Sabra and Shatila massacres

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Memorial in the Sabra district in southern Beirut

As the massacre of Sabra and Shatila ( Arabic مذبحة صبرا وشاتيلا, DMG Maḏbaḥat Ṣabrā wa-Šātīlā ) describes an action by around 150 Lebanese, Maronite-Catholic - mainly phalangist - militias , which was directed against Palestinian refugees living in the southern urban area of Beirut . Between September 16 and 18, 1982 - in the middle of the Lebanese civil war - the refugee camps Sabra (Ṣabrā) and Shatila (Šātīlā), which at that time were surrounded by Israeli soldiers, were stormed. According to statements made on film by militiamen involved, the action was primarily directed against civilians; armed resistance is said to have hardly existed. The militia officers mutilated, tortured, raped and killed mostly civilians, including many women, children and the elderly. The number of victims could not be clarified, but is given between 460 and 3000 depending on the source.

background

Since its independence in 1943, the state of Lebanon has been caught between different ethnic conflicts and foreign policy influences. While Arab nationalists have been seeking proximity to Egypt and Syria , especially since the 1950s, the majority of Lebanese Christians oriented themselves towards the West and the USA . The conflict first escalated during the Lebanon crisis in 1958 . A civil war was prevented by military intervention by the United States, and a period of relative calm ensued with a fragile national unity government. The arrival of the PLO , expelled from Jordan in 1970 , brought the delicate balance of power in Lebanon upside down. The Palestinian liberation movement, supported by the Arab nationalists and other Muslim movements, which radicalized itself particularly after the Six Day War , had been waging an open civil war against militant Christian groups such as the Phalange militia since 1975 at the latest . The fighting was fought with great brutality on both sides. In addition to street fighting, bomb attacks and attacks on civilians were the order of the day. As early as 1976, Christian militias carried out the Karantina massacre on Palestinian refugees , after which the civilian population of a Christian village fell victim to the Damur massacre by Palestinian and Muslim groups.

Since the late 1970s, the coalition relationships in the Lebanese civil war have become considerably more complicated. Israel launched Operation Litani in 1978 in response to ongoing terrorist attacks from southern Lebanon , in the course of which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled north towards Beirut. Before leaving, the Israelis installed a "security zone" in southern Lebanon controlled by the so-called South Lebanese Army , a militia allied with Israel that continued to fight with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). As a result of the collapse of pan-Arabism and Syria's military interventions , the Muslim camp split into the Palestinian, Sunni ( Murabitun militia ) and Shiite militias such as the pro- Syrian ( Amal militia ) and the pro-Iranian ( Hezbollah ) groups, which alternate Coalitions fought against each other. Another Israeli intervention, particularly directed against the PLO , led to a decisive weakening of the Palestinian militants in the 1982 Lebanon War and to their military defeat in August 1982. A month later, the leader of the Christian Forces Lebanaises , Bachir Gemayel , became the three weeks old had previously been elected President of Lebanon, murdered along with many of his companions and cadres in a bomb attack at his headquarters. The Palestinians were suspected of being responsible for the murder of their political opponent. The attack by Christians on the camps is therefore also understood as an act of revenge for the murder of President Gemayel.

The day before the massacre began, the Sabra and Shatila camps in West Beirut were surrounded by Israeli troops. The Israeli army reached an agreement with the Phalange militia which pretended to locate those who were allegedly responsible for the Gemayel attack in the refugee camps and to hand them over to the Israelis. Ariel Sharon and Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan agreed.

The massacre

On the evening of September 16 - two days after the murder of Bachir Gemayel - around 150 Phalangist militiamen under the command of Elie Hobeika broke into the camps to disarm the Palestinian fighters suspected there. During their operation, the militias combed the camps, killing mostly civilians, including women, children and the elderly. Not only from the Palestinian side, but also from the Phalangists involved, it was stated that many of the victims were also mutilated. Torture and rape are also said to have occurred. This was done in full view of Israeli observation posts from surrounding buildings, which cordoned off the camp exits and illuminated the camps with flares during the night to support the phalangist militias.

According to later findings, not only the Israeli military leadership on site was well informed about what was going on in the camps, but also the Israeli government. According to reports, the Israeli army had also provided bulldozers and provided the militias with food and ammunition. The bloodbath did not end until the morning of September 18. According to the Lebanese police, it killed 460 people, including 35 women and children. Israeli authorities assume around 800 military and civilian deaths, according to other estimates around 2,000 people were killed. The PLO spoke of 3,300 murdered.

