Sabra & Shatila Massacre

[rowan]

Thirty-four years ago today Lebanese Christian militia in collaboration with the Israeli army began a three-day long slaughter of Palestinian refugees, killing as many as 4000, most of them women, children, infants and elderly. Women were raped, those pregnant had their stomachs chopped open and the fetuses removed, males were castrated, children had their throats slit, infants were stabbed, ripped apart and thrown onto garbage heaps, and many of the victims had crosses carved into their bodies. This occurred during the Lebanese civil war and Israeli invasion, after the Palestinians were wrongly blamed for the assassination of Christian Phalangist leader Bashir Gemayel. Israeli defense minister Ariel Sharon was held accountable and forced to resign from his position, though that proved only a mild censure and wouldn't stop him becoming prime minister in 2001. It was, after all, only one of his many war crimes dating back to the massacre in Qibya in 1953, when 69 civilians were murdered. Before the Sabra & Shatila massacre PLO leader Yasir Arafat had appealed to the West for protection, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. The rise of Hezbollah in the aftermath is considered to be one of its consequences; the Shia militia group pledging to defend Muslims in its homeland if no one else would.

[rowan]

This provides a little more insight:

[Adder]

There is quite a good Israeli film on this. It an animated film talking about the dark memories of Israeli soldiers surrounding the camp.

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Edit: its Waltz with Bashir.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waltz_with_Bashir

[rowan]

Robert Fisk provides a very thorough account of it in his seminal classic The Great War for Civilization, The Conquest of the Middle East, though in the video I posted a link to he seems mostly concerned with telling us about the fact he was there, which is why I followed up with the more informative clip from Democracy Now.

[rowan]

Poignant: