Sabra and Shatila massacre

This page is related to the 1982 events only. For the 1985–1987 events, see war of the camps.

Sabra and Shatila massacre
File:Massacre of palestinians in shatila.jpg Aftermath of massacre of Palestinians by Christian Phalangists in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps while the camp was surrounded by Israeli forces.
Location	West Beirut, Lebanon
Date	16 September 1982
Target	Sabra and Shatila refugee camps
Attack type	Massacre
Deaths	328 to 3,500 (number disputed)
Perpetrators	Kataeb Party militia under Elie Hobeika

Sabra and Shatila is the name of two Palestinian Refugee camps in Beirut, Lebanon. From 16th to 18th September 1982 inclusive, during the Lebanese civil war, a massacre was carried out on Palestinian and Lebanese civilians in the camps. In that period of time, Lebanon was at war with Israel. The Israeli Forces occupied the capital city of Lebanon, Beirut and dominated militarily the refugee camps of Palestinians and controlled the entrance to the city. Immediately after the event of assassination of Bachir Gemayel, the leader and president-elect of the Lebanese Phalangist, a Maronite group, also called Lebanese Forces militia group, the Israeli forces enabled the entrance of the angry Kataeb Party group to the refugee camps, by providing them transportation from outside Beirut with Israeli military Helicopters (Pick up and drop into the camps) and firing illuminating flares over the camps to enable continue the killing during the nights. The exact number killed by the Kataeb Party militia is disputed, with estimations running from 800 according to international sources to 3,500 according to Palestinian sources (the Red Cross body count was around 400, but is likely not to include all or even most of the dead bodies).

The civil war in Lebanon at that time produced chaotic lawless situations in many cities and at various locations in Lebanon. Groups from every side were fighting each other. Palestinians in Lebanon, too, participated at the lawless ethnic cleansing fights that took place within same country between Lebanese Muslims and Christians. In many cases Palestinians stood on the side of Lebanese Muslims or other Arabic non-religious groups and were fighting against the Kataeb Party militia, so that there was enormous hate between the Maronite and Palestinian groups in Lebanon at that time.

The massacre is regarded as a reprisal for the Damour massacre by Palestinians a few years earlier , which personally impacted Elie Hobeika . The view of the Sabra and Shatila killing as a revenge for the Damour massacre was asserted by the prominent writer Samir Khalaf, by New York Times writer Thomas Friedman , and by author B. Gabriel who wrote that "Palestinian militiamen started the killings in 1976, long before the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacres. Beit Mellat, Deir Achache, Damour." The Damour massacre, however, had been a response to the Karantina massacre, which had taken place earlier in 1976. In the Karantina massacre, Phalangists killed an estimated 1500 Muslims.

The Phalangists stood under the direct command of Elie Hobeika, who later became a long-serving Member of Parliament and, in the 1990s, a cabinet minister. The Israeli military's Chief of Staff was Lt. General Rafael Eitan, and Israel's Defence Minister was Ariel Sharon.

Debate continues today regarding Israeli responsibility for the massacre (see section 'Israeli role in the massacre'). In 1982, an independent commission chaired by Sean MacBride concluded that the Israeli authorities or forces were, directly or indirectly, involved. The Israeli government established the Kahan Commission to investigate, and in early 1983 it found Israel indirectly responsible for the event, and that Ariel Sharon bears personal responsibility for the massacre for allowing the Phalangists into the camps. The Israelis had been supplying the Phalangists with weapons and equipment, and had provided transportation of the Phalangists to the camps. The commission, which was not a judicial body which could recommend criminal charges, but an investigative body only, demanded that Sharon resign as head of the Defence Ministry. Sharon initially refused to resign, but after the death of an Israeli and the injury of ten other Israelis from a hand grenade thrown into a dispersing Peace Now rally, a compromise was reached where he resigned as Defense minister, but remained in the cabinet as Minister without portfolio. Sharon would later be elected Prime Minister of Israel.

