Jamila Mohammed Khalife

Above: Jamila Khalife. Photograph by Philip Reynaers.

On Thursday at about 4 o’clock pm, they were at Al Horch, and we knew that there was a massacre. We also knew that the Israelis were in the Sports centre; but we were asked not to do anything.

A short while later, the shelling intensified but we thought that things would quieten down soon after. We went to seek shelter at our neighbours’ house. Looking towards the Sports Centre, we saw hundreds of armed elements descending upon it and in just a few moments they appeared in front of the house full of people. We started shouting that the Israelis had attacked us. When they reached the house they started insulting us, blaspheming, and then our neighbours’ son shut the door in their faces and we fled through another door to hide in the shelter, which was full of people.

The Israelis and the Phalangists came back a short while later with a loudspeaker, through which they asked us to give ourselves up, promising that our lives would be spared if we came out of the shelter. We waved a white flag, but when we came out of the shelter my father said that our lives would not be spared and that they were going to kill us. I told him not to be scared and to come with us. They dragged us all along; women, children and men; my father tried to escape and they killed him in front of my mother and my little sister. They made us all walk; our injured neighbour was with us, carrying her intestines and haemorrhaging. She and I escaped into the Shatila camp, and from there we sought refuge in the Gaza hospital. When they arrived near the Gaza hospital, we ran away once again.

When the massacre was over, we went back and saw the corpses of the dead, including that of our neighbours’ son Samir, who had been murdered. And under the corpses, they had placed bombs as booby-traps.

The above text is an extract from the Complaint lodged in Belgium against Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Amos Yaron and other Israelis and Lebanese responsible for the massacre. The full text of the Complaint can be found in the section of this website titled The Case Against The Accused.

[The Sabra & Shatila Massacres]