CHAPTER SIX

ISRAELI WAR CRIMES COMMITTED IN LEBANON IN 1978 AND 1982

Part 2 of 4

EXAMPLES OF MASS DESTRUCTION, MASSACRES, HOMELESSNESS AND TORTURE CAUSED BY THE 1982 INVASION

The aforementioned facts do not mark the end of Israeli war crimes in Lebanon. Thousands of Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners were incarcerated in concentration camps in which prisoners were mistreated, tortured and even murdered by their captors. The most infamous of these camps was the Ansar concentration camp. As many as 10,000 inmates were held in Ansar concentration camp at one time.

The sadism of the Israeli guards at Ansar rivaled the SS of World War 11. Prisoners were forced to "bark like the dogs you are" and to shout "Long live Begin, long live Sharon." The Israelis pulled into the jaws of Ansar every male Palestinian in Lebanon they could get their hands on. "There appeared to be virtually no Palestinian men between the ages of 16 to 60 left free in southern Lebanon." One of these prisoners, who was held in Ansar for 155 days, testified that prisoners were laid "on special tables that have holds for legs and arms," and then beaten with sticks and iron rods. He saw deaths as the result of torture. The bodies of seven young men killed in an Israeli detention camp near Sidon in the early weeks of the invasion were found with hands tied and signs of having been beaten to death by an Israeli guard. One Lebanese witness saw a prisoner beaten to death by an Israeli guard. (30)

A Lebaneseprisoner in Ansar testifies that "prisoners were interrogated while being beaten with heavy clubs." The most severe beatings were reserved for teachers, businessmen, students and journalists. These "interrogation sessions" lasted from ten minutes to half a day at a time, according to the whims of the interrogator-torturers. Prisoners were forced to sleep on the ground, without blankets in the cold nights. Some were sent to other camps in Israel. There prisoners were attacked by guard dogs, and those who tried to defend themselves from being bitten by these vicious dogs were beaten by their Israeli captors.

Many prisoners were beaten with iron bars on the genitals, on the hands, and on the soles of the feet. One had four fingers broken. This man was hung by his feet "and they used me as a punching bag," he testified. When prisoners begged for water they were given urine to drink. Prisoners were forced to run like cattle while being beaten with clubs. Once they were made to sit for a solid week, most of the time with hands on their heads.

The worst times were Friday night and Saturday, when the guards celebrated the Jewish Sabbath by getting drunk and selecting some prisoners for special punishment, "to the accompaniment of laughter, full of hate." (31)

Objective news correspondents in Lebanon reported the horrors to which prisoners were subjected. One Reuters reporter gives this eyewitness account after seeing prisoners under guard:

Flicking a two-thonged leather whip, an Israeli soldier moved through the lines of suspected guerillas squatting on a lawn outside the Safa Citrus Corporation, Nearby, a row of eight men stood with their hands in the air as a green-bereted Israeli border guard, an Uzi sub-machine gun slung over his shoulder, inspected them. The border guards barked out orders in Arabic and refused to let journalists linger at the gates of this depot on the southern outskirts of Sidon. Through the bars, about one hundred prisoners could be seen on the lawn while a queue waited to enter the depot, apparently for questioning. A Lebanese reports that "prisoners had to stand or sit in the sun all day. The only water they got was poured on the ground, and they had to lap it up like a11imals." (32)

Prisoners were placed in "the hole," a tin box too small to permit them to sit or lie down, with gravel and pieces of iron on the floor. There they would be kept for hours until they fainted and were covered with wounds on the soles of their feet. Prisoners were forced to sit with their heads between their legs, beaten if they moved, while guards shouted at them: "You are a nation of monkeys, you are terrorists, and we will break your heads. You want a state? Build it on the moon." (33)

Israeli forces in Lebanon and their Lebanese puppets continued to kill civilians and destroy buildings in Lebanon long after these chronicled events. The facts and the aftermath of the 1982 war of aggression against Lebanon destroyed a once peaceful and prosperous nation, reducing it to destruction and internal disruption, all originating in Israeli interference in its internal affairs, coupled with naked military aggression in total disregard of Lebanon's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The facts hereinbefore cited were accompanied by numerous war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide testified to by eyewitness testimony andadmissions by Israeli personnel themselves:

On the day after the Israeli occupation of Sidon, its "hospitals were reported to be overflowing with wounded and the city was short of medicine, food, water, fuel and electriity." (34) "In its first days of Israeli occupation Sidon is a scene of desolation, destruction and massive military might. An International Red Cross spokesman said he feared 1,200 residents of Sidon were in urgent need of medical attention," (35)

In Tyre "not a single building was untouched by the flying shrapnel. Some high-rise apartments had collapsed like houses of cards. some villas were chewed into piles of dust and rubble." (36)

"Some 3,400 were listed as wounded in Sidon, Tyre and Jezzin." (37)

"Close to 50 percent of the houses and facilities in the six Palestinian refugee camps near Tyre and Sidon (Ein el-Hilweh, Nabatiyeh, Mieh Mieh, El Buss, Rashidiyeh and Burj el-Shemali) were destroyed, and 40 percent of the refugees had fled." (38)

Israeli troops "systematically destroyed many of the Palestinians' houses that survived the battles, increasing the number of homeless families, many of them with children." (39)

The June 11, 1982 shelling of downtown Beirut "indiscriminately killed at least twenty persons and wounded many others." (40=

"Hospitals in Beirut were jammed with wounded after Israeli artillery and warplanes attacked Beirut." (41)

"Israeli warplanes dropped cluster bombs on Burj al Brajneh, a Palestinian refugee camp near Beirut, and on a sanitarium in the town of Azzouniyeh." (42)