Background

From 1975 to 1990, groups in competing alliances with neighboring countries fought against each other in the Lebanese Civil War. Infighting and massacres between these groups claimed several thousands of victims; notable massacres in this period included the Syrian-backed Karantina Massacre (January 1976) by the Phalangists against Palestinian refugees, Damour massacre (January 1976) by the PLO against Maronites and the Tel al-Zaatar Massacre (August 1976) by Phalangists against Palestinian refugees. The total death toll in Lebanon for the whole civil war period was around 200,000-300,000 victims.

The Civil War saw many shifting alliances among the main players; the Lebanese Nationalists, led by the Christian Phalangist party and militia, were allied initially with Syria then with Israel, which provided them with arms and training to fight against the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO); other factions were allied with Syria, Iran, and other states of the region. In addition, Israel had been training, arming, supplying and uniforming the Christian-dominated South Lebanon Army (SLA), led by Saad Haddad, since 1978.

Sabra is the name of a poor neighborhood in the southern outskirts of West Beirut, which is adjacent to the Shatila UNRWA refugee camp set up for Arab refugees in 1949. Over the years the populations of the two areas became ever more mingled, and the loose terminology "Sabra and Shatila camps" has become usual. Their populations had been swelled by Palestinians and Lebanese Shiites from the south fleeing the wars.

The PLO had been attacking Israel from southern Lebanon, and Israel had been bombing PLO positions in southern Lebanon. The attempted assassination of Israeli Ambassador Shlomo Argov in London on June 4, 1982 by Abu Nidal's organization became a casus belli for a full-scale Israeli invasion of Lebanon. On June 6, Israel invaded Lebanon with 60,000 troops in an act condemned by the UN Security Council. Two months later, under a U.S.-sponsored cease-fire agreement signed in late August, the PLO agreed to leave Lebanon under international supervision, and Israel agreed not to advance further into Beirut.

On August 23, 1982, Bachir Gemayel, who was very popular among Maronites, was elected President of Lebanon by the National Assembly. Israel had relied on Gemayel and his forces as a counterbalance to the PLO, and ties between Israel and Maronite groups had grown stronger.

On September 1, the expulsion of the PLO fighters from Beirut was completed. Two days later, Israel deployed its armed forces around the refugee camps.

The Israeli Premier Menachem Begin met Gemayel in Nahariya and strongly urged him to sign a peace treaty with Israel. According to some sources, Begin also wanted the continuing presence of the SLA in southern Lebanon (Haddad supported peaceful relations with Israel) in order to control attacks and violence, and action from Gemayel to move on the PLO fighters which Israel believed remained a hidden threat in Lebanon. However, the Phalangists, who were previously united as reliable Israeli allies, were now split because of developing alliances with Syria, which remained militarily hostile to Israel. As such, Gemayel rejected signing a peace treaty with Israel and did not authorize operations to root out the remaining PLO militants.

On September 14, 1982, Gemayel was assassinated in a massive explosion which demolished his headquarters. Eventually, the culprit, Habib Tanious Shartouni, who confessed to the crime turned out to be a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party and an agent of Syrian intelligence. The Palestinian and Muslim leaders denied any connection.

Within hours of the assassination, Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, supported by Begin, decided to occupy West Beirut, informing only then Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir and not consulting the Israeli cabinet. The same night Sharon began preparations for entering the Sabra-Shatila refugee camps. Thus on September 15, the Israeli army reoccupied West Beirut. This Israeli action breached its agreement with the United States not to occupy West Beirut; the US had also given written guarantees that it would ensure the protection of the Muslims of West Beirut. Israel's occupation also violated its peace agreements with Muslim forces in Beirut and with Syria.

Events

Following the assassination of Lebanese Christian President Bashir Gemayel, tensions built as Phalangists called for revenge.

By noon of September 15, the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) had completely surrounded the Sabra-Shatila camps, and controlled all entrances and exits by the means of checkpoints. The IDF also occupied a number of multi-story buildings as observation posts. Amongst those was the seven-story Kuwaiti embassy which, according to TIME magazine, had "an unobstructed and panoramic view" of the camps. Hours later, IDF tanks began shelling the camps.

