Since the 1948 Nakba (catastrophe) the oppressed Palestinian people have faced dozens of massacres including the three-day brutal one that was committed in Lebanon’s Sabra and Shatila by Israeli-backed Christian militiamen in 1982.
Although this massacre was preceded by dozens of mass killings and followed by others the Sabra and Shatila massacre has marked a turning point in the Palestinian people’s history because of its viciousness and harrowing details.
From September 16 to 18 1982 a Lebanese militia group at the behest of the Israeli occupation army massacred between 800 and 2000 Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila camps on Beirut’s outskirts. They also murdered at least 100 Lebanese civilians and some Syrians.
The majority of residents in the camps were indigenous Palestinian refugee families who had been exposed to massacres systematic ethnic cleansing and dispossession at the hands of Zionist militias and later the Israeli occupation state in what became to be known as the 1948 Nakba.
The Sabra and Shatila massacre took place during Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon whose principal aim was to crush the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) based there.
On September 16 1982 Israeli forces under then war minister Ariel Sharon imposed a tight siege on the camps to facilitate the entry of the Israeli-backed Lebanese Phalange (Kataeb Party) militia. Israel over the years had provided arms training and military assistance for the Phalange.
Once the Israeli army sealed the camp hundreds of Palestinian refugees and Lebanese civilians were violently tortured killed raped and mutilated over the course of three days. The militiamen used machine guns pistols knives machetes and axes during the carnage.
Following the Sabra and Shatila massacre the 37th session of the UN General Assembly called for sanctions against Israel.
