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Report of the Commission of Inquiry into
the Events at the Refugee Camps in Beirut
(The Kahan Commission)
(February 8, 1983)
The Commission determined that the massacre at
Sabra and Shatilla was carried out by a Phalangist unit, acting on its
own but its entry was known to Israel. No Israeli was directly
responsible for the events which occurred in the camps. But the
Commission asserted that Israel had indirect responsibility for the
massacre since the I.D.F. held the area, Mr. Begin was found
responsible for not exercising greater involvement and awareness in the
matter of introducing the Phalangists into the camps. Mr. Sharon was
found responsible for ignoring the danger of bloodshed and revenge when
he approved the entry of the Phalangists into the camps as well as not
taking appropriate measures to prevent bloodshed. Mr. Shamir erred by
not taking action after being alerted by communications Minister
Zippori. Chief of Staff Eitan did not give the appropriate orders to
prevent the massacre. The Commission recommended that the Defense
Minister resign, that the Director of Military Intelligence not
continue in his post and other senior officers be removed. Full text
follows:
Introduction
At a meeting of the Cabinet on 28 September 1982,
the Government of Israel resolved to establish a commission of inquiry
in accordance with the Commissions of Inquiry Law of 1968. The Cabinet
charged the commission as follows:
"The matter which will be subjected to inquiry is:
all the facts and factors connected with the atrocity carried out by a
unit of the Lebanese Forces against the civilian population in the
Shatilla and Sabra camps."
In the wake of this resolution, the President of the
Supreme Court, by virtue of the authority vested in him under Section 4
of the aforementioned law, appointed a commission of inquiry comprised
as follows:
Yitzhak Kahan, President of the Supreme Court
commission chairman; Aharon Barak, Justice of the Supreme Court; Yona
Efrat, Major General (Res.).
The commission held 60 sessions, hearing 58
witnesses. As per the commission's requests of the Cabinet Secretary,
the Office of the Minister of Defense, the General Staff of the Israel
Defense Forces (henceforth, the I.D.F.), the Ministry for Foreign
Affairs, and other public and governmental institutions, the commission
was provided with many documents, some of which were, in the course of
the deliberations, submitted to the commission as exhibits. The
commission decided, in accordance with section 13(A) of the law, that
there was a need to collect data necessary for its investigation.
Appointed as staff investigators were:
Ms. Dorit. Beinish, Deputy State Attorney, and Ms.
Edna Arbel, Senior Assistant to the District Attorney (Central
District), who were seconded to the commission by the Attorney General;
and Assistant Police Commander Alex Ish-Shalom, who was seconded to the
commission by the Inspector General of the Israel Police. Judge David
Bartov was appointed commission coordinator. The staff investigators
collected, by virtue of the authority vested in them under Sections
13(C), 180 statements from 163 witnesses. Before the commission began
its deliberations, it visited Beirut, but it was not allowed to enter
the area of the events. The commission also viewed television footage
filmed near the time of the events at the camps and their surroundings.
The commission published notices to the public in
the press and other media, inviting all who wish to testify or submit a
document or bring any information to the commission's attention to
submit to the commission in writing details of the material he
possessed or wished to bring to the commission's attention. There was
not much response to these appeals. The commission made an effort to
collect testimony also from people who live outside the juridical
boundaries of the State of Israel; and all necessary steps were taken
to bring witnesses from outside of Israel, when this was possible. The
commission's requests in this matter were not always honored. For
example, the "New York Times" correspondent Mr Thomas Friedman, who
published in the aforementioned newspaper a famous article on what
transpired during the period under deliberation here, refused to appear
before the commission, claiming that this was contrary to his paper's
editorial policy. We did not receive a satisfactory answer as to why
the paper's publisher prevented its reporter from appearing before the
commission and thus helping it uncover all the important facts.
Some of the commission's hearings were held in open
session, but most of the sessions were in camera. In this matter we
acted in accordance with the instructions of Section 18(A) of the law,
according to which a commission of inquiry is required to deliberate in
open session but is entitled to deliberate in camera if it is convinced
that "it is necessary to do so in the interest of protecting the
security of the State... the foreign relations of the State..." and for
other reasons stipulated in that section. It became clear to the
commission that with regard to certain matters about which witnesses
testified before it, open hearings would be liable to affect adversely
the nation's security or foreign relations; and therefore it heard most
of its testimony in camera. It should be noted that during sessions
held in camera, witnesses also said things whose publication would not
cause any harm; however, because of the difficulty in separating those
things whose publication would be permissible from those whose
publication would be forbidden, it was imperative in a substantial
number of cases to hear the entire testimony in camera.
In accordance, with Section 20(A) of the law, this
report is being published together with an appendix that will be called
Appendix A. In the event that we will need recourse in this report to
testimony whose publication would not be damaging to the nation's
security or foreign relations, we shall present it in a section of the
report that will be published. On the other hand, in accordance with
Section 20(A) of the law, a portion of this report, to be called
Appendix B, will not be published, since, in our opinion,
non-publication of this material is essential in the interest of
protecting the nation's security or foreign relations.
