American who witnessed the massacre at Shatila camp
▶ Nurse Ellen Siegel makes trip every year to remember 1982 Beirut tragedy
Ellen Siegel was a volunteer nurse in the Palestinian refugee camp of Shatila in Beirut when Christian militiamen, with the backing of the Israeli military, killed more than 1,000 civilians in the camp and the adjacent neighbourhood of Sabra.
On duty at Shatila’s Red Crescent hospital when the massacre began on September 16, 1982, Ms Siegel, an American, said staff there saw flares and went to the roof of the building.
“We could hear the shooting, but we didn’t know what it was.”
The Israeli military had invaded Beirut in pursuit of fighters from the Palestine Liberation Organisation, while the militiamen from Lebanon’s Phalange party blamed Palestinians for the assassination of Phalangist president Bashir Gemayel.
The flares Ms Siegel saw were fired by the Israeli military to illuminate the area as the Phalangists carried out the systematic killings through the nights between September 16 and 18. At least 1,300 Palestinian and Lebanese civilians were killed, according to Bayan Nuwayhed Al Hout, author of the book Sabra and Shatila: Summer of 1982.
What Ms Siegel witnessed over those three days has stayed with her ever since. For each of the past 17 years, the 75-year-old has travelled to Lebanon with an Italian-founded group, called “Not to Forget Sabra and Shatila”, to mark the anniversary.
The first commemoration, held in 2001, came after the group raised money to help reclaim a mass burial site in Shatila for nearly 1,000 of the victims. Until then the site had been used as a rubbish dump.
This year, Ms Siegel and about 40 other foreign nationals from the group made a week-long trip to mark the 35th anniversary. “It’s a way for us to honour them. We couldn’t do anything to save them,” she said on Friday in Shatila.
Although Ms Siegel is not the only foreign witness who visits Beirut every year, her motivation stands out. “It’s because I’m Jewish,” said the former Palestinian Red Crescent nurse, who grew up in the US city of Baltimore and now lives in Washington.
“I have an understanding of the history of my people,” she said, referring to the role of Jews in causing the Arab exodus from Palestine, “as well as their own history of persecution and suffering.”
On Friday, Ms Siegel observed the Jewish tradition of placing stones on graves by putting a pebble on the memorial that marks the mass grave. “I’m not sure why there aren’t more [Jewish] people here with me,” she said. “We have a moral responsibility.”
Also visiting Shatila on Friday was Ang Swee, 68, from London. She was working as a doctor at the camp when the massacre took place.
“Pretty soon I’ll have to come in a wheelchair,” she joked as she navigated an alleyway in the overcrowded camp that was so narrow it was nearly pitch black, even at noon.
Like the rest of Lebanon’s 12 Palestinian refugee camps, Shatila is densely built, made up of a maze of concrete buildings, some five storeys tall.
Ms Siegel recalled how residents took shelter in the medical facility before militiamen arrived on September 18, demanding that its 20 foreign staff leave.
“They called us communists because we were helping people who killed Christians,” Ms Siegel said. “They took our passports and they marched us out of the camp.”
At the entrance of the camp, the circumstances surrounding the gunfire became clearer. Ms Siegel saw bodies piled in the street and militiamen using bulldozers to cover the mass grave.
They lined the hospital’s foreign staff up against a wall and pointed their guns at them. An Israeli commander, whose forces were guarding the camp entrances while the killings took place, saved them. “An Israeli commander came down to tell them that you can’t shoot 20 foreigners,” Ms Siegel said.
The massacre in Sabra and Shatila was far from the only incident of mass killing during the 15-year civil war but it had one of the highest death tolls and was also unique in the extent to which American officials were aware of what was happening. After Ms Siegel escaped the camp, she “went to the American embassy, and I said ‘something is going on in the camp’”.
During the massacre, Israeli defence minister Ariel Sharon warned US diplomats his army would kill any terrorists who remained in west Beirut, referring to the PLO fighters who had left the previous month under a deal the United States had helped to arrange.
The US had also promised to safeguard civilians.
Ms Siegel testified in Israel before the Kahan Commission investigating the massacre. It determined that Mr Sharon, among others, bore responsibility. No one has ever been charged with any crime.
She is now trying to work with the Israeli peace movement on the Palestinian refugee issue. “They’re very good on the occupation. But they’re not interested in refugees … If you want to talk about the occupation of Palestine, you have to talk about the refugees in Lebanon.
“This is the fourth generation living in these camps.”
At least 1,300 Palestinian and Lebanese civilians were killed at Sabra and Shatila by militiamen backed by Israel