Testimony from Sabra and Shatila
An anonymous account of an ITF soldier about his role in the massacre of Sabra and Shatila, Sept. 16–18, 1982
The below was posted in Hebrew ten years ago, marking the 30th anniversary to the massacre. The original post, titled “Thirty years to the massacre of Sabra and Shatila: a personal account”, is no longer available but I archived it at the time and it is still accessible via the following links. This is probably its first publication in English.
https://archive.ph/2jUXl
https://web.archive.org/web/20120925233755/https://cafe.themarker.com/post/2729905/
The identity of the speaker can easily be found given the ample amount of information in the testimony. I may do so and contact that person at a later date. The below is a verbatim translation and includes the images that appeared in the original post and any clarification added will appear inside [brackets]. My personal views on those ZioNazis will not be posted below but on my twitter feed.
In this context, read also the recently declassified Mossad document exposing a decades-long Israeli involvement in arming and training the Phalangist in Lebanon.
Trigger warning — the following contains graphic descriptions of extreme violence
For thirty years S. walked around with this story and did not talk about it with anyone. Even when the researchers of the film “Waltz with Bashir” called a few years ago, who located him in his current country of residence, and said that all his friends gave their version and mentioned his name, he refused to cooperate and said that he did not remember anything. He didn’t want to talk about it, he felt he didn’t have the strength to deal with the memory and he didn’t see the movie either.
Last Rosh Hashanah [new year’s eve], in a conversation with his wife, they talked about the customs of the holiday. The apple in honey triggered the memory and then the dam broke and he told her everything. Then he found the courage to revive everything and share it with a few more friends, including me. He asked to publish it anonymously, “Perhaps the virtual anonymity will cover this stain on my soul…”
S. was a nineteen-year-old soldier in the armored corps, a former yeshiva student who left his yeshiva and the religion a few months before the military draft. The massacre in Sabra and Shatila “caused me a shell shock, at the end of which the army threw me out of its ranks and I was released,” he says today.
It was Friday afternoon. The tanks of my company, from the Merkava tank battalion which was [usually] stationed not far from Jericho, were sitting on a dirt road that surrounded the Beirut airport. A military truck brought us supplies for the [Rosh Hashanah] holiday, which included honey, eggs and all kinds of supplies, which we would exchange with the locals for fine hashish. With Israeli money, we would buy at the neighborhood supermarket 7UP, which was not available in Israel, and sweets and also Kent cigarettes, which were way cheaper than in Israel.
Bashir Jumail was murdered two days earlier and we were told that we were moving to another sector. We had to drive the tanks because there was no time to bring transporters, and also because in the nearby towers there were Palestinians sitting on the balconies and shooting at military vehicles that were traveling on the road.
On the dirt road next to the field, our tank went up a mound on the trail and all the groceries that we placed in the turret basket crashed into the tank. Egg trays and honey jars stained our clothes and there was no time to change uniforms because we were on the move. After about two hours we reached the fence, which was a kind of stone wall three meters high. The commanders sat a few hundred meters away on the fifth floor of an abandoned building. All the officers were there looking into the camp.
An hour or two later, about seventy Phalangists showed up in polished uniforms and shiny shoes. They had Israeli Galil assault rifles and enviable new vests. We had short Galil rifles [SAR] and old tattered vests. They stood in threes and stomped their feet in a sort of orderly drill, while their commander went up to speak to the [Israeli] brigade or the division commander who was at the observation point on the fifth floor.
He yelled in English “Help! Help!” and in Arabic, whispering and crying that the Phalangist killed everybody and wanted to kill him too and that I should save him. I looked at my commander embarrassed and asked him what to do. My commander smiled at me and winked and said “Let them do the dirty work” and signaled to the Phalangist that he can drag away the crying Palestinian behind me. He caught him in his back and walked with him three or four steps. The guy kept begging and looking at me and at the Phalangist and begged us to have mercy on him.
It started getting dark and we waited for instructions to know what to do. Those who needed to urinate had to go out the back door of the Merkava. All the hatches were shut in case some Palestinian sniper from across the fence shot at us. Half an hour later, an Israeli backhoe digger arrived out of nowhere. Our tanks were standing right next to the wall and we had to move them in order to give access to the backhoe. We were two Merkava tanks and one half-track of the paratroopers who were parked next to us.
The Phalangists continued their formation drills in threes while the digger opened a hole in the wall. We could only see them through the tank’s periscope, we could not hear them. We left the back door of the tank open because it was suffocating inside the tank with all the spilled eggs and bread and honey. Every step inside the tank felt like we were grounded in mud, and another egg shell got crushed.
After the digger left, all the Phalangists lined up in threes again for another series of order exercises. Then they entered the camp. We stayed inside the tanks. Their commander asked our commander to fire flares over the camp because it was getting dark. Through the back door we started to hear gunshots and a lot of shouting, mainly from women, children crying and a lot of shouting in general.