As we have said, the commission's task, as
stipulated by the Cabinet's resolution, is "to investigate all the
facts and factors connected with the atrocity which was carried out by
a unit of the Lebanese Forces against the civilian population of the
Shatilla and Sabra camps." These acts were perpetrated between
Thursday, 16 September 1982, and Saturday, 18 September 1982. The
establishment of the facts and the conclusions in this report relate
only to the facts and factors connected with the acts perpetrated in
the aforementioned time frame, and the commission did not deliberate or
investigate matters whose connection with the aforementioned acts is
indirect or remote. The commission refrained, therefore, from drawing
conclusions with regard to various issues connected with activities
during the war that took place in Lebanon from 6 June 1982 onward or
with regard to policy decisions taken by the Government before or
during the war, unless these activities or decisions were directly
related to the events that are the subject of this investigation.
Descriptions of facts presented in this report that deviate from the
framework of the commission's authority (as defined above) have been
cited only as background material, in order to better understand and
illustrate the chain of events.
In one area we have found it necessary to deviate
somewhat from the stipulation of the Cabinet's resolution, which
represents the commission's terms of reference. The resolution speaks
of atrocities carried out by "a unit of the Lebanese Forces." The
expression "Lebanese Forces" refers to an armed force known by the name
"Phalangists" or "Ketaib" (henceforth, Phalangists). It is our opinion
that we would not be properly fulfilling our task if we did not look
into the question of whether the atrocities spoken of in the Cabinet's
resolution were indeed perpetrated by the Phalangists, and this
question will indeed be treated in the course of this report.
The commission's deliberations can be divided into
two stages. In the first stage, the commission heard witnesses who had
been summoned by it, as well as witnesses who had expressed the desire
to appear before it. The commission asked questions of these witnesses,
and they were given the opportunity of bringing before the commission
everything known to them of the matters that constitute the subject of
the investigation. When this stage terminated, the commission issued a
resolution in accordance with Section 15(A) of the aforementioned law,
concerning the harm that might be caused certain people as a result of
the investigation or its results; this was done in order to enable
these people to study the material, to appear before the commission and
to testify (for the text of the resolution, see section I of appendix
A). In accordance with this resolution, the chairman of the commission
sent notices to nine people; the notices detailed how each one of them
might be harmed. The material in the commission's possession was placed
at the disposal of those receiving the notices and of the attorneys
appointed to represent them. During the second stage of the
deliberations, we heard witnesses who had been summoned at the request
of the lawyers, and thus some of the witnesses who had testified during
the first stage were cross-examined.
Afterwards, written summations were submitted, and
the opportunity to supplement these summations by presenting oral
arguments was given. We should already note that involving the lawyers
in the commission's deliberations did not in any way make the
commission's work more difficult; it even helped us in fulfilling our
task. The lawyers who appeared before us were able to clarify properly,
though not at excessive length, the various points that were the
subject of controversy; and thus they rendered valuable assistance to
the commission's task, without in any way prejudicing their
professional obligation to properly represent and defend their clients.
When we resolved to issue, in accordance with
Section 15(A) of the law, notices about harm to the nine people, we
were not oblivious to the fact that, during the course of the
investigation, facts were uncovered that could be the prima facie basis
for results that might cause harm to other persons as well. Our
consideration in limiting the notices about possible harm to only nine
persons was based on [the conception] that it is our duty, as a public
judicial commission dealing with an extremely important issue - one
which had raised a furor among the general public in Israel and other
nations - to deliberate and reach findings and conclusions with regard
to the major and important things connected with the
aforementioned events, and to the question of the
responsibility of those persons whose decisions and actions could have
decisively influenced the course of events. We felt that with regard to
the other people who were involved in one way or another in the events
we are investigating, but whose role was secondary, it would be better
that the clarification or investigation, if deemed necessary, be
carried out in another manner, and not before this commission, viz.,
before the military authorities, in accordance with the relevant
stipulations of the military legal code and other legislation. We chose
this path so that the matters under investigation would not expand and
become overly-complicated and so that we could complete our task in not
too long a time.
In the course of the investigation, not a few
contradictions came out regarding various facts about which we had
heard testimony. In those cases where the contradictions referred to
facts important for establishing findings and drawing subsequent
conclusions, we shall decide between the variant versions in accordance
with the usual criteria in judicial and quasi-judicial tribunals. Our
procedures are not those of a criminal court; and therefore the
criterion of criminal courts that stipulates that in order to convict
someone his guilt must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, does not
apply in this case. Nevertheless, since we are aware that our findings
and conclusions are liable to be of significant influence from a social
and ethical standpoint, and to harm also in other ways persons involved
in our deliberations, no finding of significant harm was established
with regard to any one of those to whom notices were sent, unless
convincing evidence on which to base such a finding was found, and we
shall not be satisfied with evidence that leaves room for real doubt.
We shall not pretend to find a solution to all the contradictions in
testimony. In many instances, these contradictions relate to the
content of conversations that took place between various people without
the presence of witnesses, or when the witnesses' attention was not
focused on the content of the conversation, and there are no exact
notes on these conversations. In such cases, it is only natural that
there exist several versions with regard to what was said, and the
differences between them do not necessarily derive from a desire to
conceal the truth but rather are sometimes the natural result of a
failure of the human memory. We do not see the need to rule about those
contradictions which surround unimportant details that do not influence
the decision about points in controversy.
