Learn about the history of the Palestinian struggle for freedom, equality and justice by exploring major events in the history of their oppression on this day of the year.
13 August
ISRAEL AND SYRIA SUPPORTED MASSACRE OF PALESTINIANS
On this day in 1976, the Palestinian refugee camp of Tel El-Zaater was being emptied and destroyed following the end of a two-month siege of the camp. Right-wing Lebanese Christian militias, backed by the Syrian Army and by Israel, overcame fierce resistance by Palestinian armed factions and massacred thousands of the inhabitants. More generally, Israel endorsed Syrian intervention in the Lebanese Civil War to overcome the alliance of leftists and Palestinians that fought the Lebanese government.
التقاء مصالح إسرائيل وسوريا ضد القوى الفلسطينية في لبنان
13 أغسطس
في مثل هذا اليوم من عام 1976، تم تفريغ وتدمير مخيم اللاجئين الفلسطينيين في تل الزعتر بعد انتهاء الحصارعلى المخيم الذي استمر شهرين. تغلبت الميليشيات المسيحية اللبنانية اليمينية مدعومة من إسرائيل على مقاومة شرسة من قبل الفصائل الفلسطينية المسلحة وقتلت الآلاف من السكان. بشكل عام، أيدت إسرائيل التدخل السوري في الحرب الأهلية اللبنانية للتغلب على تحالف اليساريين والفلسطينيين الذين قاتلوا الحكومة اللبنانية.
Right-wing Lebanese militias with the support of the Syrian regime of Hafez al-Assad targeted the camp with 55,000 shells over 52 days. Syrian-backed forces kept the area under a tight siege until they gained control of the camp in August 1976. According to the Euro-Mediterranean Monitor for Human Rights, only eighty bodies were initially recovered after the massacre. Some other families managed to retrieve their loved ones by paying bribes to the very militias responsible for their deaths.
The issue is one rarely spoken about in Lebanon, and according to testimonies the bodies of victims - including children - are still buried in shallow graves in parking lots, which previously marked the perimeter of the camp. Tel El-Zaatar was a collection of sixteen camps for Palestinian refugees with a population between 50,000 and 60,000 people.
A visitor to the site of Tal Al-Zaatar in 2018 tried "to try to find the remains of Tel al-Zaatar refugee camp, which was destroyed early on in the civil war in 1976. It was known as one of the most militant and organized camps and had the misfortune of being in the wrong “geographic area” of Beirut; I had visited it often and even lived there for a short time. Our host from Burj al Barajneh helped to drive us around, stopping passersby and asking about the camp, most of whom were totally unaware of even its previous existence. Although we knew the general location, we were attempting to demarcate the exact perimeter of where the camp once stood. Now, there is nothing but an empty, deserted and garbage-filled area that seems to have not been touched since it was razed to the ground and all signs of life removed.
It is desolate, and there is no plaque or memorial, no evidence whatsoever that a vibrant Palestinian camp of tens of thousands of people once lived here, and that at least 2,000 refugees died there during the brutal three-month siege of the camp. After an exhausting several hours, we felt we had achieved the best “mapping” we could of where the camp had been. One more segment of Palestinian history that the world seemed intent on trying to erase!
1-minute video: Palestinian press conference towards the end of the siege of Tel Al Zatar refuhee camp in Lebanon
https://youtu.be/mR9Jue3Zfpg