Dreams of Palestinian Children Buried at Sabra and Shatila

Mohammad and Mazan were two of the last surviving members of the al-Hayek family. Their father Mahmoud and their elder brother Riyadh had attained martyrdom in a clash with Zionist troops in southern Lebanon. Their mother had died of an illness in the Sabra camp where they were living in extreme poverty. Mohammad and Mazan were living a difficult life with their elderly aunt.

They worked in a health center in Beirut to pay for their schooling. The two brothers took out their school books from the previous year that they had carefully kept in a wooden box and put them in their old bags.

Mazan and Mohammad were preparing to start the new school year with their classmates in the Sabra camp, but destiny had planned something else for them. The children in the Shatila camp were also preparing for the new school year.

These two camps in the suburbs of Beirut were home to about 1,000 Palestinian refugees.

Meanwhile, Yussif Abu Aql, the representative of Lebanon’s Kataeb movement (Christian Phalange militia) was making the final arrangements with the commander of an Israel commando group in an Israeli boat in the Mediterranean Sea just off the coast of west Beirut.       

The plan was for the Phalangists to attack the Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila camps with the support of Battalion 101 of the Israeli Army. The mastermind of the operation was Ariel Sharon, the current Israeli prime minister.    

The decision to attack was made because Palestinian militant groups had formed the basic core of a major front to fight Israel by relying on the help of the newly-established Hezbollah movement of Lebanon.

The Phalangists, terrified by the formation of the front, wanted to crush the morale of the Palestinian combatants by carrying out a massacre at the Sabra and Shatila camps.   

On September 15, 1982, a 1,500-strong unit of elite commandos of Battalion 101, accompanied by 5,000 Phalangist militiamen armed with the most advanced weapons, stormed the Sabra and Shatila camps. The Phalangists were led by Elie Hobeika.

The attack left over 2,000 Palestinians dead, mostly women and children, and thousands wounded.

Mazan and Mohammad were killed by an Israeli rocket-propelled grenade on their way to school. Their dream of higher education was never materialized.

Israeli commandos attacked the western outskirts of Beirut with their tanks and returned to their bases after killing many Palestinian women and children.

And Sharon was smiling in satisfaction because he had murdered Palestinian children before they had grown up to become combatants.

The massacre at Sabra and Shatila was strongly condemned by Middle Eastern states, but most of the rest of the international community was silent about this heinous crime.

Today, 21 years after the incident, Sharon is still killing Palestinian women and children and the international community is still silent.

AA/HG

End

MNA