Mosque shots

This small, spartan cemetery is a daily reminder of the legacy that Israel’s new prime minister, Ariel Sharon, left to Lebanon the last time he held a position of power...

CU man praying

... a legacy that still haunts the Palestinians of Chatila camp.

Chatila gvs

Today it’s business as usual in the streets of Chatila, one of 12 Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon ... But underneath the calm exterior there’s real anguish. Eighteen years ago, in the third month of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, these streets...

Archive bodies in street and lamentation

... were quiet as a grave...

They were a grave – quite literally carpeted with the bodies of Palestinians slaughtered by Israel’s Christian militia allies as Israeli forces commanded by General Sharon surrounded the camps.

Archive of removing bodies

By the time all the bodies had been removed, at least 1,500 unarmed Palestinian civilians were dead – men, women and children.

Wide of tall buildings

Israeli soldiers stationed in the tall buildings surrounding the camps had a bird’s eye view of the streets below – streets where the killing continued uninterrupted for 48 hours.

Abu Jamal set-up

Abu Jamal Mahjoub was a man in his 40s at the time of the Sabra and Chatila massacre... Two of his sons, Jamal and Ali – died in the massacre... Today he’s a grandfather – full of misgivings about what Sharon’s election could mean for the Palestinians and for the wider region.

Sync Abu Jamal

How could they have elected Sharon? He’s a criminal responsible for a massacre. How could they put a murderer in charge of Israel? There’s no family in Sabra and Chattel that isn’t mourning a dozen dead...

I saw Sharon here half an hour before the massacre. Flares were turning night into day. They were on the roofs all around, surrounding the entire area. Sharon knew. He’s the one responsible.

Walk-in Abu Jamal

At the time of the massacre, in 1982, Abu Jamal lived on the edge of Shatila. He fled into the camp when the killing began and seldom returns to his old home. For it here, at the foot of these steps, that he found his sons’ bodies when the massacre was finally over...

Cutaway on roof

... and it was safe, at last, to venture out of doors.

Sync Abu Jamal

There was an Israeli checkpoint just here. They knew everything that happened here... After the massacre, I came back to look for my children. I found them among hundreds of corpses –people slaughtered with bullets and axes. knives. Women with babies, cut open from here to here. I was moving the bodies to look for my sons and I found a military ID. It was Israeli!

Mass grave

Most of the dead were buried in this mass grave on the edge of Shatila – a grave that is barely noticeable behind the swarm of market traders who have invaded what is left of the

camp.

Set up David

Middle Eastern analyst David Hirst puts blame for the massacre squarely on the shoulders of Sharon’s command.

Sync David Hirst

Israel had a clear and huge responsibility in the Sabra and Shatila massacre. They were the power in the land. They controlled the Phalangist militias who came in and murdered all those Palestinians in the camps. The Israelis knew what was going on. One of the architects of the massacre was seating next to Israeli officers at the Kuwaiti embassy position overlooking the camp.

Archive invasion

The massacre was only the dreadful climax of Sharon’s activities in Lebanon. Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin had planned a limited, 72-hour operation against Palestinian guerrillas in south Lebanon...

Archive Beirut

But his defence minister - Ariel Sharon- went all the way to Beirut.

Sync David Hirst

He misled his prime minister. He went beyond the original purpose of the raid, of the invasion. From selling it originally as a limited operation up to, I think, the Litani river, he went to Beirut and in the process 20,000 people were killed.

Archive of Arafat/PLO evacuation

The invasion ended with the evacuation of Yasser Arafat and his Palestinian fighters from Beirut and Sharon hailed it as a victory. Within days of the PLO’s evacuation...

Archive Lebanese Forces

(QUICK) the Lebanese Forces militia, trained and armed by Israel...

GV camps

... entered Sabra and Shatila on their killing spree...

Kerosene lamp

... working under the light of Israeli flares

Set-up So’ad

So’ad Surur was at home with her family when Lebanese Forces militiamen entered on the second day of the massacre.

Mother in kitchen

Her mother would soon see her husband and four of her children killed in front of her. The youngest victim, a little girl, was only 18 months old.

Mother entering and eating sequence

Twelve people – family and neighbours – were in this room at the time. Israel’s allies murdered six of them.

Close up So’ad

So’ad was shot three times – in the back and the leg - and is still in constant pain.

Sync So’ad

Thirteen of them came into the house. They lined us all up, old and young. They took us in and out four times. Finally they put against the wall and opened fire!

Cutaway of photos

Five of the six dead were her immediate family... Three of them siblings under three years of age.

Sync So’ad

I stayed alone for two days with the corpses of my family... so many members of my family dead! The Red Cross arrived 48 hours later. I had lost a lot of blood and was almost dead.

Opening photo of massacre

This was the scene the Red Cross found: a room heaped... with bodies.

