Sabra and Shatila Massacre

In the aftermath of the assassination of Bashir Gemayel, on 14 September the Israeli army surroundeded the Palestinian camps of Sabra and Shatila on the southern edge of Beirut, and began shelling the camps on 15 September. From 16 to 18 September 1982, members of the Kataeb entered the camps and killed between 700 and 3,500 residents, facilitated by Israeli flares fired during the night and by their preventing of residents from fleeing. The victims were Palestinian refugees and Lebanese living in the camps; bodies were mutilated and left in the streets and in mass graves, women were raped, and homes were demolished with bodies still inside them.