Throughout the night, about every quarter of an hour, the armored personnel carrier next to us fired flares over the camp. They came down in a blinding light, slowly, with a small parachute, and made a lot of light. When one went off, they would fire another one.
Not much happened with us, between bombs We fell asleep and our clothes are still full of honey and eggs. The tank driver slept on his chair, the loader slept under the barrel, the commander crawled down towards the back door and fell asleep on the floor of the tank, I was a gunner and slept on my chair with my head against the crosshairs. My glasses got crooked and sat on me strangely.
In the morning we woke up and went outside. Screams and cries from all sides. We got on the tank and saw beyond the wall. At the entrances to the houses, corpses were lying at all kinds of strange angles. The other soldiers started shouting at us and talking to each other that they were killing everyone there and what are we supposed to do…
Our squad commander didn’t pass his air force pilot training and was totally consumed in that, he didn’t know what was going on around him. He went to talk to the top brass sitting on the fifth floor. He came back and said that they see everything from up there and that we do not interfere. It is a local conflict between the Phalangists and the Palestinians. In any case, they report to all the senior officers what was happening there and at the moment we have no instructions to do anything, so we are sitting here until we receive an order.
It was already noon and we started to clean and wash the tank. We washed some of our t-shirts and hung them on a makeshift rope between the two tanks. We had quite a lot of water in jerrycans. The yelling and screaming from beyond the wall continued and we didn’t know what to do.
Waiting for the order…
That afternoon I heard my friend Oren. He stood on the turret of his tank and peered over the fence and shouted towards the fifth floor “It’s a massacre. They’re killing everyone there.”
We have yet to receive any instruction.
Through an opening in the wall, a young guy escaped. He appeared to me to be about twenty years old — looked a bit older than me — I was nineteen — and a Phalangist was running after him with a new Galil [Israeli-made] gun and a new vest. The young guy stood behind me and grabbed me by my shoulders. He was barefoot, wearing shorts and an old, torn tank top. He stunk of fear, a really bad and appalling smell, and of puke and intense sweat. He talked to me and cried that the Phalangist wanted to kill him and asked me to help him. He yelled in English “Help! Help!” and in Arabic, whispering and crying that the Phalangist killed everybody and wanted to kill him too and that I should save him. I looked at my commander embarrassed and asked him what to do. My commander smiled at me and winked and said “Let them do the dirty work” and signaled to the Phalangist that he can drag away the crying Palestinian behind me. He caught him in his back and walked with him three or four steps. The guy kept begging and looking at me and at the Phalangist and begged us to have mercy on him. The Phalangist shot him in his knee. The Palestinian started crying in pain and went down on his knees asking us to have mercy on him. The Phalangist shot him again in his stomach and when he bent in front of him on the floor, his head almost touched the shoes of the Phalangist. He shot him again, in the head, and then it was quiet.
I looked at it in complete shock. It was the first time I had seen death so close. The Phalangist disappeared again over the wall and returned to the refugee camp.
Mercedes cars with press passes started arriving. Our commander declared the area a closed military zone and entry was forbidden. I heard them arguing in Hebrew. It was a reporter for Time Magazine. He said that everyone, children, elderly and women, are being gathered at the soccer field and shot in a row and that we have to do something about it.
The commander from the fifth floor came down and started yelling at him not to tell him what to do and that this is a military area and that he shouldn’t be here. He shouted back at him that he was now coming from the other side of the camp and on that side they were allowed to enter, and that everything was full of blood and it was a horror what was happening there.
We also began to ask uneasily what we were doing and what was happening and who we were waiting for. He said that it is a holiday now and Raful [Rafael Eitan] is talking to [Menachem] Begin and that maybe because it is holiday they don’t want to talk to Begin on the phone, at the moment there is no decision and no order.
A Red Cross car arrived again and complained to the commander from the fifth floor that the Phalangists were shooting everyone and not allowing them to treat the wounded. The commander told him that he is passing the information on and as soon as there is a decision we will receive an order and move. That this is an internal Lebanese conflict.
Towards the next evening(!) we were told to enter. Most of the Phalangists had already left. We were told to park the tanks in front of one of the buildings there. Someone in a suit came to talk to the commander from the fifth floor. We were told that there was a Mossad agent inside the camp and that he would signal us.
We entered and at every entrance of a house there were bodies on the stairs and blood running all over the stairs. There was a terrible stench of corpses and sour blood. We went up to the first floor. The doors were open and in every room there were bodies on the beds, on the floor, in the hallway, lying on their backs with bullet holes. Women with children and babies leaning against the door. All dead. Some of the bodies looked like they had been stabbed with a sword. Women without clothes or in a half-torn dress, lying on their backs with a bullet in the head.
We couldn’t stay there and went back down to the tank. After it got dark we saw a flashing light signal from one of the basement windows in the building we were parked in front of. We communicated that we got a sign. A jeep arrived. A man left the building, got into the jeep and they drove off.
