The Sabra and Shatila Massacre
Our entry into West Beirut was in order to make war against the infrastructure left by the terrorists.
Ariel Sharon
The brutal massacre of hundreds, possibly thousands, of innocent victims at the Sabra and Shatila Massacre in 1982 was one of the worst atrocities to take place during the course of war in Lebanon. For many, it continues to rankle, partly because the perpetrators were never brought to justice. After the event, the commander of the massacre, Elie Hobeka, became a minister in the Lebanese government; he was later assassinated. A court case was mounted against the Israeli Defence Minister, Ariel Sharon, when he became Prime Minister in 2001, in the hopes that his indirect involvement in the incident would also be recognized; however, the case was dismissed, much to the anger of the many families whose loved ones had been killed.
Today, there remains a great deal of controversy surrounding the incident, especially with the regard to the number of victims. Many argue that the massacre was a deeply shameful episode in the civil war, and that it was a crime against the refugees of Sabra and Shatila that has never been properly recognized by the international community. Others point to the atrocities committed by Palestinian sympathizers that provoked it. But whatever the human cost of the massacre, it seems that it will continue to be a source of bitter dispute between opposing factions in the Middle East for the foreseeable future.
Chaos and Violence
The massacre took place against a complex political and military backdrop of conflict in Lebanon and surrounding countries, which had been going on for decades. The central issue was that of the presence of Palestinian refugees in the country, many of whom had fled from Israel, but who were resented by nationalist elements in Lebanon, especially Christian religious groups. From 1975, fighting had broken out between Lebanese Christian militias and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), led by Yasser Arafat. It was not long before neighbouring countries, such as Syria, were pulled into the conflict, supporting the Lebanese militias against the Palestinians, who were forced out of Beirut into the South. In 1978, Israel itself had invaded Lebanon, but they had been ordered out by the United Nations.
Hostilities then escalated as the PLO began to attack Israel’s border from its base in Southern Lebanon, until in 1982 Israel once more invaded the country, with the purpose of evicting the Palestinians. This was the point when the Sabra and Shatila Massacre took place, in an atmosphere of such general chaos, violence and lawlessness that it has been difficult for historians and other commentators to agree on exactly what happened.
Revenge Killings
According to reliable reports, the massacre took place at the command of Elie Hobeika, the commander of the Lebanese Phalange party’s militia force. In 1976, Hobeika’s fiancée and some members of his family had been killed in a PLO terror attack at Damour, so he had plenty of reason to want revenge. When the Israeli army invaded in 1982, the opportunity came for the Phalange militia to move into the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilia, ostensibly to deal with PLO terrorists. Instead, they raped, murdered and brutalized the civilian inhabitants of the camps over a period of three days.
Later, radio workers reported that the militia soldiers had been given the order to do so by Hobeika himself. They alleged that when a militia leader asked Hobeika how to treat Palestinian women and children who had been taken prisoner, he said, ‘This is the last time you ask me a question like that. You know exactly what to do.’ However, Hobeika later claimed that he had been forced into ordering the massacre by Israeli Defence Minister Ariel Sharon.
Raped, Terrorized and Shot
Whatever the truth of the matter, there is no doubt that defenceless men, women and children, who had already been displaced as a result of war, were killed at Sabra and Shatila. Sabra is a run-down suburb of Beirut, while Shatila had been set up by the United Nations as a Palestinian refugee camp in 1949, and it had grown larger as refugees continued to flee there over the years. These powerless victims of war, who lived in poverty and squalor, were now subjected to vicious assaults by the Lebanese militia: women were raped, children terrorized, and whole families shot in front of horrified onlookers. While the militia soldiers performed their gruesome crimes, the Israeli forces patrolled the borders of the camps, making sure they could continue their dirty work. Tellingly, the ostensible reason for the raids – to seek out PLO terrorists – was forgotten: no PLO activists were handed over to the authorities, although a large amount of ammunition was apparently confiscated.
