Kim Ghattas

But can I add one more thing about the planning for this, which is quite important, which is a meeting in Beirut.

between Ariel Sharon and Bashir Jemayel.

Ariel Sharon travels secretly to Lebanon and is welcome to the port city of Jounieh, north of Beirut, and is driven to al-Shafi'i, the very center of Beirut and Christian area of Beirut.

And this is where he overlooks Beirut from the little hilltop of al-Shafi'i with Bashir Jemayel by his side and his commanders, et cetera.

And there is kind of an agreement that, you know, as I said, they will invade and Bashir Jameel and his men will do the ground to, will do the street by street operations in the city.

One of these commanders says, this is a terrible idea.

We're going to be bombing an Arab capital.

We're going to besiege an Arab capital.

This has never happened before.

There have been wars between Israel and its Arab neighbors before, but never had Israel bombed an Arab city.

I mean, there was a brief moment of bombings of Cairo, but a sort of intentional, sustained bombing of an Arab capital and a full invasion of an Arab country, that had not happened before.

And it is an inflection point in the national psyche of Israel

of what is permissible after that.

I would say more than irritation, if I may, Anita.

Well, because we have to remember that by then the Palestinians are very much a party to this war and there are massacres on both sides by both sides.

So there's a lot of blood and anger by then.

Absolutely.

400,000 Palestinian refugees, amongst them civilians and a faction of militants, 15,000 militants, I think if my math is correct.

So a majority of civilians

are living in what used to be initially just camps with literal tents and whatever was available in 1948.