The next morning the whole area was full of journalists. The smell was unbearable and everywhere there were journalists and announcers talking into a microphone. They sent us towards the football field. There were rows upon rows of bodies wrapped and covered with blankets and rags. An army tractor dug a trench and pushed the bodies into the trench and covered them with dirt.
It reminded me of pictures from Yad Vashem and of the massacre of Babi Yar.
I don’t remember anything else. All the times got confused in my head.
I was nauseous and threw up over and over. I wanted to go home and cried like a little child.
I was sent home. I got into the jeep with another friend of mine that took us to Rosh Hanikra. From there we caught a ride to Nahariya. I don’t remember anything since then. Somehow we arrived in Jerusalem after traveling for more than ten hours.
I went to my mother’s house. I thought she would be happy to see that I was alive and that I didn’t die in the war. I was sitting there in the kitchen. She sat in front of me and was silent, as if asking what I wanted and what I came for. After a few minutes of silence, she asked me if I wanted something to drink, and brought me tap water in a disposable cup. I sat there for a few more minutes not knowing what to say to her and she looked at me and still didn’t understand what she was supposed to do. I really wanted her to hug me — maybe for the only time in my life I really wanted to be hugged. After another fifteen minutes of silence I left her house and went to my sister’s house. My sister gave me new clothes and washed my uniform.
I don’t know how long I slept. At night I had nightmares and I couldn’t close my eyes without seeing bodies falling on me. If I fell asleep I would dream that the pillow was a dead man I was lying on, and I would wake up sweating and screaming. Only during the day could I fall asleep with the window open. In the shade and in the dark I was scared and sweaty and couldn’t fall asleep. I kept throwing up and losing weight.
I had a friend in the boot camp who left the armory after basic training and moved to serve in Jerusalem. He told me that whenever I come to Jerusalem I should call him and we can hang out and talk. I called him. We met and he said he had a nice sister that he wanted to introduce me to and invited me to his house for Shabbat.
During the day I was able to function somehow but as soon as I put on the uniform I started sweating, getting nauseous and vomiting.
About two weeks passed and the commander found me at my sister’s. He convinced me to go back with him and that everything would be fine. I drove in his jeep from Jerusalem to Rosh Hanikra. As soon as we reached the border I got some kind of shock, got off the jeep and started walking back. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, just cry and be left alone. I shouted to whoever got near me that I will shoot him and myself and that they should leave me alone.
I remember that somehow I was again in Jerusalem at my sister’s house. On the weekend I went to Tamir’s house. The food was really delicious and his sister didn’t pay attention to me at all during the whole time I was there. She completely ignored my presence. At night everyone went to sleep and I stayed awake in bed. I slept on a mattress by the kitchen, there was light from the moon and I couldn’t fall asleep.
Later — at around 2 am — his mother came naked into my bed. We won’t go into embarrassing details but I remained her gigolo for the next three years. Three months later, military police found me and arrested me for desertion. I was sent to prison. I wanted to kill myself but they took away my shoelaces and there was no way to kill myself. After a few days in prison I arrived at the trial. The judge asked me why I ran away. I started to cry, burst out and told him everything since Sabra and Shatila. He released me from prison immediately and asked me to meet the mental health officer.
I went back to that woman’s house. Every few days I had to go for an examination. I was hospitalized for a week or so in a mental asylum. They thought I would commit suicide. I went back to that woman’s house again for sexual therapy. I went again to the mental health officer and back to her house for a month or two.
During the day I slept and at night I wrote, I continued to lose weight and vomit. Occasionally I had nightmares but slowly they disappeared, especially when I slept during the day. If I woke up and saw daylight, I could fall asleep again. If it was dark I would start seeing dead people walking around me. All the bodies that were wrapped in rags started to move or jump. I would suddenly wake up screaming and sweating. Only when it was daylight could I fall asleep without problems. The food at this woman’s place was excellent and I spent quite a bit of time there. Her daughter found another boyfriend and left home. Tamir was released from the army and went to the USA. I stayed to live with this woman.
After a few more weeks and meetings with the mental health officer, I was told that if I wanted to be released then I had to sign a form that I have no claims from the army, now or in the future. I was happy to sign it and receive the exemption certificate.
They did not find me to give testimony to the Kahan Commission [formally: The Commission of Inquiry into the Events at the Refugee Camps in Beirut]. I was a deserter and then they probably thought I was crazy anyway and my opinion didn’t matter…
Not long after that, I left the country and have been living abroad since 1988. I felt disappointed by the way that the army treats its casualties. I enlisted with health profile 89 and was discharged with profile 21 [this is an internal ranking based on a soldier’s health and mental health status, ranging from 21 to 97]. That is, the change in my military profile took place while I was under the responsibility of the army, but they made me sign a form that I have no claims and conditioned my exemption on signing an illegal document, especially considering my poor mental state. I’m glad I got out of it alive. I feel sorry for all the soldiers — some of whom were my friends — who were killed in an unnecessary war.
