Survivors of Sabra and Shatila massacres still recall horror - and still demand justice

Source: AFP, 17-09-2007
Selim Ettaba
BEIRUT: Those Palestinians who survived the Sabra and Shatila massacre during "Israel's" invasion of Lebanon 25 years ago cannot forget the corpses, the screams and the gunfire.
A small cemetery bears insignificant witness to the nightmare of those three days of slaughter. But Nawal Abu Rudeina, 31, vividly remembers the bloodshed that started a quarter of a century ago on Sunday in which she lost so many close relatives.
She was six years old when the massacre started and "Israeli"-allied Christian militiamen went on a killing spree at the camps, surrounded by "Israeli" forces, to "avenge" the murder two days earlier of President-elect Bashir Gemayel, a militia leader.
Even today, the memory obviously pains Abu Rudeina:
"Everywhere we walked, there were corpses," she said. "We would recognize a relative here, a neighbor there."
Between 800 and 2,000 Palestinian civilians, and 100 Lebanese, died as "Israeli" troops watched the militiamen carry out mass murder. Then-"Israeli" Defense (War) Minister Ariel Sharon was later forced to resign after a special "Israeli" investigative panel declared him partially responsible for the massacre.
"I was six years old. The `Israelis` fired flares, and we could see as if it was broad daylight," Abu Rudeina said.
"A Lebanese woman rushed in to warn my father that militiamen were coming to kill us. He told her `stop it, you are scaring the children,` but she insisted," she said.
The woman recalled how she had watched the terrifying scenes of the killings while hiding in a small house.
"We heard cries, voices shouting: `You are terrorists, we will exterminate you.`"
The family was finally found by the militiamen and Abu Rudeina lost 16 relatives. Among them were her father and pregnant sister, whose fetus was extracted from her body by a militiaman.
"[The militiamen] were high on drugs, we saw needles and drugs on the floor," said the woman, who escaped with her mother and siblings.
Another survivor, Mahmoud al-Saka, now 32, said: "They killed people with bayonets, even small children. They lined up the men against a wall and shot them."
On the morning of the second day of the massacre, two militiamen banged on the door of Saka`s family home in the Shatila camp.
"They made us all go out, barefoot. Corpses covered the streets," said the electrician.
He said the militiamen forced the refugees to get close to a large pit near the camps, where they attempted to humiliate the women by forcing them to ululate.
"After that, they let the women and children go. We heard shouting, then nothing," he said, adding: "We never found my father and my uncle."
A group of survivors had tried to launch a lawsuit in Belgium against Sharon and an "Israeli" Army general over the Sabra and Shatila massacre, but in September 2003 a Belgian court threw out the case.
The survivors continue to blame the "Israeli" Army, Sharon and Christian Lebanese militia commanders, including the late Elie Hobeika, who was then the intelligence chief of the Lebanese Forces militia.
"We had been told that the `Israelis` were not harming civilians, but we saw it with our own eyes" when the "Israelis" were surrounding the camps during the massacre, said Saka`s aunt Bariaa, who was then 14.
"The militiamen had dug a hole in the ground where they wanted to bury us alive with bulldozers. At the last moment, an "Israeli" officer came and told them to let women and children go, and then arrest all adult men," she said. "Those who came to get us were wearing the uniform of the Lebanese Forces, but it is Sharon who gave the order. We accuse Sharon and the Lebanese Forces."
Nawal Abu Rudeina said: "We want to know the truth, we want to know who killed them. Even if Hobeika and Sharon are not here any more, there are all those people who perpetrated the massacre who are still alive."
Hobeika was killed by a car bomb in 2002, while Sharon has been in a coma since January 2006.