I had only started reading an article on the less well-known links between the Nazi’s and the Zionist movement (1), when I found out about what happened in two refugee camps near Beirut back in September 1982. This post shares the basics about the awful killings that took place by Lebanese forces with the support of the Israeli army in the refugee camps Sabra and Shatila (2).

A SHORT SUMMARY
The main reason for bringing up this horrible event is to show that the atrocities committed by the Israeli army is not something new. It has been going on for many decades. In this instance they didn’t do the killings themselves, but they allowed their allies in the Lebanese civil war to murder some 2,000-3,500 people in Sabra and Shatila.

CIVIL WAR IN LEBANON
In 1975 a civil war broke out in Lebanon. The opposing factions were the Israeli/US backed Lebanese Front (LF) and the Lebanese National Movement (LNM) consisting mainly “of a coalition of secular leftists, pan-Arab Sunni and Shia Muslims, and the PLO [=Palestinian Liberation Organization]” (2).

Seven years later, in June 1982 Israeli forces invaded Lebanon and laid siege to Beirut and heavily bombarded the city where the PLO headquarters was situated. On September 1, 1982 the PLO withdrew from Beirut. A few weeks after that the leader of the LF, Bachir Gemayel, was assassinated.

THE MASSACRE
“The next morning, Israel invaded west Beirut and prevented anyone from exiting the refugee camps. Israeli forces then allowed the Phalange, who blamed the PLO for Gemayel’s death, to enter Sabra and Shatila and carry out the massacre.” (2)

The United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution declaring the massacre an “act of genocide”. To learn more about the way the Israeli soldiers prevented anyone from fleeing the refugee camps, and sent them back, to be slaughtered by the ‘Phalange’, see (3).

SOME REFLECTIONS
The cruelty of both the ones who did the actual killings for 43 hours in a row, and the Israeli soldiers who closed off the refugee camps seems to be yet another example of the immense cruelty of the Israeli Defense Forces. Ariel Sharon was the Defense Minister who was later held “personally responsible for ignoring the danger of bloodshed and revenge” by an Israeli investigation which recommended his resignation.

Next year Sharon resigned from his post, but nevertheless got elected as Prime Minister in 2001. For those who want to keep up with the current day Israeli atrocities see (4).

FOOTNOTES
(1) The history of Zionist collusion with Nazis
(2) Sabra and Shatila massacre: What happened in Lebanon in 1982?
(3) “The biggest of all massacres was this one, in circumstances resembling the catastrophe, a Zionist military victory, and gangs that the occupation denies having any connection to. It took place during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 after the Israeli occupation soldiers had besieged the camp. Although those who carried out the massacre were actually from the Lebanese militias, it was the Israeli military that provided their protection and facilitated their mission; Where the occupation soldiers were on the outskirts of the camp, preventing the escapees with their lives and threatening them with death, forcing them to return to their same fate.

The Israeli flare bombs “illuminated” the killers’ paths in the alleys of the camp, in a process unanimously agreed by observers, photographers and foreigners working in the Red Crescent and international institutions to describe the catastrophe as “it started quickly and continued without stopping for forty hours”.

Today, it has become known that this massacre was part of an elaborate plan carefully prepared by then-Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon and Rafael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Army, and other Lebanese militia groups and that there was a meeting held at the headquarters of the Lebanese Forces in Karantina attended by Sharon who approved the
speedy entry of groups of security personnel into the Shatila camp. Indeed, the groups began assembling their personnel and equipment at Beirut International Airport to prepare.

They shot everyone who moved in the alleys. They killed whole families while they were eating dinner after smashing the doors of their houses, and many were killed in their beds while they slept, and there were later found in many apartments children no more than three and four years old, soaked in their pyjamas and their covers stained with blood. In many cases, the attackers cut off the organs of their victims before executing them. They smashed the heads of some babies against the walls. Women were raped before they were killed. The men were dragged from their homes and executed in the street. For the three days in which the massacre was ongoing, journalists or photographers were forbidden from entering; when they later entered, the pictures began to tell the details of the horrific massacre.”

The massacre ended on Saturday the 18th of September. Hundreds of dead bodies in the streets and alleys lying under swarms of flies. Children lying on the roads. Women and girls were raped, some of whom survived, and some of whom were murdered naked in their beds, on the roads, or tied to electricity poles!! Pregnant women whose wombs have been cut open,
their wombs violated, and children who were forcibly born prematurely and slaughtered before their eyes saw the light. Men who had their reproductive organs cut off and put in their mouths. They did not even spare any sympathy for people of old age.”

(Written statement* submitted by The Palestinian ReturnCentre Ltd, a non-governmental organization in specialconsultative status)
(4) The Evil Face of Israel (on Genocide, Torture and the Killing of Civilians) (graphic – not for kids)
(5) THE SABRA AND SHATILA MASSACRES, 1982
(6) https://x.com/thestorageboxes/status/1841909116144386433

Image at top is from (2)