Ariel Sharon and Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan met with the Lebanese Phalangist militia units, inviting them to enter the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps and telling them the PLO fighters were responsible for the assassination of their leader Bashir Gemayel. Under the Israeli plan, Israeli soldiers would control the perimeters of the refugee camps and provide logistical support while the Phalangists would enter the camps, find the PLO fighters and hand them over to Israeli forces. The meetings concluded at 3:00 p.m. September 16.

An hour later, 1,500 militiamen assembled at Beirut International Airport, then occupied by Israel. Under the command of Elie Hobeika, they began moving towards the camps in IDF supplied Jeeps, following Israeli guidance on how to enter the camps. The forces were mostly Phalangist, though there were some men from Saad Haddad's "Free Lebanon forces". According to Ariel Sharon, the Phalangists were given "harsh and clear" warnings about harming civilians.

The first unit of 150 Phalangists entered the camps at 6:00 p.m. A battle ensued that at times Palestinians claim involved lining up Palestinians for execution. During the night the Israeli forces fired illuminating flares over the camps. According to a Dutch nurse, the camp was as bright as "a sports stadium during a football game".

At 11:00 p.m. a report was sent to the IDF headquarters in East Beirut, reporting the killings of 300 people, including civilians. The report was forwarded to headquarters in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, where it was seen by more than 20 senior Israeli officers.

Further reports of these killings followed through the night. Some of these reports were forwarded to the Israeli government in Jerusalem and were seen by a number of Israeli senior officials.

For the next 36 to 48 hours, the Phalangists massacred the inhabitants of Sabra and Shatila, while Israeli troops guarded the exits and allegedly continued to fire flares at night.

At one point, a militiaman's radioed question to his commander Hobeika about what to do with the women and children in the refugee camp was overheard by an Israeli officer, who heard Hobeika's reply: "This is the last time you're going to ask me a question like that; you know exactly what to do." Phalangist troops could be heard laughing in the background. The Israeli officer reported this to his superior, Brig. Gen. Amos Yaron, who warned Hobeika against hurting civilians but took no further action. Lt. Avi Grabowsky was cited by the Kahan Commission as having seen (on that Friday) the murder of five women and children, and gave a hearsay report of a battalion commander saying of this, "We know, it's not to our liking, and don't interfere." Israeli soldiers surrounding the camps turned back Palestinians fleeing the camps, as filmed by a Visnews cameraman.

Later in the afternoon, a meeting was held between the Israeli Chief of Staff and the Phalangist staff. On Friday morning, the Israelis surrounding the camps ordered the Phalange to halt their operation, concerned about reports of a massacre. According to the Kahan Commission's report (based on a Mossad agent's report), the Chief of Staff concluded that the Phalange should "continue action, mopping up the empty camps south of Fakahani until tomorrow at 5:00 a.m., at which time they must stop their action due to American pressure." He stated that he had "no feeling that something irregular had occurred or was about to occur in the camps." At this meeting, he also agreed to provide the militia with a tractor, supposedly to demolish buildings.

On Friday, September 17, while the camps still were sealed off, a few independent observers managed to enter. Among them were a Norwegian journalist and diplomat Gunnar Flakstad, who observed Phalangists during their cleanup operations, removing dead bodies from destroyed houses in the Shatila camp.

The Phalangists did not exit the camps at 5:00 a.m. on Saturday as ordered. They forced the remaining survivors to march out of the camps, to the stadium for interrogations; this went on for the entire day. The militia finally left the camps at 8:00 a.m. on September 18. The first foreign journalists allowed into the camps at 9:00 a.m. found hundreds of bodies scattered about the camp. The first official news of the massacre was broadcast around noon.