"From all accounts, including those of Israeli officers and soldiers interviewed here in the last few days, the heavy Israeli sea, air and land bombardments of suspected Palestinian positions, plus the generous use of 2,000 pound bombs, cluster bombs and big rockets, have had a devastating impact on the civilian population." (43)

"The U.S. State Department's Agency for International Development (AID) reported 600,000 people affected by the Israeli invasion." (44)

"The bodies of more than 80 Lebanese civilians were found under the rubble of two buildings in Sidon." (45)

"Civilian casualties from Israeli air raids in the Beka'a valley are estimated at as much as 1 ,200." (46)

"A doctor at Beirut's Gaza Hospital was quoted as saying that the mortality rate of the wounded was 30 to 50 percent." (47)

"Thirteen direct hits were reported at Acre Hospital in West Beirut from Israeli shelling." (48)

"Seven were killed and 66 injured in the Israeli shelling of West Beirut on June 2 1, 1 982." (49)

On June 22, 1982 Israeli demolition teams dynamited more buildings in the Rashidiyeh refugee camp, which was so devastated that no walls stood more than a few feet high." (50)

"27 Lebanese were killed and 80 injured in renewed Israeli bombing of Beirut on June 22." (51)

"Two Norwegian relief workers in Sidon had witnessed 10 prisoners beaten to death by Israeli soldiers." (52)

"On June 24th, the day's dead in Beirut was reported at 100, with 275 wounded." (53)

On June 25, 1982 Israeli Chief of Staff General Rafael Eitan inadvertantly admitted Israeli use of illegal cluster bombs in an order to his soldiers not to pick up cluster "bomblets" as souvenirs. Eight Israeli soldiers had been killed when doing so. (54)

"90 percent of casualties in Beirut caused by Israeli bombardment were civilian men, women and children." (55)

"The Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh was razed. 'It doesn't exist anymore,' according to Olof Rydbeck, UNWRA commissioner general." (56)

"On Beirut's Farshukh Street, in a working class district, 73 bodies were pulled from the rubble of a single apartment building." (57)

"On July 4, 1982 the Israeli military cut electrical and water supplies to the 600,000 residents of West Beirut. Shipments of food and gasoline were also denied. Israeli tanks fired at apartment complexes in Beirut's Lailake and Burj al-Brajneh districts." (58)

"As the blockade of food, water and electricity continued, Israeli gunboats and artillery pounded Palestinian camps and residential neighborhoods of West Beirut." (59)

"On July 6, 1982 Israeli tanks and artillery shelled West Beirut." (60)

"On July 9, 1982 the West Beirut districts of Berbir and Mazraa were particularly hard hit by Israeli artillery and rocket attacks." (61)

"On July 10, 1982 50 were killed and 200 wounded by Israeli rockets and shelling in West Beirut." (62)

'On July 11, 1982 Israeli rockets were landing in West Beirut at a rate of 30 a minute and 5 patients were killed at Berbir Hospital." (63)

"At least 82 persons in all were killed and 211 wounded by Israeli artillery fire against West Beirut on July 11, 1982." (64)

"On July 19, 1982 250 were killed and another 900 wounded in Lebanon in renewed Israeli attacks. Most of the casualties were Palestinian and Lebanese civilians." (65)

On July 22, 1982 60 persons were killed in West Beirut." (66)

"The Fakhani district of West Beirut was a scene of smoldering apartment buildings. As in all of the Palestinian neighborhoods, the poor have nowhere else to go. Whenever the shooting stops, old women carrying bags of food can be seen shuffling between buildings." (67)

"On July 24, 1982 56 were killed or wounded in West Beirut." (68)

'On July 25, 1982 12 were killed or injured in Palestinian districts of West Beirut." (69)

"On July 26, 1982 54 civilians were killed or wounded in West Beirut and its southern suburbs." (70)

"On July 27, 1982 100 were killed and 200 wounded in Israeli air-raids on West Beirut." (71)

lsraeli War Crimes Committed in Lebanon in 1978 and 1982 799 "Eighty people were killed in the Israeli bombing of an eight story apartment building on July 27th." (72)

"On July 30,1982 20 were killed and 50 wounded in Israeli shelling of West Beirut." (73)

"On August 1, 1982 Israeli shelling killed 200 and wounded 400 in West Beirut. There were many civilian casualties. Scores of apartment buildings, office buildings and small houses and shops were severely damaged or gutted by the bombing." (74)

"OnAugust 4, 1982 Israeli forces rained shellfire all across West Beirut, killing 250 civilians and wounding 670." (75)

"On August 6, 1982 an Israeli air strike destroyed a six story apartment building in the Sanaya Gardens district of West Beirut, killing 150 persons. Many of the bodies pulled from the rubble were women and children." (76)

"On August 12, 1982 Israeli aircraft attacked West Beirut for eleven hours non-stop. In the basement of one building in Bourj al-Barajneh 70 bodies were found. Families in the area said another 3 1 bodies lie under the rubble." (77)

During the night of September 16-17, 1982 Israeli forces fired illumination flares over the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps to assist Phalangist gangs which committed mass slaughter in the camps. The International Committee of the Red Cross gave a body count of 2,750 on September 23, 1982. (78)

The culmination of the war of aggression against Lebanon in 1982 was the infamous massacre of the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps. The Nazi massacre of Lidice in Czechoslovakia pales by comparison. Only Babi Yar, where thousands of Ukrainians and Jews were murdered by the Nazis is of comparable brutality.

