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Ariel Sharon's Crimes Against Humanity

Sharon began his military career at a young age, when he became involved in fighting with the Israeli Haganah, leading commando units specialising in behind-the-lines raids and forcing Palestinians to flee their homes.

In August 1953, Sharon founded and led the infamous Unit 101, which carried out a series of terror raids across the Israeli borders into refugee camps, villages and Bedouin encampments.

In September 1953, he led the Unit 101 in an attack on Bedouins in demilitarised Al Auja (a 145 square km juncture at the western Negev-Sinai frontier), killing an unknown number.

October 14, 1953, Sharon led Unit 101 into an attack on the village of Qibya in Jordan. Under his command, Israeli soldiers moved about in the village blowing up buildings, firing into doorways and windows with automatic weapons and throwing hand grenades, killing 69 civilians (mostly women and children). He later claimed he believed that the demolished houses had been empty of inhabitants, but according to the UN observer who inspected the scene, “One story was repeated time after time: the bullet splintered door, the body sprawled across the threshold, indicating that the inhabitants had been forced by heavy fire to stay inside until their homes were blown up over them.”

In 1971 - The “Pacification” of Gaza. Under the euphemistic title the “Pacification of Gaza,” Sharon imposed a brutal policy of repression, blowing up houses, bulldozing large tracts of refugee camps, imposing severe collective punishments and imprisoning hundreds of young Palestinians. Numerous civilians were killed or unjustly imprisoned, their houses demolished and the whole area was effectively transformed into a jail.

In 1977, the Likud party won the general election under Begin. Sharon joined Begin’s first administration as Minister of Agriculture in charge of settlements; an avid supporter of the religious Gush Emunim movement he was one of main facilitators of a settlement boom aimed in part at preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state in the occupied territories.

In 1982 “Peace for the Galilee.” As Defense Minister Sharon masterminded the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which he dubbed the “Peace for the Galilee.” In all, this operation killed many thousands of civilians and rendered nearly half a million homeless.

On June 5,1982, he sent tens of thousands of Israeli soldiers across the border to fight their way up the Lebanese coast. They eventually occupied Beirut. Heavy Israeli sea, air and land bombardment devastated a substantial portion of Lebanon. By the end of July, the Lebanese government stated that at least 14,000 people had been killed - over 90% of whom were unarmed civilians - and twice that number seriously wounded.

August 12 became known as Black Thursday after a massive artillery barrage lasting some 11 hours killing some 500 Lebanese & Palestinian civilians.

On September 15, 1982, after the evacuation of PLO fighters from Beirut on the condition of international protection for the Palestinian and Lebanese civilians in the region, Sharon invaded Beirut. Ariel Sharon declaring that this was in order to dislodge 2000 Palestinian fighters remaining in the city. The task of purging the camps Sharon gave to the Phalange (Lebanese force armed by and closely allied with Israel since the onset of Lebanon’s civil war in 1975).

Sabra & Shatila: The slaughter in the camps at Sabra and Shatila took place between 6:00pm on September 16 and 8:00 am on September 18, 1982 in an area under the control of the Israeli army. Sharon’s troops, having held the camps under siege, allowed Phalangists to enter. Israeli searchlights illuminated the camps, while Israeli army personnel watched through binoculars as the death squads spread unchallenged through the camps. Whole families were murdered, many were raped and tortured before being killed. So many bodies were heaped into lorries and taken away, or buried in mass graves, that the exact toll will never be known, but Palestinian sources estimate at least 2000 people were killed.

On September 28, 2000, Ariel Sharon's incursion into Al Aqsa sanctuary accompanied by at least 1,000 armed soldiers and police officers triggered the outbreak of the current crisis that has so far led to the death of hundreds of Palestinians and the wounding of thousands.

(Courtesy Of: LAW - The Society for the Protection of Human Rights)

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