Number of victims

The number of victims of the massacre is disputed. There is general agreement that the exact numbers are very hard to pin down, due to the chaotic conditions during and after the massacre, burials and initial victim-counting, as well as the fact that it has been an extremely politically sensitive issue even to the present day. It is thought that at least a quarter of the victims were Lebanese, the rest Palestinians. Here follow the main estimates that have circulated, ordered by number of deaths:

• A letter from the head of the Red Cross delegation to the Lebanese Minister of Defense, cited in the Kahan Commission report as "exhibit 153", stated that Red Cross representatives had counted 328 bodies; but the Kahan Commission noted that "this figure, however, does not include all the bodies ..."
• The Kahan Commission said that, according to "a document which reached us (exhibit 151), the total number of victims whose bodies were found from 18.9.82 to 30.9.82 is 460", stating further that this figure consists of "the dead counted by the Lebanese Red Cross, the International Red Cross, the Lebanese Civil Defense, the medical corps of the Lebanese army, and by relatives of the victims." Thirty-five women and children were among the dead according to this account.
• Israeli figures, based on IDF intelligence, cite a figure of 700–800. In the Kahan Commission's view, "this may well be the number most closely corresponding with reality."
• According to the BBC, "at least 800" Palestinians died.
• Bayan Nuwayhed al-Hout in her Sabra and Shatila: September 1982 gives a minimum consisting of 1,300 named victims based on detailed comparison of 17 victim lists and other supporting evidence, and estimates an even higher total.
• Robert Fisk, one of the first journalists to visit the scene, quotes (without endorsing) unnamed Phalangist officers as saying "that 2,000 Palestinians - women as well as men - had been killed in Chatila." In a 2002 article in The Independent, Fisk speaks of "1700 civilians murdered." The Palestinian Red Crescent put the number killed at over 2,000.
• In his book published soon after the massacre, the Israeli journalist Amnon Kapeliouk of Le Monde Diplomatique, arrived at about 2,000 bodies disposed of after the massacre from official and Red Cross sources and "very roughly" estimated 1,000 - 1,500 other victims disposed of by the Phalangists themselves to a total of 3,000-3,500.

Media and public reactions

According to the British-American historian Bernard Lewis – not yet corroborated by other sources – the massacre received much attention from the world media, predominantly 'demonizing Israelis for allowing the attack', and Lewis noticed public protests against Israel and against Jews in Italy and France.

Bernard Lewis voiced displeasure with the media coverage and protesting Europeans, and argued that journalists and protesters responded overwhelmingly to the massacre because they were glad to have an opportunity to blame Jews.

Genocide status

On December 16, 1982, the United Nations General Assembly condemned the massacre and declared it to be an act of genocide. The voting record on section D of Resolution 37/123, which "resolves that the massacre was an act of genocide", was: yes: 123; no: 0; abstentions: 22; non-voting: 12. The abstentions were: Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany (Federal Republic), Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, United Kingdom, U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Ivory Coast, Papua New Guinea, Barbados and Dominican Republic.

Disputes with U.N. verdict

While all delegates who took part in the debate acknowledged that a massacre had taken place, the claim that it was a genocide was disputed. The delegate for Canada stated: "The term genocide cannot, in our view, be applied to this particular inhuman act".

The delegate of Singapore - voting 'yes' - added: "My delegation regrets the use of the term 'an act of genocide' ... [as] the term 'genocide' is used to mean acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group", and "We also question whether the General Assembly has the competence to make such determination".

The United States commented that "While the criminality of the massacre was beyond question, it was a serious and reckless misuse of language to label this tragedy genocide as defined in the 1948 Convention ...".

Such comments led William Schabas, director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights at the National University of Ireland, to state: "the term genocide ... had obviously been chosen to embarrass Israel rather than out of any concern with legal precision".

Israeli role in the massacre

MacBride commission report

In 1982, an independent commission, the International Commission to enquire into reported violations of International Law by Israel during its invasion of the Lebanon, was formed. Chaired by Sean MacBride, the commission included the following members:

• Professor Richard Falk, Vice Chairman, Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law and Practice, Princeton University,
• Dr Kader Asmal, Senior Lecturer in Law and Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Trinity College, Dublin,
• Dr Brian Bercusson, Lecturer in Laws, Queen Mary College, University of London,
• Professor Géraud de la Pradelle, Professor of Private Law, University of Paris, and
• Professor Stefan Wild, Professor of Semitic Languages and Islamic Studies, University of Bonn.

