September 16 marks the 25th anniversary of the massacre in the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps in Lebanon. During the course of the two-day attack, a reported 2,000 Palestinians – mainly women, children and elderly - were slaughtered in their homes at the hands of the pro-Israeli Lebanese Maronite Phalangist militia under the direct eye of the occupying Israeli army. While Israel puts the death toll at 700, some Palestinian and Lebanese estimates put it as high as 3,500.
The massacre took place after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June, 1982, ostensibly in retaliation for the attempted assassination of an Israeli ambassador in London. The invasion, however, was widely perceived as an Israeli bid to drive out the PLO from Beirut, where it had set up its headquarters and where several PLO factions had established strongholds, especially in Palestinian refugee camps around the capital. At the time, Ariel Sharon was serving as Israeli Defense Minister and was later held responsible for the Sabra and Shatilla massacres.
Following two months of fierce fighting between Israeli, Lebanese and Palestinian forces, a ceasefire was reached, which entailed an evacuation of the PLO from Beirut. The PLO agreed to the ceasefire on condition that Palestinian civilians in the camps would be protected. The Americans, who helped broker the ceasefire, supposedly guaranteed this. The PLO was officially evacuated by September 1.
The refugee camps, previously protected by heavily armed members of Palestinian factions, were then left to their own devices. One day after international forces pulled out of Beirut, Sharon announced there were “2,000 terrorists left in the camps”. Then, on September 14, Israeli ally and Lebanese President-Elect Bashir Gemayal was assassinated. Gemayel was said to have met with Sharon days earlier and agreed to allow Lebanese Phalangist forces to “mop up” the Palestinian camps.
Then by September 16, the Israeli army had completely surrounded West Beirut, including the camps of Sabra and Shatilla and an order by the Israeli army high command was issued to allow the Lebanese army to “search and mop up” the camps.
That evening approximately 150 Philangist militiamen entered Sabra and Shatilla and for the next 40 hours proceeded to rape, torture and massacre hundreds of women, children and men in their homes and in front of their families. While the Israeli army did not have a direct hand in the actual killings, they were in full knowledge of the massacre. Not only did they do nothing to intervene, but they trained, fed and equipped the Phalangists, giving them the green light and a free hand to slaughter the Palestinians.
There has never been an exact final death toll because, in addition to the 1,000 or so bodies buried in mass graves, there were an unidentified number of bodies buried under the rubble of ruined homes. Also, Phalangist militiamen took truckloads of Palestinian men to unknown destinies, most of whom are still considered missing.
After the Lebanese army withdrew from Sabra and Shatilla, and the carnage left behind was broadcast in the media, Israeli public pressure led to a parliament-formed commission of inquiry into the massacre. The Kahan Commission would later find Sharon personally responsible for the massacre and would demand his resignation. Although Sharon did resign his post, he remained in government as Minister without Portfolio.
Renowned British journalist Robert Fisk visited the camps right after the massacre took place. In his description of the scene, he spoke of raped women, their skirts still torn off their thighs, children with their throats cut and babies already decomposing in the late-summer heat.
Head of the Phalange party at the time Elie Hobeika, did not hide his disdain for the Palestinians. He proudly announced that his militiamen employed the same methods of ethnic cleansing that Israel used during the 1948 war to drive the Palestinians out. “Shoot them against the pink and blue walls; slaughter them in the half-light of the evening," he said. "The only way you will find out how many Palestinians we killed is if they ever build a subway under Beirut...A good massacre or two will drive the Palestinians out of Beirut and Lebanon once and for all.”
Over the last quarter century, there have been attempts by human rights organizations to indict Ariel Sharon on behalf of the survivors of Sabra and Shatilla. The indictment, however, has never come to fruition and neither Sharon nor the Phalangist militia have ever been held fully accountable for the atrocities they perpetrated against the inhabitants of the Sabra and Shatilla camps in September, 1982.
UN Resolution 1325
Date posted: February 03, 2021
By MIFTAH
Kerry talks peace while Israel bars UNESCO mission [May 19 - May 25]
Date posted: May 25, 2013
By MIFTAH
President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu both met with US Secretary of State John Kerry this week in the latter’s fourth visit to the region since he assumed office.
