The Shatila refugee camp (Arabic : مخيم شاتيلا), also known as the Chatila refugee camp, is a settlement originally set up for Palestinian refugees in 1949. It is located in southern Beirut, Lebanon and houses more than 9,842 registered Palestine refugees. [1] Since the eruption of the Syrian Civil War, the refugee camp has received a large number of Syrian refugees. In 2014, the camp's population was estimated to be between 10,000 and 22,000. [2]
Shatila was set up by the International Committee of the Red Cross to accommodate hundreds of refugees who came there after 1948. [1] They were from villages around the area of Amka, Majd al-Krum and Yajur in northern Palestine. [1]
The Sabra and Shatila massacre was the slaughter of between 762 and 3,500 civilians, mostly Palestinians and Lebanese Shiites, by the Hobeika-led militia and the IDF in the Sabra neighborhood of southern Beirut and the nearby Shatila refugee camp from approximately 6:00 pm on 16 September to 8:00 am on 18 September 1982. [3]
Since the eruption of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, Lebanon's population has swelled by more than 1 million Syrian refugees. The camp has also swollen with Syrian refugees, receiving mostly the poor Syrians. As of 2014, the camp's population is estimated to be from 10,000 to 22,000. [2]
The camp comprises approximately one square kilometer and thus has an exceptionally high population density. [4]
UNRWA operates one health center and two primary schools within the camp. Non-governmental organizations active in the camp include Al-Najda, Beit Atfal Al-Soumoud, Norwegian Peoples' Aid, Doctors Without Borders, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society and the Association Najdeh. [5]
The Sabra and Shatila massacre refers to the 1982 killings of between 460 and 3,500 civilians—mostly Palestinians and Lebanese Shias—in the city of Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War. It was perpetrated by the Lebanese Forces, one of the main Christian militias in Lebanon, under the command of Lebanese politician Elie Hobeika. The killings were carried out in Beirut's Sabra neighbourhood and in the adjacent Shatila refugee camp. Two days earlier, on 14 September, Lebanese politician Bachir Gemayel had been assassinated, prompting the Phalangists to call for a revenge attack.
Palestinian refugees are citizens of Mandatory Palestine, and their descendants, who fled or were expelled from their country over the course of the 1947–1949 Palestine war and the Six-Day War. Most Palestinian refugees live in or near 68 Palestinian refugee camps across Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In 2019 more than 5.6 million Palestinian refugees were registered with the United Nations.
The 1982 Lebanon War, dubbed Operation Peace for Galilee by the Israeli government, later known in Israel as the Lebanon War or the First Lebanon War, and known in Lebanon as "the invasion", began on 6 June 1982, when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) invaded southern Lebanon. The invasion followed a series of attacks and counter-attacks between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) operating in southern Lebanon and the IDF that had caused civilian casualties on both sides of the border. The military operation was launched after gunmen from Abu Nidal's organization attempted to assassinate Shlomo Argov, Israel's ambassador to the United Kingdom. Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin blamed Abu Nidal's enemy, the PLO, for the incident, and used the incident as a casus belli for the invasion.
Elie Hobeika was a Lebanese militia commander in the Lebanese Forces militia during the Lebanese Civil War and one of Bashir Gemayel's close confidants. After the murder of Gemayel, he gained notoriety for his involvement in the Sabra and Shatila massacre. He became president of the Lebanese Forces political party until he was ousted in 1986. He then founded the Promise Party and was elected to serve two terms in the Parliament of Lebanon. In January 2002, he was assassinated by a car bomb at his house in Beirut, shortly before he was to testify about the Sabra and Shatila massacre in a Belgian court.
The Lebanese Civil War was a multifaceted armed conflict that took place from 1975 to 1990. It resulted in an estimated 120,000 fatalities and an exodus of almost one million people from Lebanon.
Camps are set up by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to accommodate Palestinian refugees registered with UNRWA, who fled or were expelled during the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War or in the aftermath of the Six-Day War in 1967, and their patrilineal descendants. There are 68 Palestinian refugee camps, 58 official and 10 unofficial, ten of which were established after the Six-Day War while the others were established in 1948 to 1950s.
The War of the Camps, was a subconflict within the 1984–1990 phase of the Lebanese Civil War, in which the Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut were besieged by the Shia Amal militia.
