Sabra and Shatila: Blood on Sharon’s Hands After 22 Years

This Thursday marks the 22nd anniversary of the massacre of Sabra and Shatila that was perpetrated by the Lebanese Christian militias with the full cooperation of the Israeli occupation forces, led by the then Defense Minister Ariel Sharon.

Palestinians mark this day with endless pain and sadness, as Sharon continues to commit massacres against Palestinians even when he became Prime Minister, the last of these was the killing of ten Palestinians in the cities of Nablus and Jenin.

The main question that should be raised in such a day is whether the massacre of Sabra and Shatila and the massacres that followed it has actually managed to break the will of the Palestinian people and deterred it from realizing an independent state.

About the Massacre

On the night of September 16, 1982 near the Lebanese capital Beirut, which was occupied by Israeli forces, the world witnessed a brutal killing of hundreds of men, women, children and elderly. The crime was so horrible that the world swallowed its sadness and instead demanded the perpetrators to be brought to justice and punished swiftly.

At that time, the world considered it as a "genocide", as thousands of Palestinian refugees in Sabra and Shatila refugee camps were literally butchered by the Lebanese Christian militiamen, who embarked on a three-day orgy of rape and slaughter, all under the watchful eye of the Israeli forces, lead by Sharon himself.

The Israeli forces besieged both camps, preventing anyone from either fleeing the camp for their lives or from entering the camp to help the victims or bear witness to the horrible crime. Sabra and Shatila was considered the bloodiest incident throughout the Arab-Israeli conflict at that time.

In about 40 hours, more than 3,000 men, women and children were killed by the militiamen, out of a total population of 20,000 refugees. Entire families were wiped out and generations were obliterated. One of the first journalists to enter the camp after the massacre was New York Times correspondent Thomas Freedman, who said, "I saw mostly groups of young men in their twenties and thirties lined up against the walls, tied from their feet and hands then hailed with bullets from machineguns like professional gang style."

The later February, an Israeli investigation committee named ’Kahan Commission’ included Sharon’s name as one of those who bear "personal responsibility" for the massacre, while the International Commission of Enquiry (ICE) formed to investigate the massacre concluded it was an act of genocide, which aimed at wiping out the erasing of national culture, political independence and national will that is part of the Palestinian struggle for freedom and sovereignty.

The ICE also said the massacre was part of Israel’s policies since its creation to cleanse Palestine of the Palestinian people.

The Commission was formed of distinguished lawmen from the United States, England, France, Germany and Ireland, chaired by the brilliant Irish lawyer and prominent politician Sean McBride, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1974

The International Press Center (IPC)

http://www.ipc.gov.ps/ipc_e/ipc_e-1/e_News/news2004/2004_09/095.html