The night the lights stayed on during the Sabra and Shatila massacre

Cultures · Published 30 September 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: In September 1982, a power vacuum in Beirut led to a three-day slaughter. As Christian militias entered Palestinian refugee camps, Israeli troops stood at the exits, providing the very illumination needed to carry out the killings under the cover of darkness.

Following the assassination of Lebanese President Bachir Gemayel on 14 September 1982, a period of intense violence erupted in Beirut. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) moved into West Beirut, a move that breached existing ceasefire agreements. While the IDF officially stated they were entering the area to prevent chaos, the subsequent actions of the Lebanese Forces—a Christian militia—resulted in a massacre of Palestinian and Lebanese Shia civilians between 16 and 18 September.

The scale of the tragedy is estimated to have claimed between 1,300 and 3,500 lives. The massacre was carried out by approximately 300 to 400 militiamen, including members of the Lebanese Forces and the South Lebanon Army, under the command of Elie Hobeika. Witnesses, including a Dutch nurse, described the scene as being as bright as a football stadium because Israeli troops fired flares to illuminate the Sabra and Shatila camps throughout the night.

The responsibility for the event remains a subject of intense historical and legal scrutiny. An independent commission led by Seán MacBride concluded that the IDF, as the occupying power, bore responsibility and characterized the massacre as genocide. Simultaneously, Israel's own Kahan Commission found that Israeli military leadership had failed to take necessary steps to stop the bloodshed. This failure led to the resignation of Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, who was deemed to have ignored the clear danger of revenge-driven violence.

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