RAMALLAH, September 16, 2017 (WAFA) – The 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre, whose 35th anniversary coincides on Saturday, was a criminal act engineered by then Israeli General Ariel Sharon who escaped justice, charged Saeb Erekat, secretary general of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
“The memory of the brutal Sabra and Shatila massacre still resonates in our minds and hearts. It is embedded in every Palestinian memory and soul,” said Erekat in a statement.
“Thirty-five years ago, the vicinity of the two refugee camps in Beirut was filled with the scent of death and bodies of thousands of butchered and injured Palestinian children, women, and men. A criminal act engineered by Ariel Sharon, Israel’s Military General at the time, who facilitated the barbaric butchering of defenseless refugees by Phalangist forces under his watch. Today is a reminder to the world of a criminal who escaped justice and got away with it.”
Erekat stressed that Sabra and Shatila massacre “will not be wiped off from our conscious. It is a reminder of the more than 400 Palestinian villages destroyed by Zionist paramilitaries and of the Palestinian exodus who were uprooted and forced out their homes. It is also a reminder of the absence of justice and accountability. Sharon and the Israeli leaders who masterminded this massacre should have been tried in international courts. Instead, Sharon was awarded to become Israel’s tenth prime minister.”
The PLO official called on international community “to restore justice, accountability and to end the culture of impunity granted to Israel,” stressing that resolving the Palestinian refugee issue should only be through the implementation of international law and United Nations Resolution 194.
The Lebanese Phalangist militias raided the two refugee camps soon after Sharon’s army occupied West Beirut and after the departure of the PLO forces from Lebanon in a deal brokered by the United States to end Beirut’s 80-day Israeli siege.
Over three days and nights, the Phalangist forces were allowed free hand in the camps as the Israeli army closed its eyes to the massacre and even lit the skies for the militias who went on a killing rampage in the two Palestinian camps.
The massacre claimed the lives of at least 3,000 Palestinian civilians.
M.K.
