OPINIONS

Sat 16 Sep 2023 9:52 am - Jerusalem Time

41 years since the Sabra and Shatila massacre: unforgivable crime

The sixteenth of September, forty-one years have passed since the Sabra and Shatila massacre. It is still engraved in the memory, its facts are torn apart, the minutes of which I lived through in the heart. Its preludes are still ever present. The Israeli enemy’s tanks and planes, its shells and missiles that smell like rain, turn tin plates into fragments that tear apart bodies. The rumblings, the illumination shells, the roar of planes, the roar of tanks, silencers, and the axes of criminals, their sharpened knives and machetes slitting necks and ripping open bellies, the wine bottles scattered on the murderers’ tables, the chains, the ropes wrapped around the necks and bodies of the martyrs, what remains of the screams of children and the groans of the wounded standing on the verge of death, the heads and limbs of children. The tomb is swimming in a pool of blood, the girls the age of roses slaughtered with the brutality and sadism of the era, and the piles of martyrs who died, and a few heroic young men who did not brave so that the massacre would not be more horrific and widespread, scenes that still reside in the depths of memory and occupy the core of the heart, on this painful memory, it is only appropriate to say “We will not forget and we will not forgive”... There I was a young man in the alleys of that camp, and there also the departure of brave loved ones and friends whose deeds you can forget. I will never forget those moments that are engraved in my memory. I did not like that they were three harsh, difficult days and nights, and one time during which the earth drank blood until it drank, and I cannot tell you that the blood became a pool in which the limbs of swollen children floated in one of the houses. The blood mixed with the water, the organs of the human bodies mixed with each other.


The sixteenth day of September, 41 years ago, in the sunset hours of a Thursday, over three long and very long days, the massacre of the era took place - the Sabra and Shatila massacre - its introduction was painful and its events were more painful, but its bloody events are still indelibly engraved on the wall of the heart, residing in the folds of the ribs engraved. In the files of memory, they conjure up tears solidified in the eyelids, just as they conjure up moments of anger flying like flames. That day, forty-one years ago, the Israeli enemy tanks that stormed Beirut after the end of the Palestinian revolution, poured lava from their cannon shells and missiles onto the campers’ dilapidated homes. Zionist snipers were stationed on the roofs of high-rise buildings. At the roundabout of the Kuwaiti embassy, the heroes of the joint forces who were determined to attack Beirut are resisting the advance initiated by the invading occupation army. The whiz of eighth bullets from the silencers begins in the first hours of the massacre, harvesting heads without noise or uproar, and the axes of the criminals, their machetes and daggers, tearing open stomachs under a barrage of illumination shells. With which the occupation army covered the skies of the two camps, alcohol bottles scattered on the killers’ tables near the Al-Miqdad shelter in the Al-Harsh area, chains and ropes that were hastily wrapped around groups of people whose heads were shot without mercy, and the bodies of the martyrs mixed with the car tires at the entrance to the camp. Near the Ajnadayn checkpoint at the entrance to the camp, and the cries of the remaining children and the groans of the wounded standing on the brink of death before their souls soar to reach the sky,

The severed heads and limbs of children dumped in pools of blood behind Al-Dukhi’s shop, the girls the age of roses killed in the brutality and sadism of the era, and piles of martyrs.


They were killed by the assassins’ bullets. They were transported and gathered in long trenches as long as the pain and as deep as the wound and pain, and dirt was quickly falling down to obliterate the traces of the crime in a mass grave among more than 3,500 martyrs. In the midst of this fiery time, a few young men whose ages did not exceed their twenties, and their number was dozens, fought from Alley after alley, they valiantly fought hard and hard until the bullets ran out. They fought with the courage of men so that the massacre would not be more horrific, broader, and longer. These are all scenes that are still present, inhabiting the depths of memory that will not be erased by long years. How can one forget the moments of his certain death and his survival by chance at the same time?


For such a memory, it is impossible to forget, and for this galaxy, it is impossible to forgive... There I was young, and there among the alleys were the departure of brave loved ones and friends, and the dust of Shatila embraces many of them. I will never forget those moments as long as I love them. They were three harsh, difficult and bitter days, during which the earth drank blood until it saturated.



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41 years since the Sabra and Shatila massacre: unforgivable crime

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