44 Years on Sabra and Shatila: Activists Vow to Keep Resisting

By Rasha Reslan

As the sky wept over Sabra and Shatila, survivors, victims’ families, and international activists gathered in a heart-piercing vigil, refusing to let the memory of the massacre fade into history.

Four decades after the massacre, activists from Italy, Argentina and international solidarity movements gathered at the Sabra and Shatila cemetery, linking the memory of those killed to the harrowing genocide still unfolding across Palestine, Lebanon and the wider region.

Rain fell over the entrance of the Sabra and Shatila cemetery as mourners and activists made their way toward the graves, some weeping beneath the gray sky. The passage into the cemetery carried the weight of 44 years of memory, as if the people massacred here had never truly left the place.

Their names, their killings, and the grief of their families remain embedded in the site, where international activists joined Palestinians and Lebanese to mark the 44th anniversary of the massacre.

A memory inseparable from the present

But for those who traveled from abroad, the commemoration was not simply an act of looking back.

It was a declaration that memory remains inseparable from the present.

For Italian activist Caterina Mari, the responsibility to remember Sabra and Shatila has been passed from one generation to the next. She recalled Italian journalist Stefano Chiarini, who repeatedly visited Lebanon and helped bring attention to the cemetery and its victims.

"Now in Italy we take the testimony," Mari told Al Mayadeen English. "As young people we have the obligation to do that."

She said that obligation is also connected to the complicity of Western governments in supporting "Israel".

Same bloodied hands 

Mari argued that international activists gathering at Sabra and Shatila are not there to dictate how Palestinians should live, but to stand alongside those resisting oppression.

"The Palestinians and all the oppressed people in the world, they must choose by themselves," she told Al Mayadeen English. "We are not the people that come here and say how to live."

For Mari, the connection between Sabra and Shatila and the Israeli aggression across West Asia today is direct.

"The perpetrators are always the same," she said, pointing to Western governments that support "Israel".

"And the massacre here is the same massacre that happened today. Because it's the same hands."

She added that activists must go beyond commemorating the victims.

"We, as a testimony, have to stop all of this," Mari said. "Not only to march, but to stop all of this."

'More important than ever'

Eulalia Millaret, an Italian activist with the organization Don't Forget Sabra and Shatila, said the passage of time has made remembrance more urgent rather than less relevant.

"It's more important than ever right now," she stressed.

For Millaret, remembering Sabra and Shatila also means remembering the victims of subsequent massacres.

"We will never forget, not only Sabra and Shatila, but all the massacres that have been going on during all these years," she told Al Mayadeen English, referring to the Israeli genocide in Gaza as well as Israeli aggression in Lebanon, most notably in south Lebanon, Beirut and the capital's Southern Suburb.

"And we will never forget any of these massacres and any of the people that have lost their lives, any of the martyrs," she added.

A joint call for severing ties with 'Israel'

Millaret said international activists are also working in their own countries to pressure governments to sever relations with "Israel".

"We try to fight always with the same message, to pressure our governments to stop any kind of relationship with the genocidal state of Israel," she said.

She linked the continuation of aggression to the persistence of Israeli occupation.

"Because Israel still exists. That's the main problem. The occupation is still ongoing," Millaret emphasized.

In Millaret's view, activists would continue supporting resistance in both Palestine and Lebanon.

From Gaza to Sabra and Shatila

For Vincenzo Fullone, an Italian activist with the Freedom Flotilla, arriving at Sabra and Shatila was part of a wider effort to stand with Palestinians.

Fullone told Al Mayadeen English that he had participated in the latest Freedom Flotilla mission toward Gaza aboard the Conscience and was abducted by "Israel" for five days at Ketziot.

He recalled demanding the release of Palestinian doctor Hussam Abu Safiya and urged people not to forget Palestinian medical workers.

"Please, don't forget Hussam. Don't forget the doctors of the children," he pleaded.

Fullone added that when activists are prevented from reaching Gaza, their solidarity does not stop.

"We are in Lebanon today because if they block us toward Gaza, we arrive in Sabra Shatila because the Palestinian is here too," he said.

For him, the Palestinian presence in Lebanon is itself part of the story of forcible displacement and continuing occupation.

"The Palestinian is in a refugee camp," he said. "The Palestinian is under genocide in Lebanon."

"Free Palestine"

Asked what message international activists were sending by gathering at the cemetery, Fullone responded simply, "Free Palestine!"

He said activists should learn from Palestinian resistance rather than speak on behalf of Palestinians.

"We learn the resistance from Palestinian people," he said. "To learn the resistance because the West forgets the resistance."

Fullone also drew a direct line between the massacre commemorated at the cemetery and the current regional Israeli aggression unfolding today across West Asia.

"It's the same mind. The same terrorists," he stressed.

He pointed to the continued Israeli occupation and incursions in Palestinian cities and territories, as well as Lebanon, saying, "They occupy Palestine in Ramallah. They occupy Palestine in Jenin. They occupy Palestine in Gaza. They occupy Palestine in Lebanon."

Memory as an act of resistance

For Argentine activist Lissandro Brusco, the gathering was rooted in the idea that people retain the memory of massacres and transform that memory into political action.

"Because the people have memory, because the people choose to resist," Brusco told Al Mayadeen English when asked why activists continue to gather at Sabra and Shatila 44 years later.

He described the gathering of Palestinians, Lebanese and international activists in Beirut as a refusal to forget the massacre or reconcile with those he holds responsible.

"We do not forget, we do not forgive, we do not reconcile," Brusco said.

His message extended beyond commemoration.

"The message for all of us is not to resign, to follow the path of the struggle," he said, pointing to Palestinians as well as people in Yemen, Iraq and Lebanon.

A struggle extending beyond Palestine

Brusco framed the present struggle as extending beyond Palestine, describing it as a confrontation involving North American imperialism and the Israeli colonial entity.

"Today is the message precisely of not forgetting to continue the struggle," he affirmed.

For him, the significance of the anniversary therefore lies not only in remembering those massacred in 1982, but in carrying their memory into the present.

"Not only to vindicate and make a commemorative act, but to continue this struggle," Brusco said.

Forty-four years later

As the rain continued around the cemetery, the anniversary brought together people whose lives and backgrounds stretch far beyond Beirut, activists from Italy, Argentina and international solidarity movements standing alongside Palestinians, Lebanese, Iranians, Iraqis and Yemenis.

Their political positions differ in language and emphasis, but their interviews converge on one point: Sabra and Shatila remains, for them, a living memory rather than a closed chapter.

The cemetery has become a place where remembrance meets activism, where the victims of 1982 are remembered alongside those killed in subsequent genocides.

Forty-four years on, Sabra and Shatila remains more than a memory for those who return each year. The voices of survivors, the memory of those killed, and the testimony of activists keep the massacre in the public record, drawing a line between a tragedy remembered and genocides still being documented today. For those gathered at the cemetery, remembrance is not an endpoint; it is a demand that the victims not be forgotten and that history not be allowed to repeat itself.