The Sabra and Shatila massacre caused world-wide indignation. President Mitterand of France expressed a "reaction of horror," and President Ronald Reagan of the United States expressed "a general feeling of anger and indignation." (79)

Excluding the victims of the Sabra and Shatila massacre, the Lebanese Red Cross reported on November 30,1982 that 19,085 persons had been killed and 31,915 wounded in the Israeli invasion, and that in West Beirut, for example, 80% of the casualties were civilians and one third of the casualties were less than 15 years old." (80)

By June 17, 1982 800,000 people had been displaced because of the Israeli invasion. 100,000 refugees were made homeless because of the destruction of the Palestinian refugee camps in the south. (81)

The Council for Development and Reconstruction of Lebanon estimated the damages caused by the Zionist invasion as of December 1982 at 6,351,824,000 Lebanese Pounds, of which 5% was to schools, 7.2% to Health facilities, 0.9% was to drinking water facilities, 0.3% to irrigation works, 2.4% to municipal buildings, 12.8% to agriculture, 36.2% to housing, and 32.9% to trade. Only 2.1% of the damage caused by the Zionist invasion was to military buildings. (82)

The wanton destruction of Lebanese national life and its economy caused by the Zionists and their crime of genocide against the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon cannot be whitewashed by Zionist propagandists, no matter how hard they try.

As in 1978, the Zionist forces used illegal cluster bombs against the Lebanese and Palestinian people in Lebanon. In 1982 they used insidious phosphorous shells as well. In the last two weeks of July 1982 the Zionist forces "fired hundreds of phosphorous shells into Beirut alone." (83)

The use of phosphorous bombs by the Israeli army has been condemned by relief workers in Lebanon who have seen its effects. The only way to stop the burning caused by phosphorous shells is either to cut the burning tissue away or amputate.

Relief workers are reporting an unusually high incidence of amputations in West Beirut, particularly among civilians. Phosphorous reportedly continues to burn for up to 24 hours. Dr. Troy Rusli of Norway said he treated about 50 cases of phosphorous bums in five weeks. One of the last groups he cared for was a family of seven. The hair on their heads had been singe doff and the features on each of their faces was no longer discernible. (84)

NEUTRAL EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY

Swedish nurse Margarete Carlsonn testifies: "We could see that 75 percent of Rashediyeh Palestinian refugee camp was in ruins." (85)

Swedish physician Dr. DavidHenley testifies: "During the time that I was at Rashediyeh camp, there were several episodes during which cluster bombs were exploding in the air and sent down a kind of shrapnel." (86)

Norwegian Physician Dr. Ebba Wergeland testifies: "I visited the clinic in Borj el Shamali on 28 June. Around the building pieces of furniture, apparently beds, were spread around, smashed. Two dental chairs and a few toilets, pieces which could not be tom away, were smashed. The shelter behind the clinic was full of rubble apparently destroyed by an explosion inside." (87)

Finnish photographer Leena Saraste testifies: "I have seen with my own eyes evidence of hundreds of residential buildings, schools, hospitals and shops directly hit by Israeli bombardment and shelling." (88)

American journalist Mya Shone testifies: "I can confirm that Ain el Helweh camp is virtually destroyed. There are very few houses standing. We found no house untouched." (89)

American journalist Ralph Schoenman testifies: "In this process of destruction, hospitals were always primary targets, particularly the hospitals of the Red Crescent and those facilities which were available to the Palestinians and to the Lebanese poor." (90)

Danish nurse Berit Fiksdal testifies: "We went to the beach area near the old city of Sidon. This area was completely bombed and destroyed. In this area lived the poorest Lebanese." (91)

Norwegian nurse Liv Berit Bredby testifies: "We were not able to help the injured because the Israeli authorities gave the order to close the hospital." (92)

Belgian physician Francis Capet testifies: "I asked the Israeli soldiers and officers why they let the people come back to the Ain el Helweh camp which was to be bombed. We said, 'You can stop them, they will die.' They answered, 'They do not listen and anyway they are too stupid." (93)

Norwegian physician Dr. Bent Schei testifies: "When we left there were still patients whose lives depended upon immediate transfer to a hospital. There were ambulances present, but we were told by Israeli soldiers they were not permitted to go out searching for wounded." (94)

Swedish physician Dr. Bern Heger testifies: "At times I found no external injuries, but when I intubated the patients to free their larynxes, I found their lungs filled with blood. They had been crushed by the pressure of the explosion. (95)

Norwegian physician Dr. Mads Gilbert testifies: "During the blockade by the Israelis of West Beirut quite often operations had to be cancelled because instruments could not be properly washed between operations. Wound and bone infections were extremely common and in some cases we discovered large amounts of worms in gangrenous wounds." (96)

Norwegian physician Dr. Terje Lund testifies: "The shelter was the only shelter in the surroundings and we had only civilians in the shelter when the Israelis shelled the building." (97)

"Greek physician Dr. Constantios Alexiou testifies: "I was also witness to merciless, simultaneous carpet bombing from aircraft, artillery and gun boats. Even during the cease-fire they were brought in systematically. I saw total devastation of the West Beirut residential districts such as Sabra, Shatila, Fakhani and Mazda'a." (98)

British relief representative Pamela Cooper testifies: "Belgian, French and Norwegian surgeons operated and amputated limbs under appalling conditions caused by Israeli cluster and phosphorous bombs and shelling. It might be a child or a woman or old man pulled out of the rubble of a building that had been hit by the most up to date deep penetration weapon." (99)

