Forty years after the Sabra and Shatila massacre, in which hundreds of Palestinians, as well as Lebanese and Syrians were by Christian militias allied with Israel at the time, the image of the piled-up bodies and the smells emanating from them do not leave Najib al-Khatib, who lost his father and ten members of his family at that time. .
Al-Khatib, 52, a Lebanese national, told AFP, "The smell of the corpses remained for more than five or six months. It was an unpleasant smell. They sprayed medicines every day, but the smell remained in people´s heads."
"Until now, the smell of the dead is still in our heads," he adds, as residents of the two camps on the outskirts of Beirut prepare to commemorate the mosque on Friday.
Lebanon at that time was mired in civil war. And between September 16 and 18, 1982, Christian militia members allied with Israel killed between 800 and 2,000 Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila camps, and the true final outcome was not known. At least a hundred Lebanese and a number of Syrians were also killed in the massacre.
The Israeli army, which invaded Lebanon in June of the same year, imposed a cordon around the two camps throughout the period in which the lawmakers massacred civilians, according to media and Israeli reports revealed later.
Al-Khatib walks through the alleys of the camp, recalling a black page that time has not been able to erase from his memory, especially in the absence of justice.
He points to a crumbling wall, and says, "They used to bring them here and there to this wall and execute them here."
Then he stops at an alley next to his grandmother´s house. He added, "During the massacre, the street was full of dead people... the bodies of the dead were piled up... on top of each other."
But the harshest scene was seeing his father. He recalls those heavy moments, "When I got to the house, I found my father at the door, and they shot him in the legs and hit him with an ax on the head."
Despite global condemnation of the massacre, none of those responsible have been arrested, tried, or convicted.
The Republic took place days after the assassination of the newly elected President, Bashir Gemayel, who was for the Lebanese Christians at the time a “Syrian hero” coming to save them from the war and the Palestinian and military interventions in their country , while he was hated by other Lebanese who were with the other side in the civil war and took the favor. cooperation with Israel.
An official Israeli commission of inquiry, years after the massacre, held a number of Israeli officials indirectly responsible, including Defense Minister Ariel Sharon at the time. It also placed the primary responsibility on Elie Hobeika, who was at the time in charge of security in the "Lebanese Forces".
Hobeika was known for his relations with Israeli officials, before he became close to the Syrians in the last stages of the civil war (1975-1990). In 1992, he became a minister in the government and a deputy. He was assassinated on January 24, 2002, when a car bomb exploded in Hazmieh (east of Beirut).
The forces, which at the time were a militia allied with Israel, did not respond to these accusations at all. She was silent on the matter.
A group of survivors sued in Belgium, but the court refused to hear the case in September 2003.
Umm Abbas (75 years old), a Lebanese resident of Sabra who the Shabram mosque, recalls the "unimaginable" scenes.
She says, "What did you see? A pregnant woman took the baby out of her stomach, after slitting it into two parts... Its neck was cut off and its limbs were cut off."She adds that another woman was also pregnant , and they took the baby out of her womb.
Sitting on the threshold of a narrow alley, she recalls how "a bulldozer shoveled the bodies and put them on top of each other in a deep pit."
The massacre survivors and human rights organizations commemorate the tragedy annually. Many of them visit the Sabra cemetery, where many of the dead are buried.
In front of a memorial with a wreath, Palestinian Amer Aqer, 59, is praying.
"After the massacre ended, we entered and found all the people on the ground slaughtered," he told AFP.He added, "We found pills, swords, hashish and drugs on the ground. No one would do such a killing unless his head was drugged."
Forty years after the Sabra and Shatila massacre, survivors remember the "smell of corpses" and the atrocities of the killing
