra and Shatila are known for the savage massacre of Palestinian refugees and poor Lebanese Shiites (internally displaced from southern Lebanon by the Israeli occupational brutalities) which killed anywhere from over 3000 children, men and women—the assassins killed out of the sight of media and covered their tracks with mass graves, so the precise numbers of martyred are not known. From September 16 to 18, 1982, Phalangists, a Christian Lebanese militia aided, trained, and supported by the Zionist state and by, slaughtered victims locked into the camp area by surrounding Israeli occupation forces. “It was a killing spree,” X, a Lebanese, tells me. He outlines the basics of the massacre and events leading up to it. After the withdrawal of Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) resistance fighters from Lebanon, via an American-mediated agreement under which the Lebanese pledged to protect the camps, camp residents were no longer allowed weapons to defend themselves. The September massacre was allegedly an attack to avenge the killing of Bashir Gemeyel, but the Palestinians weren’t guilty of his assassination, and the Phalange and Zionist leaders knew this. “It was a part of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians,” he says, pointing out the complicity of the Israeli occupying army in Lebanon. “They surrounded the area, closed off the exits, and lit flares during the night to aid the attacking Phalange assassins.” Badil notes that an Israeli General “provided Lebanese Forces Intelligence with aerial photographs to arrange entry into the camps.”