We shall conclude this part of the report by expressing appreciation
and gratitude to all those who helped us in fulfilling our task. It
is only fitting that we note that all the institutions and various functionaries
in the Government, the I.D.F., and other authorities whose help we needed
rendered us all the necessary assistance and placed at our disposal
all the relevant material, without reservation. Our special thanks go
to the coordinator of the commission, Judge David Bartov, who showed
great capability in handling the administrative aspects of the commission's
work and without whose enterprise and devoted and efficient work it
is very doubtful whether we would have succeeded in properly carrying
out our task. Our appreciation and gratitude go also to the staff investigators,
Dorit Beinish, Edna Arbel and Alex Ish-Shalom, who, by virtue of their
expertise, initiative and dedication, succeeded in placing at our disposal
much material which served as the basis of the commission's deliberations
and findings. Similarly, our thanks go to the entire staff of commission
employees, whose loyalty and faithfulness enabled us to carry out and
complete our task.
A Description of the Events
The Period Before the Events in Beirut
In
1975, civil war broke out in Lebanon. This war began with clashes in
Sidon between the Christians and Palestinian terrorists and
subsequently widened in a manner to encompass many diverse armed forces
- under the auspices of ethnic groups, political parties, and various
organizations - that were active in Lebanon. In its early stages, this
war was waged primarily between the Christian organizations on the one
hand, and Palestinian terrorists, Lebanese leftist organizations, and
Muslim and Druze organizations of various factions on the other. In the
course of the civil war, Syrian army forces entered Lebanon and took
part in the war, for a certain period of time on the side of the
Christian forces, and subsequently on the side of the terrorists and
the Lebanese leftist organizations. During the early years of the war,
massacres on a large scale were perpetrated by the fighting forces
against the civilian population. The Christian city of Damour was
captured and destroyed by Palestinian terrorists in January 1976. The
Christian residents fled the city, and the conquering forces carried
out acts of slaughter that cost the lives of many Christians. In August
1976, the Christian forces captured the Tel Zaatar refugee camp in
Beirut, where Palestinian terrorists had dug in, and thousands of
Palestinian refugees were massacred. Each massacre brought in its wake
acts of revenge of a similar nature. The number of victims of the civil
war has been estimated at close to 100,000 killed, including a large
number of civilians, among them women and children.
The Palestinians' armed forces organized and
entrenched themselves in camps inhabited by refugees who had arrived in
Lebanon in various waves, beginning in 1948. There are various
estimates as to the number of Palestinian refugees who were living in
Lebanon in 1982. According to the figures of U.N.R.W.A. (the United
Nations Relief and Works Agency), the Palestinian refugees numbered
approximately 270,000. On the other hand, the leaders of the Christian
armed forces estimated the number of Palestinian refugees at
approximately 500,000 or more. This estimate is most probably
exaggerated, and the more realistic estimate is the one that puts the
number of Palestinian refugees at approximately 300,000 - and in any
case, not more than 400,000.
The main Christian armed force that took part in the
civil war consisted mainly of Maronite Christians, though a small
number of Shiites joined them. This force comprised several armed
Christian organizations, the largest among them being the organizations
under the leadership of the Chamoun family and of the Jemayel family.
The head of the Jemayel family, Mr. Pierre Jemayel, founded the
Phalangist organization; and the leader of this organization in recent
years was Pierre's son, Bashir Jemayel. In the course of time, the
Phalangist organization became the central element in the Christian
forces; in 1982, the Phalangists ruled the Christian armed forces. Even
though the "Lebanese Forces" formally comprised several Christian
organizations, the dominant and primary force in this organization, at
the time under our scrutiny, was the Phalangists, led by the Jemayel
family.
When the war broke out in Lebanon in June 1982, the
Phalangist force included a nucleus of approximately 2,000 full-time
recruited soldiers. In addition, the Phalangists had a reserve armed
force - that is, men who served part-time in their free hours or when
they were called up for special service. When fully mobilized, the
number of Phalangist soldiers reached 5,000. Similarly, the Phalangists
had militias in the villages. There were no ranks in this military
force, but it was organized along military lines, with Bashir Jemayel
as the military and political leader who enjoyed unimpeachable
authority. The Phalangists had a general staff comprised of several
commanders. At the head of this general staff was a commander named
Fadi Frem; at the head of the Phalangists' intelligence division was a
commander by the name of Elie Hobeika.
The link between the Christian forces and the State
of Israel was formed shortly after the start of the civil war. In the
course of time, this link grew stronger, from both political and
military standpoints. The Christian forces were promised that if their
existence were to become endangered, Israel would would come to their
aid. Israel extended significant aid to the Christian armed forces,
supplying arms, uniforms, etc., and also training and instruction, Over
the course of time, a considerable number of meetings were held between
leaders of the Phalangists and representatives of the Government of
Israel and the I.D.F. In the course of these meeting, the ties between
the leaders of the two sides grew stronger. The Institute for
Intelligence and Special Assignments (henceforth, the Mossad) was made
responsible for the link with the Phalangists; and representatives of
the Mossad maintained - at various times, and in various ways - a
rather close connection with the Phalangist leadership. In the course
of these meetings, the Phalangist leaders brought up various plans for
strengthening the Christian forces' position, as well as various ways
of bringing about the end of the civil war in Lebanon and restoring the
independence of that nation, while [simultaneously] buttressing the
status of the Phalangists and those allied with them in a regime that
would be established in Lebanon. Israel's representatives expressed
various reservations with regard to these plans and Israel's
involvement in their realization.
