Following the assassination of Lebanese Christian President
Bashir Gemayel, tensions built as Phalangists called for revenge.
By noon of September 15, the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) had completely surrounded the Sabra-Shatila camps, and controlled all entrances and exits by the means of checkpoints. The IDF also occupied a number of multi-story buildings as observation posts. Amongst those was the seven-story Kuwaiti embassy which, according to TIME magazine, had "an unobstructed and panoramic view" of the camps. Hours later, IDF tanks began shelling the camps.
[19]
Ariel Sharon and Chief of Staff
Rafael Eitan[21] met with the Lebanese Phalangist militia units, inviting them to enter the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps and telling them the PLO fighters were responsible for the assassination of their leader Bashir Gemayel
[22]. Under the Israeli plan, Israeli soldiers would control the perimeters of the refugee camps and provide logistical support while the Phalangists would enter the camps, find the PLO fighters and hand them over to Israeli forces.[
citation needed] The meetings concluded at 3:00 p.m. September 16.
[19]
An hour later, 1,500 militiamen assembled at Beirut International Airport, then occupied by Israel. Under the command of
Elie Hobeika, they began moving towards the camps in IDF supplied
Jeeps, following Israeli guidance on how to enter the camps.
The forces were mostly Phalangist, though there were some men from Saad Haddad's "Free Lebanon forces".[19]Ariel Sharon, the Phalangists were given "harsh and clear" warnings about harming civilians. According to
[20]
The first unit of 150 Phalangists entered the camps at 6:00 p.m.
A battle ensued that at times Palestinians claim involved lining up Palestinians for execution.[19] During the night the Israeli forces fired illuminating flares over the camps. According to a Dutch nurse, the camp was as bright as "a sports stadium during a football game".[23]
At 11:00 p.m. a report was sent to the IDF headquarters in East Beirut, reporting the killings of 300 people, including civilians. The report was forwarded to headquarters in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, where it was seen by more than 20 senior Israeli officers.
[19]
Further reports of these killings followed through the night. Some of these reports were forwarded to the Israeli government in Jerusalem and were seen by a number of Israeli senior officials.
For the next 36 to 48 hours, the Phalangists massacred the inhabitants of Sabra and Shatila, while Israeli troops guarded the exits and allegedly continued to fire flares at night.
At one point, a militiaman's radioed question to his commander Hobeika about what to do with the women and children in the refugee camp was overheard by an
Israeli officer, who heard Hobeika's reply: "This is the last time you're going to ask me a question like that; you know exactly what to do." Phalangist troops could be heard laughing in the background.[20] The Israeli officer reported this to his superior, Brig. Gen.
Amos Yaron, who warned Hobeika against hurting civilians but took no further action. Lt.
Avi Grabowsky was cited by the
Kahan Commission as having seen (on that Friday) the murder of five women and children, and gave a hearsay report of a battalion commander saying of this, "We know, it's not to our liking, and don't interfere." Israeli soldiers surrounding the camps turned back Palestinians fleeing the camps, as filmed by a
Visnews cameraman.
Later in the afternoon, a meeting was held between the Israeli Chief of Staff and the Phalangist staff.
On Friday morning, the Israelis surrounding the camps ordered the Phalange to halt their operation, concerned about reports of a massacre.[20] According to the Kahan Commission's report (based on a Mossad agent's report), the Chief of Staff concluded that the Phalange should "continue action, mopping up the empty camps south of Fakahani until tomorrow at 5:00 a.m., at which time they must stop their action due to American pressure." He stated that he had "no feeling that something irregular had occurred or was about to occur in the camps." At this meeting, he also agreed to provide the militia with a tractor, supposedly to demolish buildings.
On Friday, September 17, while the camps still were sealed off, a few independent observers managed to enter. Among them were a
Norwegian journalist and diplomat
Gunnar Flakstad, who observed Phalangists during their cleanup operations, removing dead bodies from destroyed houses in the Shatila camp.
[24]
The Phalangists did not exit the camps at 5:00 a.m. on Saturday as ordered. They forced the remaining survivors to march out of the camps, to the stadium for interrogations; this went on for the entire day. The militia finally left the camps at 8:00 a.m. on September 18. The first foreign journalists allowed into the camps at 9:00 a.m. found hundreds of bodies scattered about the camp. The first official news of the massacre was broadcast around noon.
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