Phalange

The Phalange is presented as the militia that entered the Shatila refugee camps after Palestinian fighters had left under a truce, and whose attack killed civilians, including Khaled Ansari’s family. Though the organization appears only briefly in the account, its role is decisive: the violence becomes the personal wound through which the novel examines memory, hatred, and the consequences of mass violence.

Identity and Context

The evidence identifies the Phalange as a militia operating in Lebanon during the conflict around Shatila. It does not provide a fuller account of the organization’s structure, leadership, or political program. Its place in the narrative is instead defined by a specific act: after Palestinian fighters departed the camps with their weapons under the terms of a truce, the Phalange was sent in.

The Attack on the Camps

Khaled recounts that the fighters left in a public procession, firing into the air and carrying their weapons as a sign that they had not been defeated. Civilians were also killed as they watched the departure. After the fighters were gone, the promises of the truce were broken and the Phalange entered the camps. In Khaled’s account, its members killed the old men, women, and children who had been left behind, including his entire family. He says that their bodies were concealed because the perpetrators knew the killings constituted a war crime.

Consequences in the Narrative

The attack is not treated as distant political history: it is the catastrophe that shattered Khaled’s family and contributed to his psychological breakdown. After the deaths at Shatila, his commander released him from duty; later, in Bombay, Khaled remained devoted in words to Palestinian statehood but was consumed by the suffering he had endured and by the suffering he inflicted. The Phalange’s violence thus persists in the story through its aftermath in a survivor, whose inability to let go of the loss becomes a continuing source of conflict with Lin. The account gives the militia no extended voice or interior perspective; its significance lies in the rupture it leaves behind and in the unresolved demand for remembrance and accountability.