A separate armed force is the military force in
South Lebanon - the "Army of Free Lebanon" under the command of Major
Haddad. This force comprises several hundred full-time soldiers. In
addition, there is in South Lebanon a National Guard, which, under the
command of local officers, does guard duty in the villages. Relations
between the Phalangists and Haddad's men are not particularly close,
for various reasons, and there were points of tension between these two
forces. In 1982, soldiers of both Major Haddad and the Phalangists wore
uniforms provided by Israel - and similar to those worn by the I.D.F.
The Phalangists' uniforms bore an emblem consisting of the inscription
"Ketaib Lubnaniyeh" and the drawing of the cedar, embroidered over the
shirt pocket. Major Haddad's soldiers had an emblem on the epaulet
inscribed with the words "Army of Free Lebanon" in Arabic and the
drawing of a cedar. During the war, Haddad's force advanced and reached
the Awali River. Pursuant to I.D.F. orders, Haddad's army did not
proceed north of the Awali River.
The subject of the Palestinian population in
Lebanon, from among whom the terrorist organizations sprang up and in
the midst of whom their military infrastructure was entrenched, came up
more than once in meetings between phalangist leaders and Israeli
representatives. The position of the Phalangist leaders, as reflected
in various pronouncements of these leaders, was, in general, that no
unified and independent Lebanese state could be established without a
solution being found to the problem of the Palestinian refugees, who,
according to the Phalangists' estimates, numbered half a million
people. In the opinion of the Phalangists, that number of refugees, for
the most part Muslims, endangered [both] the demographic balance
between the Christians and Muslims in Lebanon and (from other
standpoints as well) the stability of the State of Lebanon and the
status of the Christians in that country. Therefore, the Phalangist
leaders proposed removing a large portion of the Palestinian refugees
from Lebanese soil, whether by methods of persuasion or other means of
pressure. They did not conceal their opinion that it would be necessary
to resort to acts of violence in order to cause the exodus of many
Palestinian refugees from Lebanon.
As we have said, the Mossad was the organization
that actually handled the relations between the Phalangists and Israel,
and its representatives maintained close contacts with the Phalangist
leadership. In addition, the Intelligence branch of the I.D.F.
(henceforth Military Intelligence) participated, albeit in a more
limited capacity, in the contacts with the Phalangists; and it, by
virtue of its job, was to issue a not insignificant number of
evaluation papers on the Phalangists, their leaders, their aims, their
fighting ability, etc. The division of labor between the Mossad and
Military Intelligence with regard to the Phalangists, was spelled out
in a document (exhibit 189). While this division of duties left room
for misunderstandings and also duplication in various areas, there is
no room for doubt that both the Mossad and Military Intelligence
specifically dealt with drawing up evaluations on the Phalangists, and
each one of them was obligated to bring these evaluations to the
attention of all interested parties. Neither the head of the Mossad nor
the director of Military Intelligence disagreed with this in his
testimony before us.
From the documents submitted to us and the testimony
we heard, it emerges that there were differences of opinion between the
Mossad and Military Intelligence with regard to the relations with the
Phalangists. The Mossad, to a not inconsiderable extent under the
influence of constant and close contact with the Phalangist elite, felt
positively about strengthening relations with that organization, though
not ignoring its faults and weaknesses. This approach of the Mossad
came out clearly in the testimony we heard from the person who was in
charge of the Mossad's contacts with the Phalangists. The head of the
Mossad, in his testimony before us on 27.12.82, said, inter alia (p.
1437), that "the Mossad tried, to the best of its ability, throughout
this period, to present and approach the subject as objectively as
possible; but since it was in charge of the contacts, I accept as an
assumption that subjective, and not only objective, relations also
emerged. I must accept that in contacts, when you talk to people,
relationships are formed." In contrast, Military Intelligence was to
emphasize in its evaluations the danger in the link with the
Phalangists, primarily because of this organization's lack of
reliability, its military weakness, and other reasons we need not
specify here. A characteristic expression of the difference in approach
between these two agencies, whose responsibility it was to provide
evaluations on the Phalangists and the desirability of relations with
them, can be found in the exchange of documents when one of the
intelligence officers (henceforth intelligence officer A, whose full
name appears in the list of names in section I of Appendix B) who
served as a liaison officer on behalf of Military Intelligence in the
Mossad's representation at Phalangist headquarters at the beginning of
the war submitted an assessment (exhibit 171) on cooperation with the
Phalangists. This Military Intelligence officer rendered a negative
evaluation, from Israel's standpoint, of the Phalangists' policy during
the war and their aims for the future. This criticism was vigorously
rejected by the Mossad (exhibit 172).
The "Peace for the Galilee" war (henceforth the war)
began on 6.6.82 On 12-14 June, J.D.F. forces took over the suburbs of
Beirut and linked up with the Christian forces who controlled East
Beirut. On 25 June the encirclement of West Beirut was completed and
I.D.F. forces were in control of the Beirut-Damascus road. There
followed a period of approximately one and a half months of
negotiations on the evacuation of the terrorists and the Syrian forces
from West Beirut, and during this time various targets in West Beirut
were occasionally shelled and bombed by the I.D.F.'s, Air Force and
artillery. On 19.8.82 the negotiations on the evacuation of the
terrorists and the Syrian forces from West Beirut were completed On
23.8.82 Bashir Jemayel was elected president of Lebanon. His term of
office was supposed to begin on 23 September 1982.