Political consequences and further course

While the fighting was primarily a conflict between Christian militias and Palestinian fighters, international outrage was sparked in particular by the Israeli share of responsibility. After the Israeli military withdrew to a security zone in front of the Israeli border, Syria took over military control of the area around the refugee camp. Since Syria was also interested in weakening the PLO fighters and Palestinian nationalists who remained in Lebanon, the situation of the people in the refugee camp did not improve. In the course of the camp wars , the Shiite Amal militia carried out a massacre of civilians in the same Palestinian refugee camps in Sabra and Shatila, tolerated by the Lebanese and Syrian army associations. The Lebanese civil war lasted until 1990. Even after that, the living conditions and the legal situation of the Palestinian refugees in the camps changed only insignificantly. After the rise of Islamist movements like the Palestinian Hamas , Palestinian refugee camps like the one in Sabra and Shatila have repeatedly been the target of attacks by the Lebanese army.

Legal processing

The massacre was classified as genocide by the United Nations General Assembly on December 16, 1982 :

"The General Assembly, (...)
Appalled at the large-scale massacre of Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps situated at Beirut,
Recognizing the universal outrage and condemnation of that massacre, (...)
  1. Condemns in the strongest terms the large-scale massacre of Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps;
  2. Resolves that the massacre was an act of genocide. "

The Israeli Defense Minister at the time, Ariel Sharon , was given political co-responsibility for the massacre by the Israeli Kahan Commission without being charged with intent. On the basis of a recommendation made by the Commission, Raful Eitan was replaced as Chief of the General Staff and Sharon as Minister of Defense in 1983. However, Sharon became Minister without Portfolio in the same year . In Belgium, a preliminary investigation into the massacre was opened against him in 2002, but the charges were dropped.

No attempt to prosecute the immediate main culprit Elie Hobeika was made by either the Arab states or the Israelis. Rather, he held several ministerial posts in the Syrian-controlled government of Lebanon for eight years after the end of the Lebanese civil war . In early 2002 he was killed in a murder attempt in Beirut with a car bomb. The Lebanese side blamed Israel for the attack after Hobeika announced the disclosure of evidence that the then Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon was jointly responsible.

Artistic processing

Jean Genet , who was in Beirut at the time of the massacre and who visited the camps after the massacre ended, describes his impressions in a report Quatre Heures à Chatila . In this text, as well as on the novel Un amoureux captif the movie is based Genet à Chatila by Richard Dindo (Switzerland / France 1999). The Italian journalist and war correspondent Oriana Fallaci processed her experiences during the Lebanese civil war in the work Inschallah , published in 1990 . In it she also describes the events in Sabra and Shatila. In the animated film Waltz with Bashir , the director Ari Folman , who was stationed as an Israeli soldier in Lebanon at the time, portrays the massacre from his perspective. Frank Schätzing tells of the massacres in the chapter "Lebanon, September" in his 2014 at Kiepenheuer & Witsch published the novel Breaking News .

Daily Terror's song Deceit is about the massacre.

The massacre of Sabra and Shatila is the theme of the Israeli film Waltz with Bashir . The massacre is told from the perspective of the Israeli soldiers.

The film Massacre by Monika Borgmann and Lokman Slim allows soldiers involved in the massacre to have their say. As the only film document to date, the film negotiates the perspective of the perpetrators who were part of Bashir Gemayel's large following in the Sabra and Shatila massacres.

Filmography

  • Monika Borgmann, Lokman Slim, Hermann Theißen : Massacre. Germany / Lebanon / Switzerland / France 2004. Documentary consisting of interviews with six of the perpetrators involved in the massacre.
  • Ari Folman : Waltz with Bashir . Israel, France, Germany 2008.

literature

  • The Beirut Massacre: the Complete Kahan Commission Report. Karz-Cohl, Princeton (NJ) 1983, ISBN 0-943828-55-4
  • Leila Shahid: The Sabra and Shatila Massacres: Eye-Witness Reports. In: Journal of Palestine Studies Vol. 32, No. 1 (Fall 2002), pp. 36–58
  • Robert Fisk : Sabra and Shatila - An eyewitness account. Lebanon 1982. Translated from the English by Jürgen Heiser. Promedia Verlag, Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-85371-326-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Jillian Becker: The PLO . London 1984.
  2. ↑ http://waltzwithbashir.com/film.html
  3. ^ Thomas L. Friedman : The Beirut Massacre: The Four Days. In: The New York Times . September 26, 1982 (English).
  4. ↑ a b MASSAKER in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  5. ^ Jillian Becker: The PLO. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London 1984
  6. ↑ The War of the Camps, Journal of Palestine Studies , Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 191-194 (1986)
  7. ↑ United Nations, General Assembly, A / RES / 37/123 of 16 December 1982 point D.
  8. ^ The Complaint Against Ariel Sharon for his involvement in the massacres at Sabra and Shatila ( Memento from May 15, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) (Accessed December 12, 2012)
  9. ↑ The butcher of Shatila shredded by car bomb [1]
  10. ↑ Palestinians killed: Attack in Beirut [2]
  11. ↑ German edition: 4 hours in Chatila. Translated by Klaus Völker . Merlin Verlag, Gifkendorf 1983. ISBN 3-87536-164-4
  12. ↑ Genet à Chatila in the Internet Movie Database (English)