The commission toured the area of fighting and examined witnesses in Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Syria, UK, and Norway. The government of Israel refused to cooperate. The commission's report, Israel in Lebanon, concluded that:

1. The government of Israel has committed acts of aggression contrary to international law.
2. The Israeli armed forces have made use of weapons or methods of warfare forbidden in international law, including the laws of war.
3. Israel has subjected prisoners to treatment forbidden by international law, including inhuman and degrading treatment. In addition, there has been a violation of international law arising out of a denial of prisoner-of-war status to Palestinian prisoners or detainees.
4. There has been deliberate or indiscriminate or reckless bombardment of a civilian character, of hospitals, schools, and other nonmilitary targets.
5. There has been systematic bombardment and other destruction of towns, cities, villages, and refugee camps.
6. The acts of the Israeli armed forces have caused the dispersal, deportation and ill-treatment of populations, in violation of international law.
7. The government of Israel has no valid reasons under international law for its invasion of the Lebanon, for the manner in which it conducted hostilities or for its actions as an occupying force.
8. The Israeli authorities or forces were involved directly or indirectly in the massacres and other killings that have been reported to have been carried out by Lebanese militiamen in the refugee camps of Sabra and Chatila in the Beirut area between 16 and 18 September.

Kahan commission report

See also: Kahan Commission

300,000 demonstrating Israelis put pressure on their government to investigate on the massacre. The Kahan Commission concluded in February 1983 that Israel bore part of the "indirect responsibility" for the massacres, advised Minister of Defense Ariel Sharon to be dismissed from his post and not to hold public office again.

Israeli population demands investigation

In its initial statements, the Israeli government declared that those critics who regarded the IDF as having responsibility for the events at Sabra and Shatila were guilty of "a blood libel against the Jewish state and its Government." However, as the news of the massacre spread around the world, the controversy grew, and on September 25, 300,000 Israelis—roughly one-tenth of the country's population at the time—demonstrated in Tel Aviv demanding answers. The protest, known in Israel as the "400,000 protest" (the number of protesters was first exaggerated) was one of the biggest in Israel's history.

Israel "indirect responsibility"

On September 28, the Israeli Government resolved to establish a Commission of Inquiry, which was led by former Supreme Court Justice Yitzhak Kahan. The report included evidence from Israeli army personnel, as well as political figures and Phalangist officers. In the report, published in February 1983, the Kahan Commission stated that there was no evidence that Israeli units took direct part in the massacre and that it was the "direct responsibility of Phalangists." However, the Commission recorded that Israeli military personnel were aware that a massacre was in progress without taking serious steps to stop it, and that reports of a massacre in progress were made to senior Israeli officers and even to an Israeli cabinet minister; it therefore regarded Israel as bearing part of the "indirect responsibility."

Sharon "personal responsibility"

The Kahan commission found that Ariel Sharon "bears personal responsibility", recommended his dismissal from the post of Defense Minister and concluded that Sharon should not hold public office again, stating that:

It is our view that responsibility is to be imputed to the minister of defense for having disregarded the prospect of acts of vengeance and bloodshed by the Phalangists against the population of the refugee camps and for having failed to take this danger into account when he decided to have the Phalangists enter the camps. In addition, responsibility is to be imputed to the minister of defense for not ordering appropriate measures for preventing or reducing the chances of a massacre as a condition for the Phalangists' entry into the camps

At first, Sharon refused to resign, and Begin refused to fire him. It was only after the death of Emil Grunzweig after a grenade was tossed into the dispersing crowd of a Peace Now protest march, which also injured ten others, that a compromise was reached: Sharon would resign as Defense minister, but remain in the Cabinet as a minister without portfolio. Notwithstanding the dissuading conclusions of the Kahan report, Sharon would later become Prime Minister of Israel.

Other conclusions

The Kahan commission also recommended the dismissal of Director of Military Intelligence Yehoshua Saguy, and the effective promotion freeze of Division Commander Brig. Gen. Amos Yaron for at least three years.

