Word: shatila
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...other members of the multinational peace-keeping force had already taken up their positions by the time the Marines landed. France's 1,560 men were stationed in the northern part of the capital, including the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, where the massacre took place. To the south were 1,200 Italians, whose zone included Burj al Barajneh, the largest Palestinian camp in West Beirut. The American zone consisted of the area around Beirut International Airport...
...course, that is precisely what Begin did. Yet the process that had forced his hand also gave proof that the principles of democracy and justice on which Israel was founded had not been buried in the rubble of Sabra and Shatila. As former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Gideon Rafael put it: "The people of Israel are not only a stiff-necked but a fundamentally decent people. They will not tolerate a government that has morally, politically and economically bankrupted the country...
...alike seem to be exhausted by their internecine battles and, viewing the devastation of their country, may once again be willing to understand that they have no choice but to live together. Although most Lebanese believe that elements of the Christian Lebanese Forces were responsible for the Sabra and Shatila massacre, Muslims have conspicuously avoided the opportunity to discredit the country's new President...
...then the ordeal of Shatila was over. The camps now were quiet, except for the mourning of those who had discovered the bodies of their relatives among the dead. The first Lebanese Army soldiers, handkerchiefs over their mouths, entered Shatila to see what had gone on. One soldier looked up an alleyway where many bodies lay and ran back, vomiting...
...Monday morning, as the cleanup of the massacre began, one final moment of panic swept the camps. While volunteer civil defense workers dug a huge pit near the entrance of Shatila to bury the dead, word spread that the militiamen were returning. Thousands of screaming Palestinians poured out of the camps and ran toward downtown Beirut. It is one thing to have escaped a massacre. It is quite another to escape the memory of it. -By George Russell. Reported by Roberto Suro/Beirut