The Jerusalem Post
July 17, 2001
By Tovah Lazaroff

JERUSALEM (July 17) - A new Israeli-Palestinian coalition will help Belgian attorneys prosecuting those responsible for the 1982 Sabra and Shatilla massacre, in which at least 700 Palestinian refugees died.

It is important for Israelis to be involved in the case, Israeli human-rights attorney Lea Tsemel said at a Jerusalem press conference yesterday. She has joined the coalition being formed by LAW, the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment.

In 1950, Israel was one of the first countries to adopt a law against genocide and push for international accountability, Tsemel noted. In light of the ongoing violence, she continued, it is important for Israelis to remember that, under international standards they helped create, they too can be held accountable for their actions.

Israeli participation is important for the massacre victims, explained Belgian attorney Luc Walleyn, who is working on the case at the behest of a group of petitioners, among them survivors. "It's a signal that the case can be seen not as a conflict between people but as an issue of justice," Walleyn said.

The investigation has been viewed as an attack on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who was defense minister in 1982. But Walleyn said that everyone involved is being investigated, including Sharon, IDF soldiers, and Lebanese Phalange militiamen.

"This is not a case against one person. It is a case against one crime. It is not just against Sharon, but it is the case that he bears some responsibility for," Walleyn said. Everyone involved can be questioned and indicted, he added.

Asked as to the projected schedule of the proceedings, Walleyn noted that an investigation into Rwandan war crimes was launched in 1995 and ended in 1999, with the ensuing trial concluding only last month.

The Sabra and Shatilla lawsuit was filed thanks to a 1993 law allowing Belgian courts to prosecute foreigners for human-rights violations, including genocide, committed outside Belgium. An amendment pending in the Belgian parliament would grant incumbent leaders immunity until their terms in office ends.

The Kahn Commission investigation in the 1980s blamed the Phalangists for the massacre, but said Sharon bore some responsibility for allowing them to enter the camps.

Walleyn said many of the survivors still live in Sabra and Shatilla, and bear the scars of what happened 19 years ago.

Survivor Nawal Saed, 39, recalled how on September 16, 1982 her mother left the house in search of food for the family. When she had not returned by the next morning, Saed's father looked for her, only to learn that she had been killed.

Saed searched for her body with him. "We saw lots and lots of dead people lying under demolished houses," Saed told the press conference yesterday. Rumor had it that the bodies were rigged with explosive set to go off when people searched for lost relatives, she added.

Saed found her mother in the front yard of a house. "She was shot in the chest. It looked like she had been punched in the face," she said.

A Swedish nurse, Louise Norman, who worked in a hospital in the camps, described how during the massacre flares turned the night into day. "There's no chance [Israel's] army didn't know," Norman said.