The United States was responsible for the 1982 massacre of Palestinians in Beirut

Washington had explicitly guaranteed their safety – and recently declassified documents reveal that US diplomats were told by the Israelis what they and their allies might be up to | RASHID KHALIDI*

In this September 27, 1982, file photo, a Palestinian woman attending a Beirut memorial service holds the helmets worn by those who committed the Sabra and Shatila massacre | AP Photo / Bill Foley, File

On the night of September 16, 1982, my younger brother and I were baffled as we watched dozens of Israeli flares floating down in complete silence over the southern reaches of Beirut, for what seemed like an eternity. We knew that the Israeli army had rapidly occupied the western part of the city two days earlier. But flares are used by armies to illuminate a battlefield, and with all the PLO fighters who had resisted the Israeli army during the months-long siege of the city already evacuated from Beirut, we went to bed perplexed, wondering what enemy was left for the occupying army to hunt.

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Sabra & Shatila, 1982 – never again

The world watched in horror as the story of the inhuman massacres in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon first emerged in September, 1982 | An entire generation of the Palestinian people has grown up in their shadow | The general at the centre of this butchery is today the prime minister of Israel – Ariel Sharon | The scale of the infamy has changed, but not the methods, the perpetrators or their allies | The past is always present

Sabra and Chatila – two undefended refugee camps in Beirut where hundreds of unarmed Palestinian refugees, including babies, were massacred 16-18 September 1982. (Click to enlarge)

From the Dossier on Palestine (2002)

By PIERRE PÉAN*

TWENTY years have passed, but reread the accounts or speak to survivors in what remains of the Sabra and Shatila camps, and the words still drip red. Time has not washed away the blood. All through my investigation I was horrified as I listened to story after story about children with their throats slit, or pregnant women with their bellies slashed open, or heads and limbs hacked off. I felt physically sick.

This day in history. Remembering Sabra & Shatila (1982)

Thirty-two years ago on 16 September 1982, the Lebanese Christian Phalange Party militia entered the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in Beirut during the 1982 nvasion f Lebanon by Israel. Israeli forces commanded by Gen. Ariel Sharon occupied the surrounding city and facilitated the militia’s entry into the camp, accompanied by an Israeli death squad. The Israeli invasion of Lebanon eariler that year had been given the “green light” by the Reagan administration. Over the following three days (15-18 September), as many as 3,000 civilians were massacred as Israeli-manned checkpoints turned back fleeing Palestinians and Israeli troops fired flares to illuminate the camp at night. This conscience-searing event marks a defining moment in the Palestinians’ struggle to be rid of the decades-long illegal military occupation of their lands and lives by the so-called State of Israel. It continues to be commemorated wherever Palestinians and their friends gather.