Sync mother

They shot us here. I had the brains of my children all over my body, all over my face. My little girl had just been weaned. She was 18 months old... They shot her three times in the head – one, two, three! The same with Farid. I didn’t see how Chadi died.

Set up So’ad Dahdah

Sabah Dahdah, a Lebanese woman who was 12 years old at the time of the massacre, lived in the shadow of the Beirut sports stadium.

Sitting down

Being Lebanese and living close to the edge of the camp, in a neighbourhood that wasn’t exclusively Palestinian, she wasn’t afraid when the camp was first besieged.

Close up

She was a feisty little girl and was curious to know exactly what was going on.

Archive of Israeli loudspeakers

The sound of Israelis hailing the inhabitants of the camps could be heard all around.

Sync of archive

“Bring your weapons - your guns and your explosives! Bring them and don’t be afraid!”

Sync Sabah

We heard people calling though the loudspeakers for the men to go to the stadium... advising them to go of their own accord. They went. My father went with them with my younger brother.

Walking shot

Sabah followed them. Her father had the key to the house. She was hungry and wanted to get something to eat.

Archive of stadium

This is what she saw: thousands of Palestinian men going into the stadium, Israeli soldiers coming in and out – and women waiting in fear and concern.

Sync archive

Woman: “Why all the men are out and he is inside?”

Israeli: “Everyone, everyone will be out... He is sitting there telling us what he knows."

Sync Sabah

I wanted to go into the stadium, but I wasn’t allowed in. There was an iron fence. I climbed it and went inside. The old men were sitting in a circle and were being given apples.

Archive of Palestinian filing past

She grabbed some apples and left. A short distance away, she came across the young men.

Pan from friend

I saw bulldozers digging a hole. We went to see what was happening. They were pushing the young men into the hole and covering them with sand. Then they released the old men and told them to send any more young men they could find.

Cutaway apples

It is Israelis Sabah remembers seeing in the stadium and by the bulldozers...

Sync Sabah

They were speaking broken Arabic. “Key, no!” “What you want?” The language was Arabic, but broken Arabic. Not fluent Arabic. They were Israelis!

Archive of Hezbollah

Sharon’s war in Lebanon bequeathed Israel a powerful new enemy – the pro-Iranian Hezbollah party that promised to liberate Israeli-occupied south Lebanon... and then Palestine.

Archive of Israeli casualties

Hezbollah killed hundreds of Israeli soldiers in the occupied south before the Israeli army finally withdrew in May last year.

Thumbs up

But the jubilation was premature. In October last year...

Hezbollah in action

Hezbollah fighters captured...

Mugshots

... three Israeli soldiers in an area of the border that is still contested.

Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah talking

On the eve of Israel’s elections, Hezbollah’s leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah warned that the conflict with Israel continues.

Sync Hassan Nasrallah

We have the right to capture any Israeli officer of soldier to exchange for Lebanese held hostage in Israel. The resistance is still in a state of war and has the right to capture any soldier on Lebanese soil.

Gala shots

Lebanon today is trying to regain its old glory...

Israeli tanks over Beirut

But many fear that Sharon’s return to power could once again be calamitous for the country.

Sync David Hirst

The Israelis in general feel since the beginning of the Palestinian Intifada that their so-called deterrent power has been eroded. Generals and politicians talk about that. They want to re-establish that deterrent power. Some of the extremists in the entourage of Gen. Sharon talk about hitting Tehran, the Aswan dam... burning Lebanon. I think that Sharon is far more likely than any of his predecessors to seize upon any action by the Hezbollah to go to war again – against Hezbollah, against Lebanon and possibly against Syria.

Israeli tank on the occupied Golan heights

Sharon has frequently advocated pre-emptive attack on Syria – the neighbour Israel regards as its most implacable foe... a neighbour that is still demanding the return of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Shatila alleyways

This time around, the Palestinians in these camps are unlikely to be in the front of the firing line if Sharon embarks on a new military adventure.

Sync David Hirst

The Palestinians in Lebanon are very afraid of Sharon’s coming to power. But I think it’s their brothers in the Occupied Territories who should be more afraid. It is likely that if Sharon repeats the kind of things he did in Lebanon in 1982 it will this time be inside the Occupied Territories because that’s the main arena, that’s where the Intifada is taking place that he and others see as a threat – an existential threat - to Israel.

GVs So’ad and family

However true that may be, families like this are afraid today. Eighteen years after she was rushed...

Archive So’ad wounded

wounded from her home,

Archive spraying So’ad’s home

Leaving her father, brothers and sister to the care of strangers...

So’ad at home today

So’ad finds it hard to accept that the man she blames for her family’s calamity is in power across the border.

Mother eating

Memories of the massacre haven’t faded at all.

Sync So’ad

The smell of the bodies was terrible. I was screaming as they took me away... I have a deep, deep wound in my heart. Sharon was responsible for the massacre. If he could do that when he was defence minister, what can he do now that he’s prime minister? I am very, very afraid.