On this day in 1982, under the oversight and control of the Israeli occupation forces, a fascist, Israeli-backed Lebanese militia began a planned 3-day brutal massacre of several thousand Palestinian refugees, along with Lebanese civilians, in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in occupied Beirut.
The majority of residents in the camps were Indigenous Palestinian refugee families who had been subjected to massacres, systematic ethnic cleansing and dispossession at the hands of Zionist militias and later the State of Israel in what came to be known as the 1948 Nakba.
Today, as we approach a year since the start of the livestreamed US-Israeli genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip, our people, fragmented by colonialism, stands united in resisting the genocide and Israel’s 76-year-old regime of settler-colonialism and apartheid.
The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the largest coalition in Palestinian society leading the global BDS movement, honours the memory of the thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese murdered during the Sabra and Shatila massacre.
We call for holding Israel’s regime of settler-colonialism, apartheid and genocide accountable for all its crimes against the Palestinian people and crimes against humanity.
This massacre is a stark reminder of Israel's ongoing violent massacres, displacement of Indigenous Palestinians, and its denial of our refugees' right of return.
With the latest International Court of Justice ruling about Israel’s occupation and apartheid, it is high time to impose on Israel a comprehensive military embargo as we as targeted trade, energy, academic and other sanctions, just as was done against apartheid South Africa.
Background:
The Sabra and Shatila massacre took place during the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, whose principal aim was to crush the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) based there. The PLO is the sole, legitimate representative of the Indigenous Palestinian people.
On 16 September 1982, Israeli forces, under then Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, imposed a tight siege on the camps to facilitate the entry of the Israeli-backed fascist Lebanese Phalange militia. Israel over the years had provided arms, training and military assistance to the Phalange.
Once Palestinian and Lebanese civilians were sealed inside the camp, over the course of three days, 16 - 18 September 1982, the Israeli-backed forces violently raped, killed, mutilated and tortured thousands of Palestinian refugees and Lebanese civilians. Up to 3,500 were savagely slaughtered.
Today, approximately 479,000 Palestinian refugees are registered with the UN in Lebanon, with approximately 45% living in the country’s 12 refugee camps. Israel’s regime of settler-colonialism and apartheid has to this day denied Palestinian refugees worldwide their UN stipulated right of return and reparations under UN Resolution 194.
TAKE ACTION
In 1982, following the Sabra and Shatila massacre, the 37th session of the United Nations General Assembly, #UNGA37, called for sanctions against Israel. Today, the global BDS movement calls for immediate pressure on all States to support the updated resolution tabled at the UN General Assembly calling for sanctions on Israel. The resolution, despite its flaws, is aimed at enacting the July 2024 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) about the illegality of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory and its violation of the prohibition of apartheid under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD). A vote is expected in a few days.
To sincerely implement the ICJ ruling on the occupation and fulfil the legal obligations triggered by the court’s earlier finding that Israel is plausibly perpetrating genocide in Gaza, and in line with the demands by UN human rights experts, pressure your government/parliament to immediately:
Impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel, including the export, import, shipping and transit of military and dual-use items, military cooperation, and academic and industrial research;
Impose sanctions on trade, finance, travel, technology and cooperation with Israel;
“Review all diplomatic, political, and economic ties with Israel, inclusive of business and finance, pension funds, academia and charities,” as stated by UN experts, to ensure an end to all complicity in Israel’s illegal occupation;
Impose an embargo on oil, coal and other energy exports to Israel;
Declare support for suspending apartheid Israel’s membership in the UN, as apartheid South Africa was suspended;
Take immediate actions to ensure that their economic relationship with Israel and the activities of corporations domiciled in their territories do not breach their duty to prevent and to not be complicit in genocide and are not complicit in Israel’s commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity;
Reaffirm the right of Palestinian refugees to return, as per UNGA Res. 194, and fully support UNRWA until this right can be exercised.