Italian physician Dr. Franco Concellieri testifies: "The signs of the wild Israeli attacks were evident on the poorer quarters of West Beirut and on the refugee camps." (100)

lm Finnish physician Dr. Mariut Helminen testifies: "In one case, Israeli soldiers poured out seven blood units when blood and medicine were difficult to obtain." (101)

Greek physician Dr. Loucas Floros testifies: "The Israelis didn't kill just for the sake of killing. They killed to be able to promote their expansionism." (102)

British relief representative Major Derek Cooper testifies: "The Israeli tactics were to keep up the creeping barrage of destruction and death from land, sea and air, driving the inhabitants into the already congested central and northern area of West Beirut." (103)

British Labour Party delegate Howard Brenton testifies: "Dar El Ajazah El Islameih mental hospital had been hit twice. Its top storey had been blown away. It housed 500 patients, mostly old and without families or severely disturbed children orphaned by the war. There are no hospitals elsewhere to take them, for they are full of the sane but wounded." (104)

Englishman Tony Simpson testifies: "Suddenly this place became a scene of slaughter as Israeli aircraft roared in and let loose a bomb close by. We ran towards the school's central corridors. Casualties of this latest Israeli assault, all of them children, one streaming blood from her head and legs, were rushed in from cars and ambulances." (105)

United States Ambassador Robert S. Dillon testifies: "Simply put, tonight's saturation shelling was as intense as anything we have seen. There was no 'pinpoint accuracy' against targets in 'open spaces.' It was not a response to Palestinian fire. This was a blitz against West Beirut." (106)

Canadian Ambassador Theodore Arcand testifies: "The destruction in West Beirut would make Berlin of 1944 look like a tea party." (107)

Greek physician Dr. Thanasis Papageorgiou testifies: "In sheer contempt for fundamental international conventions and regulations, the Israelis prohibit the entry of medical supplies as well as blood destined for the Palestinian Red Crescent, the Lebanese Red Crescent and the Lebanese Red Cross." (108)

French physician Dr. Claude Pierre Lien testifies: "In Sidon we saw 2,200 people living in a small two-floor school, without food and in unsanitary conditions. They were mainly children, women and old people." (109)

Finnish journalist Mikko Lohikoski testifies: "What is very clear is that the houses, our hotel and other hotels included, were certainly not military targets. So I am positively confident that the Israeli aim was to hit civilian targets and not military targets." (110)

Belgian Professor Paulette Pierson-Mathy testifies: "The weapons most used by the Israelis were fragmentation bombs and phosphorous bombs and shells, as well as booby-trapped toys. One explosive doll had caused the death of several children and horribly wounded some others." (111)

Dutch nurse Tinefk Vlug testifies: "An apartment building 200 metres away from our hospital, in which refugees took refuge, was bombed and completely destroyed. More than a hundred were killed and nearly 200 injured." (112)

American physician Dr. Kevin M. Cahill testifies: "The Israeli occupying forces refuse, however, to accept any direct assistance for Palestinians, stopping even food and medicines from being taken to the ravaged, rat-infested ghettos of West Beirut." (113)

American journalist T. Elaine Carey testifies: "Only 12 of West Beirut's 17 hospitals and emergency centers are operating. Half of those have been hit by hellf fire." (114)

Cypriot journalist Alex Efty testifies: "Minutes later a taxi, its horn blaring continually, arrived with a shocked woman holding a child about 5 or 7 years old with the back of his head missing. In the next half hour a stream of ambulances, taxis and private cars and trucks arrived in quick succession, bringing more casualties." (115)

American journalist Hal Piper testifies: "In the Gaza hospital bed next to the young mother is an elderly midwife Israeli War Crimes Committed in Lebanon in 1978 and 1982 80 1 with nothing where her legs should be. She left her house to draw water from a community well when the shell hit." (116)

American journalist Richard Ben Cramer testifies: "In Gaza Hospital, there was a boy being shifted from a bed to a rolling stretcher. His left leg had been amputated at mid-thigh, right arm cut off below the elbow. Now he would leave the hospital to make room for others." (117)

English journalist Robert Fisk testifies: "'Listen,' the Israeli said, 'I know you are tape-recording this, but personally I would like to see them all dead. I would like to see all the Palestinians dead because they are a sickness wherever they go." (1118)

American journalist Terry Anderson testifies: "The wounded were trapped for two hours in the cellar where they lived. Nobody could get to them because of the shelling. That's why the babies died. Phosphorous ignites on contact with the air and continues to burn as long as there is an air supply. At the hospital morgue there were two tiny bodies of five-day-old twins covered with bums. They were still smouldering when brought in and had to be left in a bucket of water overnight." (119)

American clergyman Rev. Donald E. Wagner testifies: "The mother went berserk when she bent down at the front doorway and picked up the scalp of her missing daughter," (120)

Finnish physician Dr. Juhani Pajula testifies: "On the street west of Shatila there were four Israeli tanks with guns pointed towards the camp. From that street you can have a perfect view over the camp which lies about 150 metres from the street in a valley. Two Israeli officers were speaking in English with the soldiers who were with us and gave agreement to their plans which some of us could hear." (121)

Norwegian health worker Vera Talseth testifies: "Men were entering houses and shooting whole families, besides killing everybody they were able to lay their hands on." (122)

Norwegian health worker Astrid Barkved testifies: "In the afternoon of Wednesday the Israelis started shooting from tanks from their positions on the west and east of Shatila towards the southern part of the camp. They continued this bombardment day and night until Friday." (113)

American nurse Jill Drew testifies: "A woman stumbles down the ward corridor, her hair in her face, one shoe missing, dress tom, babbling half-coherent: the militias have massacred the people in the camps ... She says they tied the children up like Christ. She holds her arms out and then makes a fast slashing movement with her arm across her throat. 'I can't find my daughter,' she weeps." (124)