After meeting with the two to ostensibly find ways to restart stalled negotiations between the two sides, Kerry urged on May 24 both Israeli and Palestinian leaders to take "hard decisions" to revive the peace process.
"We're getting toward a time now when hard decisions need to be made," he said at the end of his visit.
Kerry admitted a day before after meeting with the two leaders that there was skepticism and cynicism about his efforts to revive talks.
"I know this region well enough to know there is skepticism, in some quarters there is cynicism, and there are reasons for it. There have been bitter years of disappointment," he said. Still, he maintained: "It is our hope that by being methodical, careful, patient, but detailed and tenacious, that we can lay on a path ahead that can conceivably surprise people and certainly exhaust the possibilities for peace."
British foreign secretary William Hague was also in the region visiting with leaders on both sides and even visited the Bedouin community of Khan Al Ahmar between Jerusalem and Jericho, whose residents are under the threat of displacement.
On May 23, Hague was poignantly clear on where his country stands on Israeli settlements in the West Bank. "Israel has lost some of its support in Britain and in other European countries over time - this is something I've often pointed out to Israeli leaders -because of settlement activity, which we condemn,” he said.
"We strongly disagree with settlements on occupied land. Israel is a country we work with in many ways but we do disapprove of settlements,” he maintained, adding that: "We want to see both Israelis and Palestinians really commit themselves to the peace process while there is still a chance of a two-state solution."
In Khan al Ahmar, Hague listened to the residents’ grievances from Israeli efforts to push them out to make way for more settlement expansion. "We (in Britain) strongly condemn the building of settlements and recognise they are a severe threat to a two-state solution,” he told the people there.
On March 21, Israeli forces demolished two residential buildings in the Jabal al-Mukabbir in East Jerusalem. Earlier, they demolished two Palestinian homes in al-Tur, all under the pretext of unlicensed construction. Dozens of people have been left homeless from the demolitions.
A UNESCO fact-finding mission was supposed to arrive this week to look into Israeli measures in the Old City of Jerusalem and their impact on the archeological, cultural and heritage significance of the place, but was denied entry by Israel on May 20. Israel justified its decision by saying Palestinians were trying to politicize the visit.
"The Palestinians were not respecting the understandings,” an Israeli foreign ministry official said. “The visit was supposed to be professional, (but) they were taking measures that showed they were politicizing the event and not letting the delegation focus on professional sides of it," the official said.
UNESCO maintained that the mission was not cancelled, but postponed, the agency’s spokeswoman Sue Williams said.
The Palestinians said they expected Israel to pull something like this. “We weren't surprised by this decision because we believed that Israel's agreement to (allow the mission) was not convincing," minister of foreign affairs Riyad Al Malki said.
The Rafah crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt was reopened on May 22 after a five day closure. Egyptian soldiers and policemen closed the crossing following the kidnapping of seven Egyptian soldiers in Sinai, only reopening it after the soldiers were freed. Over 2,400 Palestinians had been stranded on both sides of the crossing during the days of the closure.
Extremist Israelis extended their attacks this week all the way to the Negev desert. On May 19, residents of the Retamim Kibbutz attacked the nearby Bedouin village of Bir Hadaj and set fire to a tent, according to head of the local village council, Salman Ibin Hamid
"The setters of Retamim are acting like they are in the West Bank," Ibn Hamid said. "These people have the mentality of the occupying settler to attack every Arab."
Finally, on May 23, the US appointed Gen. John Allen as special envoy on security issues in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. According to a US official, Allen will deal with the U.S. position on Israeli security needs and the security arrangements that would accompany the establishment of a future Palestinian state.
Al Nakba commemorated amid increasing settler attacks [May 12 - May 18]
Date posted: May 18, 2013
By MIFTAH
This week Palestinians commemorated the 65th anniversary of the Nakba, the catastrophe of 1948 on May 15, with a variety of activities, demonstrations and events throughout the Palestinian territories and outside of its borders. Festivals were held in Ramallah and Nablus in addition to several protests and confrontations with Israeli occupation forces. In Jerusalem, clashes broke out between protesters and Israeli police and border guards when Palestinians commemorating Al Nakba, raising Palestinian flags and facing off with Jewish settlers and soldiers. Thirty people were wounded or arrested during the clashes in addition to six Israelis.
