The night of September 16th, 1982, one of the most horrifying episodes of mass and wanton slaughtered happened in West Beirut, Lebanon. A terrifying lesson on how cruel and inhumane man can be to other human beings.
That ghastly night remembered by the survivors of one of the most terrible massacres in our century began as a raid by Christian Phlangists, led by Ariel Sharon on the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in West Beirut.
The plan was to combat some 300 supposed Palestinian Liberation Organization guerrillas holed up in the camps. They were blamed for the assasination of Bachir Gemayel weeks before, leader of the Lebanese Christian Phlangists.
That night while the camps were surrounded by the Israeli Defense Force IDF, the 1,500 strong Phalangists assembled at Israel-controlled Beirut International Airport and were given weapons and radios. They entered the camps on the supposed mission to engage the PLO fighters and what culminated in an bloody atrocity .
Only the Phlangists did not engage the supposed terrorists. They went house to house and attacked civilians. The men were lined up against walls and mowed down in cold blood among a shower of bullets.
The women and girls were raped mercilessly and murdered. Children, babies and the elderly were slaughtered as well. Piles of dead infants and babies littered the dusty streets of Sabra and Shatila.
At 11 PM a report was sent to IDF headquarters detailing the deaths of 300 civilians during the "battle". At this time, the Israeli Forces fired bright flares into the night sky, illuminating the camps and allowing the miliatias to continue their wanton massacre of innocents. The attackers also carried bright flashlights, to help them illuminate dark corners were terrifyed survivors could be hiding.
"Dont worry, nothing will happen to you" they attackers called out among the piles of bloody and slashed bodies. "If you need a doctor or hospital we will take you, nothing will happen, come out so you can be treated".
Those who arose, injured and in need of attention, were summerarily shot or slashed to death on the spot. No relief ever came.
For the next 36 hours, the Phalangists continued their horror on the inhabitants of Sabra and Shatila. People had their bellies shashed open in the forms of Crosses. Pregnant women had their wombs ripped open and left bleeding to death in the streets. Babies were tossed against brick walls while their mothers or sisters were brutally raped. The men were simply led outside and machine gunned to death.
For two days. At one point at the start of the massacre, a miliatiamen questioned what to do with captive women; the response from Elie Hobeika, future Israeli cabinet minister was terse and to the point:
"You know what to do. Dont ever ask me that again". The rapes and murders went on for 48 hours.
The Miliatias did not terminate the operation at 5:00 AM Saturday September 18th as planned. This was time for cleanup. They used bulldozers to destroy homes with people still inside and to hastily bury some of the bodies. Other bodies were doused in chemicals and destroyed. By 8 AM cleanup plans were abandoned and survivors were hearded to a stadium to be interrogated. Most were executed as well at the station as the massacre continued.
At 9AM the first foreign journalists and officials entered Sabra and Shatila and discovered the horror. Red Crescent workers wore gas masks against the stench of death as Western journalists covered their nose with handkerchiefs and proceeded to make the first reports of the horrendous massacre that had occured.
By the afternoon of Saturday September 18th, 1982, the world was stunned at the atrocity that had occured at Sabra and Shatila.
Bruised and bloodied bodies littered the streets and homes of the camps. Men women and children in piles of dead broken corpses, already covered in flies. The images were shocked and the Western world was appalled.
According to Israel some 800 people died during those days of madness. According to Lebanese figures, the death toll was probably more than 3,500. Hundreds were reported missing and never seen again.
Those responsible for the massacres never saw justice. Elie Hobeika, who ordered the massacre despite Israels orders to behave like a dignified army took up important government positions. He was assasinated by a car bomb in January 2002.
Ariel Sharon was Prime Minister and he died in 2006.
The survivors of the massacre still await justice in World tribunals.