On 21-26 August, a multi-national force arrived in
Beirut, and the evacuation of the terrorists and the Syrian forces
began. The evacuation was completed on I September; however, according
to information from various sources, the terrorists did not fulfill
their obligation to evacuate all their forces from West Beirut and hand
their weapons over to the Lebanese army but left in West Beirut,
according to various estimates, approximately 2,000 fighters, as well
as many arms caches, some of which were handed over by the terrorists
to the Lebanese leftist militia "Mourabitoun." This militia numbered
approximately 7,000 men in west Beirut, and it cooperated with the
terrorists. After the evacuation was completed, the multi-national
force left Lebanon (10- 12 September 1982; cf. section 2 of Appendix A
for dates of stages of the war).
At the beginning of the war, the Chief of Staff
[Lt.-Gen. Rafael Eitan] told the Phalangists that they should refrain
from all fighting. This order was issued because of the fear that if
the Phalangists' force got into trouble while fighting, the I.D.F.
would be forced to come to its aid, thereby disrupting the I.D.F.'s
plan of action. Even after I.D.F. forces reached the Damour-Shouf line,
the I.D.F.'s orders were that the Phalangists would not participate in
fighting (testimony of the Chief of Staff, pp. 195-6). After I.D.F.
forces reached the area under Christian control, the Phalangist
commanders suggested that a company of theirs of approximately 300 men
set up a training base at a place called Beit Ad-Din, a site of
historical importance in Lebanon. The Chief of Staff agreed to this,
but made his agreement conditional on the Phalangist forces' exercising
restraint and discipline, as the area was Druze. At first, this
condition was honored; afterwards, there were outbursts of hostilities
between the Phalangists and the Druze in Beit Ad Din. The Druze
committed some murders, and the Phalangists took revenge; a small
I.D.F. force was stationed in the area in order to prevent such
actions. In the early stages of the war there were also some acts of
revenge and looting on the part of the Christians in Sidon; these were
stopped by the I.D.F.
When I.D.F. forces were fighting in the suburbs of
Beirut and along the Beirut-Damascus road, the Phalangists were asked
to cooperate with the I.D.F.'s actions by identifying terrorists, a
task at which the Phalangists' expertise was greater than that of the
Israeli security forces. During these actions there were generally no
acts of vengeance or violence against the Palestinian civilian
population by the Phalangists who were operating with the I.D.F.
Another action of the Phalangists' military force was the capture of
the technical college in Reihan, a large building in Beirut not located
in a built-up area. The Phalangists captured this place from the armed
Shiite organization "Amal." One day after the place was taken, the
Phalangists turned the building over to the I.D.F. and left the site
(testimony of the Chief of Staff, pp. 198-200).
The fighting actions of the Phalangists during that
time were few, and in effect the fighting was all done by I.D.F. forces
alone. This state of affairs aroused criticism and negative reactions
from the Israeli public, and among I.D.F. soldiers as well. This
dissatisfaction was expressed in various ways; and in the political
echelon, as well as in the media, there was amazement that the
Phalangists were not participating in the fighting, even though the war
was their battle as well, and it was only right that they should be
taking part in it. The feeling among the Israeli public was that the
I.D.F. was "pulling the chestnuts out of the fire" for the Phalangists.
As the number of I.D.F. casualties mounted, public pressure for the
Phalangists to participate in real fighting increased. The plan
formulated in mid-June 1982, when it was still uncertain whether the
terrorists would agree to leave West Beirut, was that the Christian
forces would fight to take control of West Beirut; the I.D.F. would not
take part in that operation; and only in the event that it became
necessary would the I.D.F. help out the Phalangists with long-range
artillery fire. This plan was discussed in the Cabinet meeting of
15.6.82, where it was proposed by the Prime Minister, and his proposal
was adopted by the Cabinet, namely, that I.D.F. forces would not enter
West Beirut, and this job was to be done by other forces (meaning the
Phalangists) with help they would be given by the I.D.F. (transcript of
the Cabinet meeting of 15.6.82, exhibit 53). Even after this
resolution, no real fighting was done by the Phalangists for the
purpose of extending control over West Beirut; and, as we have said,
eventually the terrorists were evacuated as the result of a political
agreement, after the I.D.F. had shelled various targets in West Beirut.
In all the testimony we have heard, there has been
unanimity regarding [the fact] that the battle ethics of the
Phalangists, from the standpoint of their attitude to non-combatants,
differ greatly from those of the I.D.F. It has already been noted above
that in the course of the civil war in Lebanon, many massacres had been
perpetrated by the various forces that had taken part in the fighting.
