bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
=== News Update ===
Has the world forgotten Sabra and Shatila massacre?
SEPT 17, 2005
http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=9661
Few days ago was the anniversary of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, but theres another September tragedy the worldwide media has ignored the bloody massacre of Palestinian refugees in Sabra and Shatila camps in Lebanon.
In September 1982, Lebanese Maronite Christian militias were sent by Israel to Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut, Lebanon, to find PLO members and kill Palestinian refugees.
Thousands of people, including Palestinians, Lebanese, Pakistanis, Iranians, Syrians and Algerians were killed in Beirut camps, which were externally surrounded by Israeli soldiers.
The Palestinians asserted at that time that between 3,000 and 3,500 were killed, and described the action as "genocide". But the Israeli intelligence and the Lebanese police said that the number of those killed range from 460 to 700-800.
The massacre was authorized by the Israeli IDF, under the command of Defense Minister Ariel Sharon that held the territory around Beirut at that time as a result of the June 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
In the three-day slaughter, thousands of Palestinians were tortured, and raped; pregnant women had their stomachs torn open while militias took bets on the sex of the foetus.
The scale of the massacre became known with the publishing of appalling photographs showing the bodies in the refugee camps, and Israel was held directly responsible for the atrocity.
Israel strongly rejected to admit its responsibility in the massacre, but numerous evidence asserted that certain Israelis, among them Ariel Sharon, were personally responsible. And on September 25, a massive demonstration of 300,000 Israelis was held in Tel Aviv calling on Prime Minister Menahem Begin and Sharon to resign.
The prominent British journalist, Robert Fisk, recollects the crimes graphically. "There were women lying in houses with their skirts torn up to their waists and their legs wide apart; children with their throats cut; rows of young men shot after being lined up at an execution wall; a pregnant woman with her stomach slit open sideways and then upwards, her eyes wide open, her dark face frozen in horror; babies tossed into rubbish heaps alongside discarded U.S. army ration tins; Israeli flare canisters lying around still attached to their tiny parachutes."
In February 1983, an Israeli commission appointed to investigate the crimes, headed by Supreme Court President Yitzhak Kahan, issued its report in which it laid the entire blame for the massacre on Christian Phalangists and found the Israeli occupation forces and Sharon only indirectly responsible for ignoring the danger of revenge and bloodshed by the Phalangists.
The Kahan Commission ignored the evidence that the Phalangist troops operated under Israeli command and with full Israeli assistance.
With regard to Sharon, the panel stated that he:
... draw the appropriate personal conclusions arising out of the defects revealed with regard to the manner in which he discharged the duties of his office" - in other words, that he resign; or, if necessary, that the prime minister exercise his authority to remove a minister from office.
In our view, the minister of defense made a grave mistake when he ignored the danger of acts of revenge and bloodshed by the Phalangists against the population in the refugee camps ... It is our view that responsibility is to be imputed to the minister of defense for having disregarded the danger of acts of vengeance and bloodshed by the Phalangists against the population of the refugee camps, and having failed to take this danger into account when he decided to move the Phalangists into the camps.
In addition, responsibility is to be imputed to the minister of defense for not ordering appropriate measures for preventing or reducing the danger of massacre as a condition for the Phalangists' entry into the camps. These blunders constitute the non-fulfillment of a duty with which the defense minister was charged.
The atrocity earned Sharon the nickname Butcher of Beirut.
The atrocities followed in the wake of Israels occupation of S. Lebanon in June 1982, with the aim of cleansing the Palestinian fighters who sought refuge in Lebanon.
After fierce battles that lasted for two months and claimed the lives of about 18,000 Palestinians, U.S. envoy Philip Habib mediated an agreement that stipulates that the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation) fighters leave Lebanon under international escort, Israel refrain from occupying West Beirut after the departure of the fighters and the U.S. guarantee the security of the remaining Palestinian civilian population.
On September 1, the fighters left Lebanon, by Sept 3, Israel occupied Bir Hassan in the suburbs of Beirut; violating Habibs agreement, and between Sept 10 and 13, the American and international forces left Beirut. two weeks before its mandate expired.
On Sept 14, Bashir Gemayel, the Maronite Christian President was assassinated. Using Gemayel's assassination as a pretext, Ariel Sharon, then Israeli Defence Minister, ordered the occupation of West Beirut and the Israeli army, under the Fourth Geneva Convention and Protocol 1, became responsible for the security of the civilian population there.
But instead of protecting the Palestinian refugees in the camps, Sharon held meetings with Israeli ally Major Saad Haddad, leader of the South Lebanon Army militia, and Phalangist militiamen and politicians Elie Hobeika, Fadie Frem, Zahi Bustami, Amin and Pierre Gemayel, the Israeli soldiers were ordered to seal off the camps, only allowing the Haddads and the Phalangists to enter and go on a murder spree.
Victims were burried in mass graves, and soldiers were ordered to turn back any refugee who tries to escape.
Europeans slam Sharon
Today, 16 September 2005, thousands of people took to the streets in Beirut in memory of the massacre.
Families of the victims as well as European and U.S. delegations participated in the rally on the 23rd anniversary of Sabra and Shatila massacre, according to The Daily Star.
European and U.S. delegates slammed the Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon for his role in the killings.
The delegation's Italian representative, Stephani Ciarini, said: "The massacre [Sharon] committed claimed the lives of innocent people in 1982. Today he is exercising the same acts."
Members of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee also attended the event.
Ciarini also criticised the U.S.
"The American project wants to divide the Arab world into sects, ethnicities and different races to fight each other," she said, adding, "This is an imperialist war. We support the Lebanese, Syrian and Iraqi people who are struggling."
Mohamed Baalbaki, president of the Press Order, praised the foreign delegation, saying: "I thank God that there are still honest people in the world who appreciate righteousness, and that the Zionists were not able to brainwash them."
The delegation called for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, as well as financial and moral compensation for the Palestinians' suffering and oppression under Israeli occupation.
Kathy Haddad, representative from the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, expressed the committee's solidarity with the Palestinian people, saying: "Any solution for the Palestinian cause should be based on the UN resolutions, especially Resolution 242 (passed in November 1967)," adding that Israels so-called Separation Barrier "will lead to more displacement and isolation."
Haddad also stressed "refugees' rights in returning to their homes according to UN Security Council Resolution 194.
Sources: New Straits Times, Palestinefacts.org
===
-muslim voice-
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