The Massacre of Sabra and Shatila is Still Alive in our Memory

(ST) – Forty-eight hours of continuous killings committed by the Israeli occupation forces and groups of the Lebanese Forces militia and the so-called “South Lebanon Army” agent in the night of September 16, 1982 against Palestinians and Lebanese living in Shatila camp and neighboring Sabra area. The Israeli occupation forces closed the entrances and did not allow them to enter until after the end of the massacre on September 18th to awaken the world to one of the ugliest massacres in history.

The Israeli Occupation Forces threw light bombs on the crime scene, while the militia members closed entrances and exits of the camps and started killing hundreds of residents in horrific ways. They shot at all those who moved and killed whole families. Many were killed in their beds while they were sleeping. In many apartments children as young as three and four years of age were in their nightgowns and their clothes are dyed with blood.

The number of martyrs killed in the massacre remains unclear. The dispute over the number of victims is due to the burial of a number of them in mass graves, whether by the killers, the Red Cross or the people. A large number of bodies were buried under the rubble of demolished houses, as well as hundreds of people who were abducted and taken to unknown locations and whose fate is unknown.

Despite the horrible massacre, the international community has not brought the perpetrators and their leaders to any court, and none of them has been punished for their actions.

The Sabra and Shatila massacre was part of an orchestrated plan prepared by the then infamous Israeli war minister, Ariel Sharon, and Rafael Eitan, the chief of staff of the occupation forces and other militias.

The Israeli occupation forces and their agents in Lebanon were involved in the massacre and also uncovered secret documents published in the New York Times is published in 2012 about Probability of American involvement in this crime through the proceedings of meetings between Sharon and the US President’s envoy to the Middle East at the time, Maurice Draper, which showed an agreement between the two sides to define the camps to be entered by the Israeli occupation forces to liquidate the so-called “terrorists” Sabra, Shatila and Bourj el Barajneh and al-Fakhani.

When the Israeli occupation committed a new massacre against the Palestinian people, the international community was satisfied as usual.

While the formal international investigations into this crime were limited to the independent McBride Commission, which was established informally to investigate Israeli violations of international law during its invasion of Lebanon and was formed by prominent jurists from the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Ireland headed by prominent Irish lawyer and politician Sean McBride

The Committee issued a report in 1983 and devoted a chapter to the massacre of Sabra and Shatila and stressed that the Israeli occupation entity bears legal responsibility for the massacre and that it contributed to the planning and preparation of massacres and facilitate the killings in practice, but its report did not stop the crimes of the Zionist entity.

Sabra and Shatila massacre will remain immortal in the consciousness of Palestinians and free Arabs, including the injustice of the Israeli occupation and the horrors of its crimes. It also reminds the Syrian people of the killing and slaughtering committed by the armed terrorist organizations supported by the Zionist entity and the colonial powers, led by the United States.

Raghda sawas