Further opinions on Israeli role

Benny Morris, in Israel's Secret Wars, stated that Israeli forces provided the bulldozers used to bury the massacred Palestinians.

In the 2005 Swiss-French-German-Lebanese co-produced documentary Massaker six former Lebanese Forces soldiers who participated personally in the massacre stated there was direct Israeli participation. One of them said that he saw Israeli soldiers driving bulldozers into inhabited houses inside the camp. Another said that Israeli soldiers provided the Lebanese Forces soldiers with material to dispose of the corpses lying around in the streets. Several of the soldiers said that they had received training in Israel. However, these claims are controversial.

Noam Chomsky and Robert Fisk have said that Israel could have predicted that a massacre by Phalange fighters who entered the camps might have taken place. In particular, such commentators do not believe it is possible that there were "2000 PLO terrorists" remaining in the camps, because (1) the Kahan Commission documents that the Israeli army allowed only 150 Phalangist fighters into the camps and (2) the Phalangists suffered only two casualties; an improbable outcome of a supposedly 36-hour battle of 150 militants against 2000 experienced "PLO terrorists" [FT].

International political reactions

The attack was explicitly grieved and condemned in Muslim countries in and surrounding the Arab Middle East. Many leaders from those countries urged the Palestinians to violently retaliate to earn sovereignty of their land. When Ariel Sharon had fallen seriously ill in January 2006, president Ahmadinejad from Iran reportedly referred to Sharon as "the criminal of Sabra and Shatila".

The attack was criticized by members of Western countries as well.

Opinions on Hobeika's responsibility

Robert Maroun Hatem, Elie Hobeika's bodyguard, stated in his book From Israel to Damascus that Hobeika ordered the massacre of civilians in defiance of Israeli instructions to behave like a "dignified" army.

Pierre Rehov, a documentary filmmaker who worked on the case with former Lebanese soldiers, while making his film Holy Land: Christians in Peril, came to the conclusion that Hobeika was definitely responsible for the massacre, despite the orders he had received from Ariel Sharon to behave humanely.

Sharon sues Time for libel

Ariel Sharon sued Time magazine for libel in American and Israeli courts in a $50 million libel suit, after Time published a story in its February 21, 1983, issue, implying that Sharon had "reportedly discussed with the Gemayels the need for the Phalangists to take revenge" for Bashir's assassination. The jury found the article false and defamatory, although Time won the suit in the U.S. court because Sharon's defense failed to establish that the magazine's editors and writers had "acted out of malice," as required under the U.S. libel law.

Relatives of victims sue Sharon

After Sharon's 2001 election to the post of Prime Minister of Israel, relatives of the victims of the massacre filed a lawsuit in Belgium alleging Sharon's personal responsibility for the massacres. The Belgian Supreme Court ruled on February 12, 2003, that Sharon (and others involved, such as Israeli General Yaron) could be indicted under this accusation. Israel maintained that the lawsuit was initiated for political reasons.

On September 24, 2003, Belgium's Supreme Court dismissed the war crimes case against Ariel Sharon, since none of the plaintiffs had Belgian nationality at the start of the case.

Assassination of Elie Hobeika

Elie Hobeika, the Phalangist commander at the time of the massacre, was assassinated by a car bomb in Beirut on January 24, 2002. Lebanese and Arab commentators blamed Israel for the murder on Hobeika, with alleged Israeli motive that Hobeika would be ‘apparently poised to testify before the Belgian court about Sharon’s role in the massacre’ (see section above). The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs on the other hand suggests that rather Syria "might have been concerned where Hobeika’s testimony could lead".

