The Sabra and Shatila massacre was the slaughter of between 762 and 3,500 civilians, mostly Palestinians and Lebanese Shiites, by the Kataeb Party, a Lebanese Christian militia, in the Sabra neighborhood and the adjacent Shatila refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon. On 15 September, 63 Palestinian intellectuals, notably lawyers, medical staff and teachers, were individually identified and killed by an Israeli unit called Sayeret Matkal and from approximately 6:00 pm 16 September to 8:00 am 18 September 1982 a more widespread massacre was carried out by a Lebanese Christian Phalangist militia. The massacre was presented as retaliation for the assassination of newly elected Lebanese president Bachir Gemayel, the leader of the Lebanese Kataeb Party. It was wrongly assumed that Palestinian militants had carried out the assassination. In June 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon with the intention of rooting out the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). By mid-1982, under the supervision of the Multinational Force the PLO withdrew from Lebanon following weeks of battles in West Beirut and shortly before the massacre took place. Various forces — Israeli, Christian Phalangists and possibly also the South Lebanon Army (SLA) — were in the vicinity of Sabra and Shatila at the time of the slaughter, taking advantage of the fact that the Multinational Force had removed barracks and mines that had encircled Beiruts Muslim neighborhoods and kept the Israelis at bay during the Beirut siege. The Israeli advance over West Beirut in the wake of the PLO withdrawal, which enabled the Phalangist raid, was considered a violation of the ceasefire agreement between the various forces.The Israel Defense Forces surrounded Sabra and Shatila and stationed troops at the exits of the area to prevent camp residents from leaving and, at the Phalangists request, fired illuminating flares at night. The direct perpetrators of the killings were the Young Men, a gang recruited by Elie Hobeika, the Lebanese Forces intelligence chief and liaison officer with Mossad, from men who had been expelled from the Lebanese Forces for insubordination or criminal activities. The killings are widely believed to have taken place under Hobeikas direct orders. Hobeikas family and fiancée had been murdered by Palestinian militiamen, and their Lebanese allies, at the Damour massacre of 1976, itself a response to the 1976 Karantina massacre of Palestinians and Lebanese Muslims at the hands of Christian militants. Hobeika later became a long-serving Member of the Parliament of Lebanon and served in several ministerial roles. Other Phalangist commanders involved were Joseph Edde from the South, Dib Anasta, head of the Phalangist Military Police, Michael Zouein and Maroun Mischalani from East Beirut. In all 300-400 militiamen were involved, including some from Saad Haddads South Lebanon Army.In 1983, a commission chaired by Seán MacBride, the assistant to UN secretary general and president of United Nations General Assembly at the time, concluded that Israel bore responsibility for the violence because, as the occupiers of the camps, events taking place therein were their responsibility. The UN commission led by MacBride concluded that the massacre was a form of genocide. In 1983, the Israeli Kahan Commission, appointed to investigate the incident, found that Israeli military personnel, aware that a massacre was in progress, had failed to take serious steps to stop it. The commission deemed Israel indirectly responsible, and Ariel Sharon, then Defense Minister, bore personal responsibility for ignoring the danger of bloodshed and revenge, forcing him to resign.
Posted on: Wed, 17 Sep 2014 07:52:44 +0000
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