Socialist Resistance : SR00 - October 2002

Giving green light to a massacre

Sharon’s grisly deal with Lebanese fascists

Sergio Yahni

According to statements made by Ariel Sharon on 22 September 1982 in the Knesset, the decision that the Phalangists should enter the refugee camps had been made on Wednesday, 15 September 1982 at 15.30.

According to General Sharon, the Israeli Command had been told:

“the Tsahal forces are forbidden to enter the refugee camps. The “mopping-up” of the camps will be carried out by the Phalanges or the Lebanese army.”

By dawn on 15 September 1982, Israeli fighter-bombers were flying low over West Beirut and Israeli troops had secured their entry. From 9 am, General Sharon was present to personally direct the Israeli penetration.

He was installed at the Kuwait embassy at the edge of Shatila camp. From the roof of this six-storey building, it is possible to observe both the town and the camps of clearly.

By midday, the camps of Sabra and Shatilla were surrounded by Israeli tanks. Israeli soldiers had installed checkpoints to monitor any movement in or out. During the late afternoon and evening, the camps were shelled.

By Thursday 16 September 1982, the Israeli army controlled West Beirut. In a press release, the Israeli military spokesperson declared, “Tsahal controls all strategic points in Beirut. The refugee camps, inside which there is a concentration of terrorists, are surrounded and sealed.”

On the morning of 16 September, the following order was issued by the army high command: “ the searching and mopping up of the camps will be done by the Phalangists/Lebanese army.” During the course of the morning, shells were fired down at the camps from higher elevations and Israeli snipers were shooting at people in the streets.

By approximately midday, the Israeli military command gave the Phalangist militia the green light to enter the refugee camps.

Shortly after 5 pm, a unit of approximately 150 Phalangists entered Shatila camp from the south and south-west. At this point, General Drori telephoned Ariel Sharon and announced,

“Our friends are advancing into the camps. We have co-ordinated their entry.” To which Sharon replied, “Congratulations! Our friends’ operation is approved.”

For the next 40 hours the Phalangist militia raped, killed, and injured a large number of unarmed civilians, mostly children, women and elderly people inside the “encircled and sealed“ camps.

These actions, accompanied or followed by systematic roundups, backed or reinforced by the Israeli army, resulted in disappearances. Particularly on 17 and 18 September, hundreds of people were carried away alive in trucks towards unknown destinations, never to return. The Israeli army had full knowledge of what was going on in the camps, right up until the morning of Saturday 18 September 1982, and its leaders were in continuous contact with the militia leaders who perpetrated the massacre.

Not only did they not intervene to prevent the slaughter, but they prevented civilians from escaping the camps, and arranged for the camps to be illuminated throughout the night by flares launched from helicopters and mortars.

Sergio Yahni is from the Alternative Information Center, Jerusalem

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