The Jerusalem clashes come at a time when settler break-ins to Al Aqsa have been on the rise amid increasing calls by extremist Jewish groups to make a presence at the compound. The break-ins have become a near daily event. Muslim worshippers and Palestinian youths have kept constant vigil at the mosque to stave off the break-ins which included settler groups who used children as a cover to enter the compound on the occasion of Shavuot.
Settlers in the West Bank have wreaked havoc this week as well. On May 17, three Palestinians were injured in clashes in Urif south of Nablus when dozens of settlers set fire to lands in three area-villages: Urif, Einabus, and Asira al-Qibliya. The settlers also attacked citizens and threw burning tires at people’s homes.
Jewish extremists attacked inside the Green Line as well. On May 14, extremists set fire to three cars and sprayed racist graffiti on a mosque south of Haifa, according to Israeli media reports.
"Price-tag" and "Eviatar," which is thought to refer to the name of a settler stabbed to death last week, were found on the mosque’s walls in addition to the Star of David. In Safed, even farther north, racist graffiti with the words "Arabs out" was found on walls in the city.
On May 13, Israeli settlers exhumed a number of graves and sprayed racist graffiti in the Sawiya village in Nablus. Ghassan Daghlas, head of the PA settlement activity file, said settlers from the Alia settlement were responsible for the damage.
On the same day settlers from Tel Hatimar begin building a religious school for children on Al Khader lands in the Bethlehem area.
The Israeli army meanwhile, uprooted over 1,200 olive tree saplings on May 16 and razed land Palestinian farmer in the northern West Bank, according to Daghlas. He said the army dug up over 40 dunums of farm land and demolished a water tank and stone walls in Ras Karker, near Nablus.
On May 17, three Palestinian laborers were wounded in Beit Ula northwest of Hebron after Israeli forces fired rubber-coated steel bullets and unleashed police dogs at them according to Issa al-Amla, coordinator for the popular struggle committee. He said Omar Al-Amla, 31, and Abdulkadir Al-Amla, 28, suffered multiple dog bites to the neck and hands. A third laborer, Jihad Saleem, was shot in the leg.
In Jerusalem on May 17, Israeli forces raided the home of Iyad al-Awar and insisted on taking his two children 6-year-old Qassam and 5-year-old Nasrallah for “interrogation”. While their father prevented the forces from arresting his boys, Israeli soldiers handed him a warrant ordering him to bring his children to the Russian Compound for questioning.
"We arrived to the Russian Compound and the troops wanted to take my kids for investigation; I refused and they beat me in the ear and the leg. My kids started crying and were so scared from the troops. They took my kids by force," al-Awar said.
Israeli Intelligence officers apparently questioned the children about their detained cousin Shadad, and asked if they had seen him throwing stones or Molotov cocktails at Israeli forces, Al Awar said.
On the same day however, Palestinians scored a tiny victory in the Jerusalem suburb of Abu Dis when they were able to tear a hole through part of the separation wall. Protesters marking the Nakba anniversary ripped a 4-meter hole in it, eyewitnesses said. Clashes ensued between the protesters and Israeli soldiers who fired tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets. Several injuries were reported.
Peace Now reported on May 16 that the Israeli government planned to grant retroactive approval to four West Bank settlement outposts it had previously pledged to at least partially demolish.
The Israeli state attorney's office said that settlers had purchased the private Palestinian land on which they built, thus paving the way for the government to give its blessing.
"In the response, the government declares its intention to legalize four outposts, in isolated areas," Peace Now said in a statement, adding that the strategy was an affront to US Secretary of State John Kerry's efforts to revive dormant Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. "The intention to legalize outposts as new settlements is no less than a slap in the face of Secretary Kerry's new peace process," Peace Now said.
On May 14, Hamas and Fatah agreed in Cairo to form a national unity government within three months during which they would finalize and approve the Palestine National Council elections law. The two sides, represented by Fatah leader Azzam Al Ahmad and Hamas politburo member Mousa Abu Marzouq, came to the agreement under Egyptian sponsorship and said President Abbas would immediately begin talks on the new government formation. Once the government is formed, general elections can be held.