Norwegian physician Dr. Per Maehlumschlagen testifies: "Most of the bodies had been shot by weapons held very near to their heads or their bodies. Some had their throats cut by knives, some were tortured in a very cruel manner." (125)

Canadian surgeon Dr. Christopher Giannou testifies: "I have been a witness to hospitals being shelled. The Government Hospital in Ain Halwi, was hit on five or six separate occasions. The first shell hit the water pipes on the first floor and we were obliged to drink intravenous infusions for the succeeding days. One shell hit the emergency reception area on June 9 and killed between forty and fifty people who had taken refuge there." (126)

French Law professor Geraud de la Pradelle testifies: "The cemetery was in a particularly repulsive condition, cluttered with remnants, abandoned in an obviously casual way and showing recent manipulation of corpses. Some corpses were so poorly covered that gruesome pieces were showing on the ground." (127)

French lawyer Driss Anwar testifies: "As far as the conditions of detention are concerned, it is sufficient to recall the tortures, the deprival of medical care, water and food. These are not 'unfortunate mistakes'." (128)

Bangladeshi physician Dr. Shafique Islam testifies: "An Egyptian near us, who was suffocating and asking for water and air, was warned to keep quiet or he would be killed. We thought the Israelis were simply trying to frighten him, but when he asked again for air and water, they simply shot him and his body was left on the floor of the bus." (129)

Bangladeshi physician Dr. Mohammed Aman A1 Haq testifies: "I met Dr. Nabih again in Safa. He was beside me. His entire body was still swollen. He could not move easily. His cheek had been punctured with a knife. You could see from the outside to the inside. His lip was hanging down to the side. He was cut over his eye. His wounds were dark, festering. They needed cleaning and there was nobody to clean them. The tissue was dead and putrified. Flies continually clustered on him." (130)

American journalist David K. Shipler testifies: "Israel's prison camp in southern Lebanon has become a squalid, seething sore of defiance and despair. The Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners now numbering 4,700 live in big army tents inside a compound ringed by fences, guard towers and armored personnel carriers. Some of the Israeli guards are soldiers who were court-martialed for various crimes and arc serving sentences themselves." (131)

Finnish physiotherapist Pirkko Parviainen testifies: "Working in the hospital was difficult. Most of the doctors were arrested by the Israelis. There was no water and electricity. We asked the Israelis to provide both, but they didn't. Wecouldn't change the dressing of the woundeddaily. The wounds got infected and the smell was terrible everywhere." (132)

All of the above eyewitness testimony is related by credible, neutral witnesses. They have recounted what they have personally seen and heard in Israeli-ravaged Lebanon. The gruesome inhumanity of the invasion and occupation of Lebanon is hard for civilized people to comprehend, but callous disregard for human life and suffering has always marked the Zionist war criminals.

ADMISSIONS BY THE ISRAELI LEADERSHIP

The Israelis themselves have provided testimony to their barbaric behavior in Lebanon and to their aggressive designs on that country. Those self-incriminating admissions by Israeli leaders follow:

The long-standing Israeli policy of aggression against Lebanon was admitted in the spring of 1981 by General Yaakov Even, official Israeli Army spokesman: "We are the aggressors. We are penetrating the so-called border of the so-called sovereign state of Lebanon." (133)

On April 19, 1983, Colonel Meir Peil, former director of the Israeli Military Academy, asserted that "the only solution lies in the partitioning of Lebanon into two states, one Christian and the other Moslem." (134)

On February 5, 1984 Shimon Peres declared that "Lebanon will remain divided after our departure." (135)

In February 1985 former Israeli minister for Research and Sciences, Yuval Neeman, demanded the outright expulsion from south Lebanon of all "elements from that region who refuse to cooperate with Israel." (136)

On January 4, 1986 the former Chief of Staff General Raphael Eitan declared that "the Israeli army should be redeployed as far as the Litani." (137)

On March 18, 1985 Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin admitted that "Mercenaries serve in the South Lebanese Army." (138)

Israeli minister of Energy Yitzhak Berman stated that "General Eytan had put forward a plan which comprised the occupation of Beirut and the creation of a stable government in Lebanon following pressures designed to bias the presidential election." (139)

Defense minister Ezer Weizman introduced Major Haddad to Chief of Staff General Mordekhai Gur as a "member of our forces for the past year and a half." (140)

General Mordekhai Gur stated: "I had four villages in South Lebanon bombed without authorization, without making distinctions between civilians and noncivilians. What had the inhabitants of Irbid in Jordan done to deserve bombing by us in the war of attrition after the 1967 war" (141)

Major General Menachem Meron, Israeli military attache in Washington, D.C., acknowledged that cluster bombs were widely used around the Hamradistrict of West Beirut and said "There is a well known fact that too high a percentage of the bomblets do not explode. They can be collected from all over the place." (142)

Ariel Sharon said: "The word revenge also appeared in discussions among us, and the Phalangists tended toward creating conditions so that eventually the Palestinians would leave Lebanon." (143)

At an Israeli Cabinet meeting General Raphael Eitan predicted "the outbreak of acts of revenge. It will be an outburst the likes of which have not been seen. I already see in their eyes what they are waiting for." (144)

Israeli Army Lieutenant Ave Gabowski testified, "I saw Phalangists killing civilians and one of them told me that 'pregnant women give birth to terrorists.' I reported this incident to my superior." (145)

General Amir Drori telephoned Sharon and told him, "Our friends are advancing into the camps. I have coordinated their entry with their top men." Sharon answered, "Felicitations, the operations of our friends is approved." (146)