When the war began in June 1982, the prevailing opinion among the
Mossad agents who had maintained contacts with the Phalangist
leadership was that the atrocities and massacres were a thing of the
past, and that the Phalangist forces had reached a stage of political
and organizational maturity that would ensure that such actions would
not repeat themselves. This opinion was based both on personal
impressions of the character of the Phalangist leadership, as well as
on the recognition that the interest of the Phalangist elite to
eventually rule an independent Lebanese nation, half or more of whose
population is Muslim and would be interested in maintaining relations
with the Arab world, requires moderations of actions against
Palestinians and restraint as to modes of operation. At the same time,
there were various facts that were not compatible with this outlook.
During the meetings that the heads of the Mossad held with Bashir
Jemayel, they heard things from him that left no room for doubt that
the intention of this Phalangist leader was to eliminate the
Palestinian problem in Lebanon when he came to power - even if that
meant resorting to aberrant methods against the Palestinians in Lebanon
(testimony on pps. 16, 17, and 168 of the transcripts; exhibit 85 of 30
June 1982, clause 14 - section 2 of Appendix B). Similar remarks were
heard from other Phalangist leaders. Furthermore, certain actions of
the Phalangists during the war indicated that there had been no
fundamental change in their attitude toward different segments of the
Lebanese population, such as Druze and Palestinians, whom the
Phalangists considered enemies. There were reports of Phalangist
massacres of women and children in Druze villages, as well as the
liquidation of Palestinians carried out by the intelligence unit of
Elie Hobeika (testimony no. 105 of intelligence officer B before the
staff investigators, part of which appears in section 3 of Appendix B;
also, a document which mentions the Phalangist attitude toward
terrorists they had taken prisoner - section 4 of Appendix B, exhibit
39). These reports reinforced the feeling among certain people - and
especially among experienced intelligence officers - that in the event
that the Phalangists had an opportunity to massacre Palestinians, they
would take advantage of it.
The Assassination of Bashir Gemayel
and the I.D.F.'s entry into West Beirut
On Tuesday afternoon, 14.9.82, a large bomb exploded
in a building in Ashrafiyeh, Beirut, where Bashir Jemayel was [meeting]
with a group of commanders and other Phalangists. For the first few
hours after the explosion, it was not clear what had happened to
Bashir, and there were rumors that he had only been slightly wounded.
Word of the attempt on his life reached the Prime Minister, the Defense
Minister, the Chief of Staff, the director of Military Intelligence
[Major General Yehoshua Saguy] and others in the early hours of the
evening. During the evening, before it became clear what had befallen
Bashir, the Defense Minister spoke with the Chief of Staff, the
director of Military Intelligence, the head of the Mossad, and the head
of the General Security Services about possible developments. He also
spoke a number of times with the Prime Minister. Moreover, there were a
number of conversations that evening between the Prime Minister and the
Chief of Staff. Word of Bashir's death reached Israel at about 11.00
p.m., and it was then that the decision was taken in conversations
between the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense and between the
Prime Minister and the Chief of Staff - that the I.D.F. would enter
West Beirut. In one of the consultations between the Minister of
Defense and the Chief of Staff, there was mention of including the
Phalangists in the entry into West Beirut. The question of including
the Phalangists was not mentioned at that stage in conversations with
the Prime Minister.
Once the decision was made to have the I.D.F. enter
West Beirut, the appropriate operational orders were issued. Order
Number I was issued at 12.20 a.m. on the night between 14.9.82 and
15.9.82, Orders Number 2 and 3 were issued on Wednesday, 15.9.82, and
Order Number 4 was issued that same day at 2.00 p.m.; Order Number 5
was issued at 3.00 a.m. on 16.9.82; and Order number 6 was issued on
the morning of 16.9.82. The first five orders said nothing about
entering the refugee camps, and only in Order Number 6 were the
following things stated (clause 2, document no. 6, exhibit 14):
"The refugee camps are not to be entered. Searching and mopping up the camps will be done by the Phalangists/ Lebanese Army."
Clause 7 of the same order also states that the
Lebanese Army "is entitled to enter any place in Beirut, according to
its request."
Execution of the I.D.F.'s entry into West Beirut began during the early morning hours of 15.9.82.
On the night between 14.9.82 and 15.9.82, the Chief
of Staff flew to Beirut with a number of people and met there with the
G.O.C. Northern Command [Major General Amir Drori] and with the
commander of the division (henceforth the division). Afterwards, the
Chief of Staff, together with the people accompanying him, went to the
Phalangists' headquarters, where, according to his testimony (p. 210),
he ordered the Phalangist commanders to effect a general mobilization
of all their forces, impose a general curfew on all the areas under
their control, and be ready to take part in the fighting. The response
of the Phalangist commanders who took part in that meeting was that
they needed 24 hours to organize. The Chief of Staff requested that a
Phalangist liaison officer come to the place where the division's
forward command post was located (henceforth forward command post)
under the command of Brigadier-General Amos Yaron. At that meeting, the
Phalangist commanders were told by the Chief of Staff that the I.D.F.
would not enter the refugee camps in West Beirut but that the fighting
this entails would be undertaken by the Phalangists (Chief of Staff's
testimony, p. 211). The Chief of Staff testified that the entry of the
Phalangists into the refugee camps was agreed upon between the Minister
of Defense and himself at 8.30 p.m. on the previous evening. The camps
in question were Sabra and Shatilla. After the meeting in the
Phalangists' camps, the Chief of Staff went to the forward command post.
The forward command post was located on the roof of
a five-storey building about 200 meters southwest of the Shatilla camp.
