BEIRUT, Sept 16, 2007 (AFP) - Survivors and victims' relatives gathered on the outskirts of Beirut on Sunday to mark the 25th anniversary of the massacre of hundreds of Palestinian civilians by Israeli-backed Lebanese militiamen.

Several hundred people joined the commemoration in the Shatila refugee camp, which along with the nearby Sabra camp, was the target of a three-day killing spree by Lebanese Christian militia during Israel's 1982 assault on Beirut.

'Judge the criminals,' and 'We will never forget' were among the slogans on placards held aloft by the crowd.

JERUSALEM , Sept 14, 2007 (AFP) - Twenty five years after Christian militiamen massacred Palestinian refugees in Lebanon's refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, Israel seems to have forgotten its involvement in the slaughter.

'Everything happened as if we in Israel wanted to wipe the massacre from collective consciousness and think as little as possible about the army or government's responsibility,' said Middle East specialist Abraham Sela.

BEIRUT, Sept 14, 2007 (AFP) - There are few signs now to recall the horrors of the massacre, but those Palestinians who survived the Christian militiamen's slaughter during Israel's invasion of Lebanon 25 years ago cannot forget the corpses, the screams and the gunfire.

The small cemetery bears insignificant witness to the nightmare of those three days of slaughter in Sabra and Shatila, now impoverished shantytowns where barefeet chidlren run through narrow alleys at the southern entrance of Beirut, the Lebanese capital.