Nadene Goldfoot
Sabra and Shatila massacre: What happened in Lebanon in 1982?
It was thought that Israeli-backed Phalange militia killed between 2,000 and 3,500 Palestinian refugees and Lebanese civilians in two days. Shatila, a Palestinian refugee camp, and the adjacent neighbourhood of Sabra are located SW of Lebanon’s capital city, Beirut, but the numbers were all wrong.
As the civil war of Lebanon unfolded, Israel and the PLO had been exchanging attacks since the early 1970s until early 1980s.
From 1975 to 1990, groups in competing alliances with neighboring countries fought against each other in the Lebanese Civil War.
Infighting and massacres between these groups claimed several thousand victims. Examples: the Syrian-backed Karantina massacre (January 1976) by the Kataeb and its allies against Kurds, Syrians and Palestinians in the predominantly Muslim slum district of Beirut; Damour (January 1976).
Also by the PLO against Christian Maronites, including the family and fiancée of the Lebanese Forces intelligence chief Elie Hobeika; and Tel al-Zaatar (August 1976) by Phalangists and their allies against Palestinian refugees living in a camp administered by UNRWA. The total death toll in Lebanon for the whole civil war period was around 150,000 victims.
By June 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon with the intention of rooting out the PLO.
By 30 August 1982, under the supervision of the Multinational Force, the PLO withdrew from Lebanon following weeks of battles in West Beirut shortly before the massacre took place.
Lebanese politician Elie Hobeika, whose family and fiancée had been murdered by Palestinian militants and left-wing Lebanese militias during the Damour massacre in 1976, itself a response to the Karantina massacre of Palestinians and Lebanese Shias at the hands of Christian militias was in command.
On the night of 14/15 September 1982 the IDF chief of staff, Raphael Eitan, flew to Beirut where he went straight to the Phalangists' headquarters and instructed their leadership to order a general mobilization of their forces and prepare to take part in the forthcoming Israeli attack on West Beirut.
On the evening of 14 September, following the news that Bachir Gemayel had been assassinated, Prime Minister Begin, Defense Minister Sharon and Chief of Staff Eitan agreed that the Israeli army should invade West Beirut.
The public reason given was to be that they were there to prevent chaos. In a separate conversation, at 20:30 that evening, Sharon and Eitan agreed that the IDF should not enter the Palestinian refugee camps but that the Phalange should be used. The only other member of the cabinet who was consulted was Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir.
On morning of Wednesday 15 September Israeli Defence Minister, Sharon, who had also travelled to Beirut, held a meeting with Eitan and others at the IDF's forward command post, on the roof of a five-story building 200 meters SW of Shatila camp. It was agreed that the Phalange should go into the camps.
The Lebanese Christian Phalangist militia did the killings which were perpetrated to avenge the murders of Lebanese President Bashir Gemayel and 25 of his followers, killed in a bomb attack earlier that week.
Shortly after 6.00 am 15 September, the Israeli army entered West Beirut, This Israeli action breached its agreement with the United States not to occupy West Beirut and was in violation of the ceasefire.
When Israeli soldiers ordered the Phalangists out, they found hundreds dead (estimates range from 460 according to the Lebanese police, to 700-800 calculated by Israeli intelligence). The dead, according to the Lebanese account, included 35 women and children. The rest were men: Palestinians, Lebanese, Pakistanis, Iranians, Syrians, and Algerians. The killings came on top of an estimated 95,000 deaths that had occurred during the civil war in Lebanon from 1975-1982.
Israel had allowed the Phalange to enter the camps as part of a plan to transfer authority to the Lebanese, and accepted responsibility for that decision. The , formed by the Israeli government in response to public outrage and grief, found that Israel was indirectly responsible for not anticipating the possibility of Phalangist violence. Israel instituted the panel’s recommendations, including the dismissal of Gen. , the Army Chief of Staff. Defense Minister resigned on February 8, 1983.
Shatila had previously been one of the PLO's three main training camps for foreign fighters and the main training camp for European fighters. The Israelis maintained that 2,000 to 3,000 terrorists remained in the camps, but were unwilling to risk the lives of more of their soldiers after the Lebanese army repeatedly refused to "clear them out." No evidence was offered for this claim. There were only a small number of forces sent into the camps and they suffered minimal casualties. Two Phalangists were wounded, one in the leg and another in the hand.
Investigations after the massacre found few weapons in the camps. Thomas Friedman, who entered the camps on Saturday, mostly found groups of young men with their hands and feet bound, who had been then lined up and machine-gunned down gang-land style, not typical he thought of the kind of deaths the reported 2,000 terrorists in the camp would have put up with.
Of course, the Hezbollah, represented by aljazeerea most likely, paints a picture that may not be as true as they write. It was a bad massacre, all right but Sharon got the most blame for it as I remember. The Christian Lebanese were furious at the time and more violent than Sharon could have guessed. It turned out to be NOT a shooting but really getting even! Two of the Christian Presidents had been assassinated ! They were of the same family line of Gemayel, like a royal line.
By contrast, few voices were raised in May 1985, when militiamen attacked the Shatila and Burj-el Barajneh Palestinian refugee camps. According to officials, 635 were killed and 2,500 wounded.
During a two-year battle between the Syrian-backed Shiite Amal militia and the PLO, more than 2,000, including many civilians, were reportedly killed. No outcry was directed at the PLO or the Syrians and their allies over the slaughter. International reaction was also muted in October 1990 when Syrian forces overran Christian-controlled areas of Lebanon. In the eight-hour clash, 700 Christians were killed – the worst single battle of Lebanon’s Civil War.
Resource:
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/massacres-at-sabra-and-shatila
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/16/sabra-and-shatila-massacre-40-years-on-explainer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabra_and_Shatila_massacre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_Eitan
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