The borders of the two camps were not defined exactly. The Sabra camp
extended over an area of some 300 x 200 meters and Shatilla over an
area of about 500 x 500 meters (testimony of the deputy assistant to
the director of Military Intelligence, p. 29). The two camps were
essentially residential neighborhoods containing, in the area entered
by the Phalangists, as will be stated below, low permanent structures
along narrow alleys and streets. From the roof of the forward command
post it was possible to see the area of the camps generally but - as
all the witnesses who visited the roof of the command post stated, and
these were a good number of witnesses whose word we consider reliable -
it was impossible to see what was happening within the alleys in the
camp from the roof of the command post, not even with the aid of the 20
x 120 binoculars that were on the command post roof. Appended to this
report are an aerial photograph and map of the area of the camps, as
well as a general map of Beirut (sections 3, 4, and 5 of Appendix A).
It was not possible to obtain exact details on the
civilian population in the refugee camps in Beirut. An estimate of the
number of refugees in the four refugee camps in west Beirut (Burj
el-Barajneh, Fakahni, Sabra and Shatilla) is about 85,000 people. The
war led to the flight of the population, but when the fighting
subsided, a movement back to the camps began. According to an inexact
extimate, in mid-September 1982 there were about 56,000 people in the
Sabra camp (protocol, p. 29), but there is no assurance that this
number reflects reality.
The Chief of Staff was in the forward command post
from the early morning hours of Wednesday, 15.9.82. The I.D.F. began to
enter west Beirut shortly after 6:00 a.m. During the first hours of the
I.D.F. entry, there was not armed resistance to the I.D.F. forces,
evidently because the armed forces that were in West Beirut were taken
by surprise. Within a few hours, the I.D.F. forces encountered fire
from armed forces that remained in a number of places in west Beirut,
and combat operations began. The resistance caused delays in the
I.D.F.'s taking over a number of points in the city and caused a change
in the route of advance. In the course of this fighting three I.D.F.
soldiers were killed and more than 100 were wounded. Heavy fire coming
out of Shatilla was directed at one I.D.F. battalion (henceforth the
battalion) advancing east of Shatilla. One of the battalion's soldiers
was killed, 20 were injured, and the advance of the battalion in this
direction was halted. Throughout Wednesday and to a lesser degree on
Thursday and Friday (16-17.9.82), R.P.G. and light-weapons fire from
the Sabra and Shatilla camps was directed at the forward command post
and the battalion's forces nearby, and fire was returned by the I.D.F.
forces.
On Wednesday, 15.9.82, the Minister of Defense
arrived at the forward command post between 8:00 and 9:00 a.m. He met
with the Chief of Staff there, and the latter reported on what had been
agreed upon with the Phalangists, namely, a general mobilization,
curfew, and the entry of the Phalangists into the camps. The Minister
of Defense approved this agreement. From the roof of the command post,
the Minister of Defense phoned the Prime Minister and informed him that
there was no resistance in Beirut and that all the operations were
going along well.
During the aforementioned meeting between the
Minister of Defense and the Chief of Staff, present on the roof of the
forward command post were the Defense Minister's aide, Mr. Avi Dudai;
the director of Military Intelligence, who came to this meeting
together with the Minister of Defense; representative A of the Mossad
(his full name appears in the list of names, section 1, Appendix B);
Major-General Drori; Brigadier-General Yaron; Intelligence officer B;
the head of the General Security Services; Deputy Chief of Staff
Major-General Moshe Levi; and other I.D.F. officers who were
accompanying the Minister of Defense. Dudai recorded in his notebook
what was said and agreed upon at that meeting. According to Dudais
testimony, he later copied these notes into another notebook, pages of
which were presented before us (exhibit 103). These notes stated, inter
alia, that the Phalangists were to be sent into the camps. The Minister
of Defense spoke with the Prime Minister twice from the roof of the
command post. According to the record of these conversations (exhibits
100 and 101), in one of them the wording of the I.D.F. Spokesman's
announcement was agreed upon as follows:
"Following the murder of President-elect Bashir
Jemayel, I.D.F. forces entered West Beirut tonight to prevent possible
grave occurrences and to ensure quiet.
"The entry of the I.D.F. forces was executed without resistance."
From the forward command post the Minsiter of
Defense went to the Phalangist headquarters. A record was made of this
meeting, which was attended by a number of Phalangist commanders as
well as the Minister of Defense, the director of Military Intelligence,
the head of the General Security Services and representatives of the
Mossad (exhibit 79). At that meeting, the Minister of Defense stated,
inter alia, that the I.D.F. would take over focal points and junctions
in West Beirut, but that the Phalangist army would also have to enter
West Beirut after the I.D.F. and that the Phalangist commanders should
maintain contact with Major-General Drori, G.O.C. Northern Command,
regarding the modes of operation. A record of this meeting was made by
Intelligence officer B (exhibit 28). From there the Minister of Defense
went to Bikfaya, to the Jemayel family home, to pay a condolence call.
