There is a nondescript, rundown complex of concrete buildings in Beirut's Sabra neighborhood, steps beyond the Shatila Palestinian refugee camp. It is one among hundreds of such buildings there, slowly decaying amid piles of garbage and a spiderweb of side streets.

Inside, little cats scurry through dark halls blackened by mold. Water drips from tiny white ceiling stalactites of salt hardened by time. It pools on the floor. In one nook above an ancient stairwell sits, inexplicably, a fully functioning corner-shop fridge shilling juice and Pepsi.

The hallways are said to hold ghosts, too.

They lurk among the living. Hundreds of people, most of them Palestinian refugees, call these four conjoined buildings home, squatting informally in rooms that line the damp hallways.

This was once the Gaza Hospital, a Palestinian Red Crescent-run facility and a former beacon of healthcare for Palestinians and Lebanese alike.

Fifty years since the start of Lebanon's civil war, we revisit one of its haunts.

Words by Madeline Edwards with my photography for Inkstick Media.

#beirut #beyrouth #lebanon #lebanese #middleeast #Shatila #sabra #sabraandshatila #refugees #refugeecamp #gaza #GazaHospital #Palestinian #Palestine #war #civilwar #joaosousaphotos #fujifilm #fujifilm_global #fujifilmxpt

There is a nondescript, rundown complex of concrete buildings in Beirut's Sabra neighborhood, steps beyond the Shatila Palestinian refugee camp. It is one among hundreds of such buildings there, slowly decaying amid piles of garbage and a spiderweb of side streets.

Inside, little cats scurry through dark halls blackened by mold. Water drips from tiny white ceiling stalactites of salt hardened by time. It pools on the floor. In one nook above an ancient stairwell sits, inexplicably, a fully functioning corner-shop fridge shilling juice and Pepsi.

The hallways are said to hold ghosts, too.

They lurk among the living. Hundreds of people, most of them Palestinian refugees, call these four conjoined buildings home, squatting informally in rooms that line the damp hallways.

This was once the Gaza Hospital, a Palestinian Red Crescent-run facility and a former beacon of healthcare for Palestinians and Lebanese alike.

Fifty years since the start of Lebanon's civil war, we revisit one of its haunts.

Words by Madeline Edwards with my photography for Inkstick Media.

#beirut #beyrouth #lebanon #lebanese #middleeast #Shatila #sabra #sabraandshatila #refugees #refugeecamp #gaza #GazaHospital #Palestinian #Palestine #war #civilwar #joaosousaphotos #fujifilm #fujifilm_global #fujifilmxpt

> He repeatedly condemned the Israelis’ treatment of the Palestinians. When, in 1982, the Israelis stood by as the Christian Phalangists massacred the Palestinians at Sabra and Shatila, he called for the resignation of #ArielSharon and #MenachemBegin. “Everybody is somebody’s Jew,” he told a reporter, Filippo Gentiloni, from the Italian newspaper Il Manifesto, and he cited the abuse of Poland by the Russians and the Germans.
https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/who-said-what
#PrimoLevi #LeviOnLebanon #SabraAndShatila

42 years have passed, and the Palestinian memory still holds the recollection of one of the most heinous crimes in modern human history. This massacre was committed by the gangs of the zionist occupation army and its collaborators in Lebanon against unarmed civilians, including Palestinian refugees, their Lebanese brothers, and dozens of others of various Arab and foreign nationalities. The massacre claimed the lives of more than 3,500 martyrs and left hundreds missing. The murderers committed the most brutal acts of killing and torture, cutting open the bellies of pregnant women, slaughtering children, women, and the elderly, and destroying homes over the heads of their inhabitants. For three consecutive days, the killers unleashed all their hatred and savagery, carrying out one of the most atrocious crimes against humanity. Its psychological impact remains present in the minds and hearts of all our Palestinian people and all the free and honorable people in the world. This horrific massacre occurred in the wake of the zionist invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the steadfastness of the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance against the invading forces at the gates of Beirut for three months. During this period, the occupation failed to break through. They managed to enter only through deceit and Western-American collusion, which provided guarantees and promises to the Palestinian revolution forces to protect Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. Just days after the revolution forces departed, the Nazi gangs, under orders and support from the zionist occupation army led by war criminal Defense Minister Ariel Sharon and his Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan, stormed the camp inhabited by thousands of Palestinian refugees, poor Lebanese, Syrians, and others, where they proceeded to kill every living being they came across. Despite the brutality and savagery committed by the occupation army and its tools, the world turned a blind eye to prosecuting the criminal murderers and pursuing them as war criminals. The genocide being perpetrated against our people in the Gaza Strip proves that as long as criminals remain outside prison, they continue to accumulate crime, savagery, and fascism, sitting at the top of the racist zionist entity, which today poses a threat to all humanity and to all the free and honorable people in our nation and the world. The 42nd anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacre and the war of genocide led by the occupation army in partnership with and complicity of colonial Western American silence and official Arab betrayal against the Palestinian people continues to unfold. Today, our people in Gaza, the West Bank, and Al-Quds face a war of genocide and ethnic cleansing rarely seen in contemporary human history. The aim is to liquidate the Palestinian cause and implement the zionist-imperialist schemes to control the resources and wealth of the peoples of the region and colonial domination over the world.

While the occupation army commits the most heinous crimes using the latest in American-zionist Western killing machines against an unarmed people who have only the will and faith in the justice of their cause and their right to a free and dignified life like all the peoples of the earth, the Palestinian people continue their resilience and steadfastness, writing the most wonderful epics of heroism and sacrifice, rejecting subjugation and surrender, and affirming their commitment to the option of resistance as the only path to liberation and return.

The Sabra and Shatila massacre 42 years ago served as a model and a lesson for our people and a warning to all who bet on American and Western guarantees and promises, which are synonymous with lies, hypocrisy, and conspiracy against peoples yearning for liberation from the yoke of occupation and enslavement. As we remember the horror of this massacre, we call on the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice, all international legal and human rights institutions, and all advocates of freedom and justice worldwide to continue exerting pressure by all means and methods until the war of genocide against our people in Gaza and the West Bank stops. We demand the prosecution of the leaders of the zionist entity and its army and their trial as war criminals so that the murderous criminals do not escape punishment, as did the perpetrators of the Sabra and Shatila massacre 42 years ago. On the anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacre, we renew our pledge to the martyrs of the ongoing massacre that our people will continue the path of struggle and resistance until all their usurped rights are restored, no matter how long it takes and regardless of the sacrifices made. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine Central Media Department

September 16, 2024

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/post/2024/09/17/forty-two-years-since-the-sabra-and-shatila-massacre-and-the-war-of-genocide-continues-pflp/

#genocide #lebanon #massacre #palestine #pflp #repression #sabraAndShatila