"The refugee camps were surrounded. 'I'd send in the Phalangists,' Sharon observed. Eitan commented, 'They're thirsting for revenge,' he said, 'and there could be torrents of blood.'" (147)

Lieutenant Colonel David Halevy testified to "the broad knowledge of the IDF officers and the Defense Ministry officials regarding the atrocities of the Phalangists during Israel's invasion." (148)

Menachem Begin rejected the use of the word "invasion." He said, "Israel did not invade any country." (149)

General Raphael Eitan said: "Now that I have built a military machine which costs billions of dollars, I have to use it. It is possible that I will be in Beirut tomorrow." (150)

Labor Party Secretary General Haim Bar-Lev, former Chief of Staff, said in the Knesset debate on Lebanon on August 12, 1982, "The destruction of Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, the destruction of civilians who are not our enemies and with whom we have no war, is unacceptable to the world. The comparison the prime minister made with the bombing of Nazi German towns in World War II or with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the Americans is not valid." (151)

Former chief IDF education officer Mordechai Bar-On writes that "There is no doubt that the war's central aim was to deal a crushing blow to the national aspirations of the Palestinians and to their very existence as a nation endeavouring to define itself and gain the right to self-determination." (152)

Knesset member Yuval Neeman urged that Israel "establish a new order in Lebanon. The Israeli army must be prepared for a long stay in Lebanon during which Israel will have an opportunity of reaching a stage of socio-economic or technological development in the nearby region which, geographically and historically, is an integral part of Eretz Yisrael, There could be an agreement on border rectification in which Israel could integrate the strip south of the Litani into Israel's development plans." (153)

Former chief of military intelligence General Aharon Yariv stated: "I know in fact that going to Beirut was included in the original military plan." (154)

Danny Wolf, formerly a commander in the Israeli paratroopers, asked: "If someone dropped leaflets over Herzliya in Israel tomorrow, telling the civilians in hiding to evacuate the town within two hours, wouldn't that be a war crime?" (155)

Former Foreign Minister Abba Eban wrote: "Delegations of diaspora Jews came to Israel, or rather to Lebanon, and applauded the decision to make war as enthusiastically as they would have applauded a decision not to make it, in the embarrassing vulgarity of holding United Jewish Appeal fundraising appeals in occupied Lebanon." (156)

Dr. Haim Gordon, an IDF educational officer, describes his visit to what he called the "Ansar concentration camp. Prisoners are not permitted to leave their tents, but must lie on the ground. There are no showers in the burning July sun. The terrible stink maddens the Israeli guards. One prisoner is an 83 year-old man, accused of renting a field to Palestinians. 'We must frighten him so that in the future he will not collaborate,' I was informed by a guard." (157)

Knesset Member Amnon Rubinstein brought up in the Knesset the issue of "terrifying incidents in Ansar, with intolerable conditions, that are a stain on Israel's reputation, prevailing in the camp. Prisoners walk about barefoot in the severe cold and there have been many incidents of assaults against them." (158)

Israeli soldier Israel Segal wrote that he witnessed "degradation and beating of prisoners who were bound and blindfolded, forced to crouch on the floor for long hours. Even worse than the behavior of the Border Guards (with the knowledge of their officers, who did nothing) was that of the Haddad forces who had free access to the IDF base. In one case a young woman, completely bound and crying from pain wherever they touched her, was repeatedly raped by Haddad soldiers who also attempted to force her to copulate with a dog." (159)

Cabinet Minister Yaakov Meridor, said: "You must drive the Palestinians East, towards Syria, and not let them return." (160)

Yigal Lev, an Israeli soldier present at Beirut before the Sabra and Shatila massacre, said: "I happened to make friends with one Phalangist. I cannot forget two pictures that he showed me with real pride. In one he stood holding in his hands two full jars with ears of terrorists. In the other he was standing holding in each hand a head that had been cut off and between his legs a third! He explained to me with great self-importance that these were the heads of Palestinians he had decapitated." (161)

Zionist military historian and strategic analyst Amos Perlmutter writes: "Begin and Sharon share the same dream: Sharon is the dream's hatchet man. That dream is to annihilate the PLO, douse any vestiges of Palestinian nationalism, crush PLO allies and collaborators in the West Bank and eventually force the Palestinians there into Jordan and cripple, if not end, the Palestinian nationalist movement. That, for Sharon and Begin, was the ultimate purpose of the Lebanese war." (162)

Military affairs expert Ze'ev Schiff reports: "An authorized investigation after the massacres showed that they were not a case of revenge killings after the Gemayel assassination, but were a premeditated attack which was designed to cause a mass flight of Palestinians from Beirut and from the whole of Lebanon." (163)

Zionist novelist A. B. Yehoshua said: "What happened in the refugee camps in Beirut is the logical consequence of all that took place in the last months. Even if I could believe that IDF soldiers who stood at a distance of 100 meters from the camps did not know what happened, then this would be the same lack of knowledge of the Germans who stood outside Buchenwald and Treblinka and did not know what was happening! We too did not want to know." (164)

Professor Yeshayahu Leibovitz of Hebrew University and editor of the Encyclopedia Hebraica, wrote: "The massacre was done by us. The Phalangists are our mercenaries, exactly as the Ukrainians and the Croatians and the Slovakians were the mercenaries of Hitler, who organized them as soldiers to do the work for him. Even so have we organized the assassins in Lebanon in order to murder the Palestinians." (165)

