“Let them do the dirty work," the Israeli commander told S. a former Israeli soldier, smiling and winking, standing in the midst of one of the bloodiest massacres of our time: The Sabra and Shatila camp massacre.

 

The Palestinian man yelled in English: "Help! Help!" crying that the right-wing Lebanese Phalangist soldiers were killing everyone and wanted to kill him too. The commander signaled that he could drag the Palestinian man away as he cried and begged for mercy. 

The man held on to S., but the Phalangist grabbed him. He smelt of intense sweat and vomit. The soldier, who belonged to the Lebanese Forces, dragged him three, four steps away. The Bashir Gemayel-loyalist shot him in his knee, after which he cried in pain. Then he shot him in his stomach, after which he contracted, bending to the floor to the point which his head almost touches the Phalangist's shoe. Then he shot him in his head - silence. 

Ex-Israeli soldier Ronnie Barkan, who is awaiting his trial in the United Kingdom for refusing to serve in the Israeli occupation army, recently posted a personal testimony written by an Israeli soldier who was active in the massacre. The testimony was translated from Hebrew to English, possibly for the first time.

S. developed post-traumatic stress disorder after the massacre of Sabra and Shatila and was discharged from the military shortly after. 

The testimony exposes how "Israel" 'kept their hands clean' by letting Bashir Gemayel's forces, who had close ties with "Tel Aviv", do the "dirty work" while the Israelis merely gave commands and supervised the massacre. 

Read more: “Israel” planned, LF executed: The Sabra and Shatila massacre

The Phalangists and the Israelis entered the camp one afternoon, as it was starting to get dark. They lit fire flares over the camp for clearer vision, as the Phalangists, charging in threes, entered the camp where S. said he heard "a lot of shouting, mainly from women, children crying and a lot of shouting in general."

Remembering the time when Israeli brutality extended into Lebanon, through Israeli-associated right-wing militants. pic.twitter.com/pX3Yz5GZs0

— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) September 16, 2021

S. slept in his tank, where eggs and honey were spilled all over the ground. After the first night of mass killing, S. woke up to the sounds of screaming and crying from all sides. 

He narrated, "At the entrances to the houses, corpses were lying in all kinds of strange angles. The other soldiers started shouting at us and telling each other that 'they were killing everyone there' and 'what are we supposed to do…'"

The squad commander at the time hadn't passed his airforce training, so he couldn't fly over the camp. There was no idea to know what was going on, "It is a local conflict between the Phalangists and the Palestinians," said a top brass, who sat at the highest military post which overlooked the camp, ushering the soldiers not to "interfere".

Here's how Israelis planned the #Sabra and #Shatila massacre with the execution by #Lebanese right-wingers.#SabraAndShatila pic.twitter.com/QOtV2RIIH9

— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) September 16, 2022

“It’s a massacre. They’re killing everyone there," said Oren, S.'s friend. 

After the incident in which the commander told S. to let the Phalangists "do the dirty work," S. narrates that it was the first time he saw death up so close. The soldier who shot the Palestinian man returned to the camp through the hole in the wall from which the now-killed man had run through. 

After that, Mercedes cars with 'PRESS' authorization stamps started to arrive at the entrance of the camp. The commander declared the area a closed military zone and that they were not allowed to enter. 

The journalist, who appeared to be from TIME magazine, argued with the commander in Hebrew, stressing that "everyone, children, elderly and women, are being gathered at the soccer field and shot in a row and that we have to do something about it." 

The brass from the fifth floor came down yelling at the reporter, yelling at him that he cannot tell him how to do his job. The reporter seemed to have shouted back at him, saying that "he was now coming from the other side of the camp and on that side, they were allowed to enter, and that everything was full of blood and it was horror what was happening there."

The Israeli soldiers began to question what exactly they were doing at the entrance of the camp, and who they were waiting for. 

A Red Cross ambulance arrived and complained to the commander that the Phalangists were shooting everyone and weren't allowing the paramedics to treat the wounded. The commander insisted it was "an internal Lebanese conflict," and that he will "pass the information on" and "as soon as there is a decision" they will "receive an order." 

Read more: An Everlasting Trauma: Sabra and Shatila by the Hours

The next evening - when most of the Phalangists left - the Israeli soldiers were ordered to enter the camp. They were told there is a Mossad agent in the camp and that he will send the signal. 

S. described a traumatizing vision:

"We entered and at every entrance of a house there were bodies on the stairs and blood running all over the stairs. There was a terrible stench of corpses and sour blood. We went up to the first floor. The doors were open and in every room there were bodies on the beds, on the floor, in the hallway, lying on their backs with bullet holes. Women with children and babies leaning against the door. All dead. Some of the bodies looked like they had been stabbed with a sword. Women without clothes or in a half-torn dress, lying on their backs with a bullet in the head."

The next morning, journalists flocked to the camp.

"The smell was unbearable... They sent us towards the football field. There were rows upon rows of bodies wrapped and covered with blankets and rags. An army tractor dug a trench and pushed the bodies into the trench and covered them with dirt."

After traveling for more than ten hours, S. arrived at Al-Quds. He arrived at the house of his mother house, whom he expected to be happy that at least he was alive and not dead in the war. 

Silence filled the air, eventually broken with a question on what S. would like to drink. 

S. wrote that he would have nightmares, that he would wake up screaming and sweating, especially during nighttime. He would get some sleep so long as he slept in daylight, where he wouldn't envision the bodies or see dead Palestinians walking around him. 

After his mental health situation forced him into not serving in the IOF again, the military police found him and arrested him for running away. 

Later, S. left "Israel" and has been out since 1988. 

"I’m glad I got out of it alive. I feel sorry for all the soldiers — some of whom were my friends — who were killed in an unnecessary war."