Eyewitnesses to the attacks report that on September 15, 1982, the Israeli military circled the camps, setting up observation points around the periphery. They then fired flares into the area, lighting up the sky so that the soldiers could see what was happening in the camp. The following evening, Elie Hobeika and his Phalangist militiamen stormed the camps, attacking entire families in an orgy of violence. Meanwhile, the Israeli army continued to fire illumination flares into the sky, and they blocked the exits of the camps so that the refugees could not find a way to escape. It also provided the militia troops with food and water, and made sure they had enough ammunition. The militia soldiers reported many of the killings to the Israelis, who allowed the massacre to carry on, turning a blind eye to the atrocities they knew were being perpetrated against the refugees.
The Unknown Dead
Eventually, after three days, the Israelis ordered the militia out of the camps, but by this time the soldiers were in no mood to listen to orders. Instead, they frogmarched the remaining victims out of the area and herded them into a stadium to be questioned, killing many of them at random on the way.
By September 18, the massacre was over. According to reports by journalists and international relief agencies such as the Red Cross, who were the first to arrive at the scene of carnage, there were hundreds of mutilated bodies lying dead in the streets. Later, a great deal of controversy arose as to the exact number of victims. Estimates varied from 700 (based on Israeli intelligence figures) to 3,000 (as alleged by Israeli journalist Amnon Kapeliouk). Tragically, because of the chaotic, random way in which the murders took place, many bodies were left uncounted and unburied, so to this day the real number of victims remains unknown.
Bitter Aftermath
Not surprisingly, the aftermath of the massacre was a bitter one. The United Nations General Assembly responded by declaring the massacre to be an act of genocide. Initially, the Israeli government tried to defend itself by denying the massacre had taken place, but as evidence to the contrary grew, it realized this position was untenable. Under pressure from the international community, as well as their own people, who held large demonstrations in the capital Tel Aviv, the Israeli government set up a commission to look into their army’s part in the massacre. It eventually reported, a year after the massacre took place, that the Israeli army had not been ‘directly’ involved in the killings; however, it held Defence Minister Ariel Sharon, among others, to be ‘indirectly responsible’. The commission recommended that Sharon, along with several other powerful figures, be dismissed. Sharon accordingly stepped down. The commission also recommended that he should not hold public office in Israel again. Despite this, he became prime minister in 2001.
There were attempts to bring Sharon to justice, but they failed. After he became prime minister, relatives of the massacre victims attempted to mount a case against him in Belgium; however, the case was thrown out of court. A number of other human rights cases were also being put forward in the Belgian courts, against such figures as Fidel Castro, Yasser Arafat, George Bush, Colin Powell and Augusto Pinochet. Faced with the enormous complications of these proceedings, and under pressure from the US and NATO (who threatened to move their headquarters from the country), the Belgian courts decided that only crimes against Belgian citizens could be considered within their legal system. To the dismay of many international commentators, Sharon escaped trial and continued to hold office as prime minister until he became ill and was forced to retire in 2006.
Elie Hobeika, commander of the militia forces who had perpetrated the attack, also went on to become a powerful political figure in his country, as a minister in the Lebanese government. However, he met a violent end when in January 2002, when he became the victim of a car bomb. At the time, he had been about to give evidence against Sharon in the upcoming Belgian trial; this, of course, prompted a great deal of speculation as to who was behind the assassination. Hobeika had no shortage of enemies, and there were several suspected parties: the PLO and other Palestinian organizations, the Syrians, the Israelis and the CIA. No one was ever brought to trial for the assassination, but the consensus is that, for complex political reasons, the Syrians were probably behind it.
Today, with continuing conflict in the Middle East between the Israelis and the Palestinians, there seems little likelihood that the perpetrators of the Sabra and Shatila massacre will ever be brought to justice. Sadly, when BBC journalist Martin Asser visited the area 20 years after the event, all that he found to mark the graves of the many victims who lost their lives there was a pile of breeze blocks – a telling sign of the continuing poverty and powerlessness of a persecuted refugee community.