Yoel Marcus of Ha'aretz writes: "In the matter of Sabra and Shatila a large part of the community, perhaps the majority, is not at all troubled by the massacre itself. Killing of Arabs in general, and Palestinians in particular, is quite popular, or at least doesn't bother anyone, in the words of the youth these days. Even since the massacre I have been surprised more than once to hear from educated, enlightened people, 'the conscience of Tel Aviv,' the view that the massacre itself, as a step towards removing the remaining Palestinians from Lebanon, is not terrible. It is just too bad that it happened in our neighb~rhood." (166)

Former Cabinet Member Moshe Kol says: "I observed that the refugees in the camps destroyed by the IDF are living in sub-human conditions - in orchards, on the streets, in shattered buildings, comers and cellars." (167)

Major General Avraham Tamir declares: "Nobody is going to influence us on matters of our defence. We will do what we please." (168)

Journalist Boaz Evron writes: "Sharon is now offering to set up a 'millet' system in which each religious-ethnic group has its own internal administration. Moreover, since the 'millet' is not territorial, but organized along religious and ethnic lines, it can have no clear boundaries. This plan aims at a breakdown of the national state system in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the plan is to set Maronite, Sunnite and Shiite Muslims and Druze against one another. Israel will help each group to maintain itself in the perpetual civil wars that will result, based ultimately on the main, basic dispute between the ruling groups and the oppressed Muslims, extending this system beyond Lebanon into Syria, which will also be dismembered." (169)

Israeli War Hero Lt. Col. Dov Yermiya writes: "Those who planned this huge military operation ... did not prepare water and food for so many prisoners and for so large a population, part of which lost its homes and all of its property. Yet the cost of supplying water and bread to this population for one or two days would not even equal the price of one bombing sortie of a single plane." (170)

Colonel Yermiya quotes his superior officer, "It's better for a thousand Arabs to die, rather than have a single one of our soldiers killed." (171)

Colonel Yermiya's operations officer reported: "The march of the prisoners was a picture that reminded me of the death march of the Jews in Auschwitz. Oi vavoi, what have we come to?" (172)

Colonel Yermiya heard an Israeli soldier begging a military policeman, "Give me a chance to go into the prison compound. I'll show them how to beat up those bastards. I'll kill them with my blows." (173)

Colonel Yermiya describes the Christian village of Ruwayeh destroyed by the Israeli army: "I see with my own eyes, how families are dragging out their dead from among the ruins." (174)

Colonel Yermiya testifies: "The Israeli Army's indifference to the fate of the non-fighting population has taken on unprecedented monstrous proportions. In all the discussions of the unit to aid the civilian population it is repeatedly stressed that assistance should only be given to the Lebanese. The children, babies, women, elderly and non-combatant Palestinian men are to be punished. Vengeance should be taken on Palestinian families, so that they will remember what the IDF did to them." (175)

As a result of the publication of the above testimony in his War Diary, Lieutenant Colonel Dov Yermiya was expelled from military service.

From the inhuman expulsion of the Palestinian Arabs from their homes in 1948, to the attempted expulsion of the Palestinian refugees from Lebanon, the Zionists Finally reached full circle - expelling their own Colonel Dov Yermiya for having a spark of decency left in his breast.

All of the above cited Israeli admissions, along with the physical evidence of the destruction that they have wrought in Lebanon and the objective testimony of eyewitnesses to the brutality of their invasion, shows such an overwhelming preponderance of evidence indicting the Israeli leaders for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide perpetrated in Lebanon that it would be impossible for any fair defence counsel to be able to successfully defend them.

UNITED NATIONS RESOLUTIONS CONDEMNING ISRAEL'S WAR OF AGGRESSION AGAINST LEBANON IN 1982

Between June 4, 1982 and September 19, 1982 the Security Council of the United Nations adopted resolutions concerning Lebanon. Between June 26 and December 17, 1982 the General Assembly discussed the Lebanese situation on three occasions, also condemning the Zionist invasion of Lebanon.

On June 5, 1982 the Security Council passed Resolution 508 calling for the ceasing of "all military activity in Lebanon." (176)

On June 6, 1982 the Security Council adopted Resolution 509 reaffirming the "necessity of respecting the territorial integrity, the sovereignty and the political independence of Lebanon" and for "Israel to withdraw immediately and unconditionally all its military forces outside the internationally recognized frontiers of Lebanon." (177)

On June 19, 1982 the Security Council adopted Resolution 512 calling for respect of "the rights of the civilian populations, and to refrain from all acts of violence against these population~." (178)

On June 26,1982 the General Assembly adopted a Resolution which "condemns Israel for not having complied with the resolutions 508 and 509 of the Security C0uncil." (179)

On July 4, 1982 the Security Council adopted Resolution 513 stating that the Council was "alarmed by the continuous suffering endured by the civilian Lebanese and Palestinian populations in South Lebanon and West Beirut." (180)

On July 29, 1982 the Security Council adopted Resolution 515 which demanded "that the Government of Israel lift immediately the blockade of the city of Beirut." (181)

On September 19, 1982 the Security Council adopted Resolution 521 stating, "Horrified by the massacre of Palestinian civilians in Beirut," the Council "condemns the criminal massacre" perpetrated in the Palestinian camps of Sabra and Shatila. (182)

On September 24, 1982 the General Assembly adopted a Resolution "condemning the criminal massacre of civilian Palestinians and others in Sabra and Shatila." (183)

On December 16,1982 the General Assembly denounced the Sabra and Shatila massacres "in the most vigorous terms," qualifying it "as genocide." (184)

In an irony of history, "genocide," a word formulated as a result of the Nazi persecution of the Jews in World War 11, was among the crimes committed by the Zionists against the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.

