Radiography of a massacre, Back to Sabra and Chatila

The massacre of Sabra and Chatila, five days and four nights of extreme terror in Lebanon in September 1982 against women, children and old people, Palestinian refugees in two camps in Beirut, is a monstrosity of history. A barbarity never studied or analyzed as gravity would require. Forty years later, there has never been any judgment, no conviction; only sloppy “commissions of inquiry”. And yet this massacre changed the face of the Middle East. Decryption and radiography.

Through the prism of a woman, her gaze, her memories, her commitment, we will return to the heart of Sabra and Chatila. That woman is Leila Shahid.

With Jean Genet, she was one of the first to enter the camps just after the massacre. A trauma that still lives in him and that forged his fight, his journey as a woman, as an activist, as a Palestinian. Intellectual, diplomat, from a large Lebanese family, she embodies the whole region alone. Now retired from diplomacy, she continues to investigate and always tries to understand the incomprehensible.

For the first time, she tells us her memories that she is now ready to give us, just like other unpublished witnesses, like Yossi Ben Ari, Israeli Intelligence Officer, hour by hour witness to the events that marked Lebanon and the Near East from 14 to 18 September 1982. Af- ter having told for the first time «passive complicity» in the daily Haaretz last February, he will testify in front of our camera.

But this film will also draw its strength from the poignant, chilling testimonies of the exe- cutioners and victims. We will recount, in the form of a historical survey, everything that concerns this dramatic event of Sabra and Chatila by answering the questions:

Why and how was this massacre possible? What role did Israel play?

Why did the Syrians manipulate their allies-and enemies-and have Bashir Gemayal, the detonator that set the region on fire?

But also, and above all, we will decipher the historical and geopolitical issues behind this event.