See also

• Karantina massacre
• Damour massacre
• War of the camps
• Lebanese Civil War
• 1982 Lebanon War
• Israel-Lebanon conflict
• Tel al-Zaatar massacre
• Hama massacre
• List of events named massacres
• Waltz with Bashir

References

• Bregman, Ahron (2002). Israel's Wars: A History Since 1947. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-28716-2
• al-Hout, Bayan Nuwayhed (2004). Sabra And Shatila : September 1982. Pluto Press. ISBN 0-7453-2302-2.
• Campagna, Joel (April 2002). The Usual Suspects. World Press Review 49 (4). Web journal article, retrieved December 4, 2004.
• Chomsky, Noam (1989). Necessary Illusions: Thought control in democratic societies. South End Press. ISBN 0-89608-366-7.
• Eisenberg, Laura Zittrain and Caplan, Neil (1998). Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: Patterns, Problems, Possibilities. Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-21159-X.
• Hamdan, Amal (September 16, 2003). Remembering Sabra and Shatila. Aljazeera. Retrieved December 4, 2004.
• Harbo, John (September 20, 1982). Aftenposten. Middle East correspondent Harbo was also quoted with the same information on ABC News "Close up, Beirut Massacres", broadcast January 7, 1983.
• Kapeliouk, Amnon (1982). Enquête sur un massacre: Sabra et Chatila. Seuil. ISBN 2-02-006391-3. English translation available online here
• Klein, A. J. (New York, 2005), Striking Back: The 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and Israel's Deadly Response, Random House ISBN 1-920769-80-3
• Lewis, Bernard. "The New Anti-Semitism", The American Scholar, Volume 75 No. 1, Winter 2006, pp. 25–36. The paper is based on a lecture delivered at Brandeis University on March 24, 2004.
• Lewis, Bernard (1999). Semites and Anti-Semites: An Inquiry into Conflict and Prejudice. W. W. Norton & Co. ISBN 0-393-31839-7
• Mason, Barnaby (April 17, 2002). Analysis: 'War crimes' on West Bank. BBC World News. Retrieved December 4, 2004.
• Benny Morris and Ian Black. Israel's Secret Wars: A History of Israel's Intelligence Services, Grove, 1991, ISBN 0-8021-1159-9.
• New 'evidence' in Sharon trial (May 8, 2002). BBC World News. Retrieved December 4, 2004.
• Schiff, Z. & Ya'ari, E. (1984). Israel's Lebanon War. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-47991-1.
• Shaoul, Jean (February 25, 2002). Sharon's war crimes in Lebanon: the record. World Socialist Web Site. Retrieved December 4, 2004.
• Shashaa, Esam (no date).
• Tamal, Ahmad (no date). Sabra and Shatila. All About Palestine. Retrieved December 4, 2004.
• Tolworthy, Chris (March 2002). Sabra and Shatila massacres -- why do we ignore them?. Global Issues. Retrieved December 4, 2004.
• Transcript of "The Accused" (June 17, 2001). BBC World News (BBC-1). Retrieved December 4, 2004. Note: the BBC has a disclaimer that says "THIS TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A TRANSCRIPTION UNIT RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT: BECAUSE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY, IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE BBC CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS ACCURACY."
• United Nations General Assembly, A/RES/37/123(A-F). The situation in the Middle East (December 16, 1982). This version from UNESCO adds some footnotes missing in the General Assembly's original. Both retrieved 14 Feb 2006.
• White, Matthew (update July 2004). Secondary Wars and Atrocities of the Twentieth Century. Retrieved December 4, 2004.
• William Harris, (1996) Faces of Lebanon. Sects, Wars, and Global Extensions Markus Wiener Publishers, Princeton, USA ISBN 1558761152

External links

• Lebanese Civil war 1982 Sabra and Chatila massacre Pictures
• BBC News archive and video
• "Sabra Shatila Massacre Photographs, 1982". Archived from the original on 2004-10-09.; archive is incomplete.
• "Eyewitness Lebanon". Archived from the original on 2004-10-09.. An on-line book, with eyewitness accounts and photos from 91 international correspondents.
• Report of the Kahan Commission - hosted by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
• Sabra and Shatila by Robert Fisk
• "Sabra and Chatila Massacres After 19 years, The Truth at Last?" By Robert Fisk, The Independent, November 28, 2001.
• Sabra and Shatila, the unforgivable slaughter (French).