Forty-two years ago, in September 1982, the Sabra and Shatila massacre took place.

For 3 days, so-called “Christian” militias, supported by the Israeli army, massacred the camp’s civilian population 1. The exact number of casualties is unknown, but some estimate between 1,500 and 3,500.

Three years later, from 1985 to 1988, there was what came to be known as “the war of the camps”.

Forty-two years after the massacres, the Palestinian refugees of Chatila still lead a life confined to the shadows.

Against this backdrop of doom and gloom, and even if the young Palestinians feel and say they’ve been “dispossessed of everything, including their dreams”, life is stronger than death, growing intermittently, simply, quietly, stubbornly.

In the shadow of Chatila,

…children are born and grow up. Like all children in the world, they “do their homework” at home and project themselves into the future. Their horizons may be clouded by ruins, but their lives don’t seem ruined. The best guarantee of hope.

…young people are looking for work, training, organizing themselves and doing “odd jobs”, despite the fact that their refugee card is their only form of identification, prohibiting them from working in over seventy occupations in Lebanon and making travel almost impossible.

…couples love each other, have children they love, educate and send to school.

…the older ones ponder their entire history and compare the present with the days before they were deported 2.

The work presented here, the fruit of some fifteen years’ work, is intended to bear witness to the lives of Palestinian refugees in the shadow of a “civilization” that has forgotten them for decades.

I wanted to give names and faces to a population that is too often anonymously diluted by sterile statistics.

More images here.

Tarek Charara

Propose a publication

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1
The literature on the subject is vast and extensive. I have done my best to summarize the history of the Palestinian refugees up to the massacres and the war of the camps in my book ” In the shadow of Chatila “, available on this site.


2
Text by Joseph Canal

Text and images © 2001-2018 Tarek Charara/Kaleidos images.
All rights reserved.