Some Zionist leaders, such as Yitzhak Sharnir, who had aided and abetted the Nazis in committing genocide against the Jews, now committed that most infamous of international crimes against their Palestinian victims, and the General Assembly of the United Nations formally condemned the Zionist State for committing that crime.

Following are the full texts of the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly Resolutions just cited:

SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTIONS

Security Council resolution 508(1982)

5 June 1982, Meeting 2374, Adopted unanimously

Draft by Japan (S/15 168)

The Security Council

Recalling its resolutions 425(1978), 426(1978) and its ensuing resolutions and, more particularly, resolution 501(1982),

Taking note of the letters of the Permanent Representative of Lebanon dated 4 June 1982,

Deeply concerned at the deterioration of the present situation in Lebanon and in the Lebanon-Israeli border area, and its consequences for peace and security in the region,

Gravely concerned at the violation of the territorial integrity, independence and sovereignty of Lebanon,

Reaffirming and supporting the statement made by the President and the members of the Security Council on 4 June 1982, as well as the urgent appeal issued by the Secretary- General on 4 June 1982,

Taking note of the report of the Secretary-General,

1. Calls upon all the parties to the conflict to cease imrnediately and simultaneously all military activities within Lebanon and across the Lebanese-Israeli border and not later than 0600 hours, local time, on Sunday, 6 June 1982;

2. Requests all Members of States which are in a position to do so to bring their influence to bear upon those concerned Israeli War Crimes Committed in Lebanon in 1978 and 1982 so that the cessation of hostilities declared by Security Council resolution 490(1981) can be respected;

3. Requests the Secretary-General to undertake all possible efforts to ensure the implementation of and compliance with the present resolution and to report to the Security Council as early as possible and not later than forty-eight hours after the adoption of the present resolstion. (185)

Security Council resolution 509(1982)

6 June 1982, Meeting 2375, Adopted unanimously Draft by Ireland (S/15171).

The Security Council,

Recalling its resolutions 425(1978) and 508(1982),

Gravely concerned at the situation as described by the Secretary-General in his report to the Council,

Reaffirming the need for strict respect for the territorial integrity, sovereignty and political independence of Lebanon within its internationally recognized boundaries,

1. Demands that Israel withdraw all its military forces forthwith and unconditionally to the internationally recognized boundaries of Lebanon;

2. Demands that all parties observe strictly the terms of paragraph 1 of resolution 508(1982) which called on them to cease immediately and simultaneously all military activities within Lebanon and across the Lebanese-Israeli border,

3. Calls on all parties to communicate to the Secretary- General their acceptance of the present resolution within twenty-four hours;

4. Decides to remain seized of the question. (186)

Security Council resolution 512(1982)

19 June, Meeting 2380, Adopted unanimously

Draft by France (S/15240)

The Security Council,

Deeply concerned at the suffering of the Lebanese and Palestinian civilian populations,

Referring to the humanitarian principles of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and to the obligations arising from the regulations annexed to the Hague Convention of 1907, Reaffirming its resolutions 508(1982) and 509(1982),

1. Calls upon all the parties to the conflict to respect the rights of the civilian populations, to refrain from all acts of violence against those populations and to take all appropriate measures to alleviate the suffering caused by the conflict, in particular, by facilitating the dispatch and distribution of aid provided by United Nations agencies and by non-governmental organizations, in particular, the International Committee of the Red Cross;

2. Appeals to Member States to continue to provide the most extensive humanitarian aid possible;

3. Stresses the particular humanitarian responsibilities of the United Nations and its agencies, including the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, towards civilian populations and calls upon all the parties to the conflict not to hamper the exercise of those responsibilities and to assist in humanitarian efforts;

4. Takes note of the measures taken by the Secretary- General to coordinate the activities of the international agencies in this field and requests him to make every effort to ensure the implementation of and compliance with the present resolution and to report on these efforts to the Security Council as soon as possible. (187)

Security Council resolution 513(1982)

4 July 1982, Meeting 2382, Adopted unanimously

Draft prepared among Council members (S/15273).

The Security Council,

Alarmed by the continued sufferings of the Lebanese and Palestinian civilian populations in southern Lebanon and in west Beirut,

Referring to the humanitarian principles of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and to the obligations arising from the regulations annexed to the Hague Convention of 1907, Reaffirming its resolutions 508(1982), 509(1982) and 5 12( 1982),

1. Calls for respect for the rights of the civilian populations without any discrimination and repudiates all acts of violence against those populations;

2. Calls further for the restoration of the normal supply of vital facilities such as water, electricity, food and medical provisions. particularly in Beirut;

3. Commends the efforts of the Secretary-General and the action of international agencies to alleviate the sufferings of the civilian population and requests them to continue their efforts to ensure their success. (188)

Security Council resolution 515 (1982)
29 July 1982. Meeting 2385, 14-0

Draft by Spain (S/15325)

The Security Council,

Deeply concerned at the situation of the civilian population of Beirut,

Referring to the humanitarian principles of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and to the obligations arising from the regulations annexed to the Hague Convention of 1907, Recalling its resolutions 5 12(1982) and 5 13(1982),

1. Demands that the Government of Israel lift immediately the blockade of the city of Beirut in order to permit the dispatch of supplies to meet the urgent needs of the civilian population and allow the distribution of aid provided by United Nations agencies and by non-governmental organizations, particularly the International Committee of the Red Cross;

2. Requests the Secretary-General lo transmit the text of the present resolution to the Government of Israel and to keep the Security Council informed of its implernentation. (189)

United Nations Resolutions continued in part 3