The Damour massacre took place on January 20, 1976, during the 1975–1990 Lebanese Civil War. Damour, a Maronite Christian town on the main highway south of Beirut, was attacked by the left-wing militants of the Palestine Liberation Organisation and as-Sa'iqa units. Many of its people died in battle or in the massacre that followed, and the others were forced to flee. According to Robert Fisk, the massacre was part of the first act of ethnic cleansing in the Lebanese Civil War. The massacre was in retaliation to the Karantina massacre of Muslims by the Phalangists.
The siege of Tel al-Zaatar, alternatively known as the massacre of Tel al-Zaatar, was an armed siege of Tel al-Zaatar, a fortified, UNRWA-administered refugee camp housing Palestinian refugees in northeastern Beirut, that ended on August 12, 1976 with the massacre of at least 1,500 people. The siege began in January of 1976 with an attack by Christian Lebanese militias led by the Lebanese Front as part of a wider campaign to expel Palestinians, especially those affiliated with the opposing Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from northern Beirut. After five months, the siege turned into a full-scale military assault in June and ended with the massacre in August 1976.
Ain al-Hilweh, also spelled as Ayn al-Hilweh and Ein al-Hilweh, is the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon. It had a population of over 70,000 Palestinian refugees but swelled to nearly 120,000, as a result of influx of refugees from Syria since 2011. The camp is located west of the village Miye ou Miye and the Mieh Mieh refugee camp, southeast of the port city of Sidon and north of Darb Es Sim.
The Rashidieh camp is the second most populous Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, located on the Mediterranean coast about five kilometres south of the city of Tyre (Sur).
Bourj el-Barajneh is a municipality located in the southern suburbs of Beirut, in Lebanon. The municipality lies between Beirut–Rafic Hariri International Airport and the town of Haret Hreik.
Mieh Mieh refugee camp is a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, located on the outskirts of Mieh Mieh village in the hills 4 kilometers (2.5 mi) east of the southern city of Sidon. The original refugees in the camp generally came from Saffourieh, Tiereh, Haifa and Miron, in what is now Israel. It was established in 1954 on land leased from private landowners of the Miye ou Miye village. Around the 1990s, the Mieh Mieh camp was located on 60 dunams in Miye ou Miye village. Today, the camp is 1.8 times that size at 108 dunams. In 2003, it had a population of 5,037.
Burj el-Shemali is a municipality located some 86 km south of Beirut and 3 km east of the Tyre/Sour peninsula, merging into its urban area. It is part of the Tyre Union of Municipalities within the Tyre District of the South Governorate of Lebanon.
Palestinians in Lebanon include the Palestinian refugees who fled to Lebanon during the 1948 Palestine War, their descendants, the Palestinian militias which resided in Lebanon in the 1970s and 1980s, and Palestinian nationals who moved to Lebanon from countries experiencing conflict, such as Syria. There are roughly 3,000 registered Palestinians and their descendants who hold no identification cards, including refugees of the 1967 Naksa. Many Palestinians in Lebanon are refugees and their descendants, who have been barred from naturalisation, retaining stateless refugee status. However, some Palestinians, mostly Christian women, have received Lebanese citizenship, in some cases through marriage with Lebanese nationals.
The Dream or Al-Manam is a 1987 Syrian documentary film by the director Mohammad Malas. The film is composed of a collection of interviews with Palestinian refugees in Lebanon during the civil war. The refugees were interviewed by Malas about what dreams they saw when they went to sleep. The film was shot between 1980–81 before the infamous massacre in Sabra and Shatila, where part of the film was set. It was only released in 1987.
Palestinians in Syria are people of Palestinian origin, most of whom have been residing in Syria after they were displaced from their homeland during the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight. Palestinians hold most of the same rights as the Syrian population, but cannot become Syrian nationals except in rare cases. In 2011, there were 526,744 registered Palestinian refugees in Syria. Due to harsh conditions, the number of registered refugees has since dropped to about 450,000 due to many Palestinians fleeing to Lebanon, Jordan or elsewhere in the region to escaping to Europe as refugees, especially to Germany and Sweden.
Abdul Rahman Katanani is a Palestinian artist born and living in Sabra refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon. Katanani is a third generation Palestinian refugee; his grandparents left Yazour—a small town now called Azor—in Jaffa in 1948.
Janet Lee Stevens was an American journalist, human rights advocate, translator, and scholar of popular Arabic theater. She lived in Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War and chronicled the experiences of Palestinian refugees before and after the Sabra and Shatila Massacre of September 16–18, 1982.
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