From the meeting with the Jemayel family in Bikfaya,
the Minister of Defense went to the airport, and on the way he met with
Major-General Drori at a gas station. This meeting took place in the
presence of a number of people, including the director of Military
Intelligence, the head of the General Security Services, Mr. Duda'i,
and the bureau chief of the director of Military Intelligence,
Lieutenant-Colonel Hevroni. The situation of the forces was discussed
at this meeting, and Major-General Drori reported on the course of
events during the I.D.F.'s entry into West Beirut. From there the
Minister of Defense went on to the airport and met there with the Chief
of Staff and the Deputy Chief of Staff at about 2:00 p.m., after which
the Minister of Defense returned to Israel.
That same day, 15.9.82, while the Minister of
Defense was in Beirut, a meeting took place at 11:30 a.m. in the Prime
Minister's Office between the Prime minister and others from the
American embassy in Israel. During that meeting (protocol of the
meeting, exhibit 120), the Prime Minister informed Mr. Draper that I.
D.F. forces had entered West Beirut beginning in the morning hours,
that there were no real clashes, that the I.D.F. action was undertaken
in order to prevent certain possible events, and that we were concerned
that there might be bloodshed even during the night. The Prime Minister
also said that the Phalangists were behaving properly; their commander
had not been injured in the assassination and was in control of his
forces; he is a good man and we trust him not to cause any clashes, but
there is no assurance regarding other forces. He added that the primary
immediate task was to preserve quiet, for as long as quiet is
maintained it will be possible to talk; otherwise there might have been
pogroms, and the calm was preserved for the time being (exhibit 120).
At 4:00 p.m. on Wednesday, 15.9.82, a briefing took
place at the office of the Deputy Chief of Staff with the participation
of the I.D.F. branch heads, including the assistant for research to the
director of Military Intelligence. The meeting began with a review by
the assistant for research to the director of Military Intelligence of
possible political developments in Lebanon following the death of
Bashir Jemayel. He stated, inter alia (page 4 of the transcript
of the discussion, exhibit 130), that the I.D.F.'s entry into West
Beirut was perceived as vital not only by the Christians but also by
the Muslims, who regarded the I.D.F. as the only factor that could
prevent bloodshed in the area and protect the Sunni Muslims from the
Phalangists. The Intelligence officer also stated that according to
what was known to Military Intelligence, the attack on Bashir was
carried out by the Mourabitoun, though that was not certain. During the
meeting, the head of Operations Department announced that the
Phalangists "are encouraging entry into the camps" (p. 7 of exhibit
130). The Deputy Chief of Staff reported his impressions of the meeting
at Phalangist headquarters in Beirut that day and said that the
intention was to send the Phalangists into the refugee camps and
afterwards perhaps into the city as well. He added that this "might
create an uproar," because the armed forces in West Beirut that were
then quiet might stir up a commotion upon learning that Phalangists are
coming in behind the I.D.F. (page 11, exhibit 130).
At 6:00 p.m. the Minister of Defense spoke with the
Prime Minister from his home and reported (exhibit 99) that by evening
the I.D.F. would be in all the places; that he had conveyed the Prime
Minister's words to Pierre Jemayel; and that "everything is in order"
and the decision made on the previous night to send the I.D.F. into
Beirut had been most important and [indeed] should not have been
delayed.
The Chief of Staff remained at the forward command
post in Beirut and followed the development of the I.D.F. actions from
there. On that day the Phalangist officers did not arrive at the
forward command post to coordinate operations, but Major-General Drori
met with them in the evening and told them generally that their entry
into the camps would be from the direction of Shatilla. Major-General
Drori, who was not at ease with the plan to send the Phalangists into
the camps, made an effort to persuade the commanders of the Lebanese
Army that their forces should enter the camps and that they should
prevail upon the Prime Minister of Lebanon to agree to this move. The
reply of the Lebanese Army at the time was negative.
In the early morning hours of Thursday, 16.9.82, the
Chief of Staff left the forward command post and returned to Tel Aviv.
That same morning, in the wake of political pressure, an order was
issued by the Minister of Defense to halt the I.D.F.'s combat
operations; but after a short time the Minister of Defense rescinded
the order. At 10:00 a.m. the Minister of Defense held a consultation in
his office with the Chief of Staff; the director of Military
Intelligence, Brigadier-General Y. Saguy; Lieutenant-Colonel Zecharin,
the Chief of Staffs bureau chief; and Mr. Dudai (exhibit 27 is a record
of what was said at that meeting). The meeting was opened by the Chief
of Staff, who announced that "the whole city is in our hands, complete
quiet prevails now, the camps are closed and surrounded; the
Phalangists are to go in at 11:00-12:00. Yesterday we spoke to them...
The situation now is that the entire city is in our hands, the camps
are all closed." Later on in his statement, while pointing to a map,
the Chief of Staff stated that the areas marked on the map were in the
hands of the 1. D. F. and that the Fakahani, Sabra, and Shatilla camps
were surrounded. He also said that if the Phalangists came to a
coordinating session and wanted to go in, it was agreed with them that
they would go in and that the Lebanese Army could also enter the city
wherever it chose. At this discussion, the Minister of Defense spoke of
the heavy American pressure to have the I.D.F. leave West Beirut and of
the political pressure from other sources. In the course of the
meeting, the Chief of Staff repeated a number of times that at that
moment everything was quiet in West Beirut. As for going into the
camps, the Minister of Defense stated that he would send the
Phalangists into the refugee camps (p. 5, exhibit 27). At the time of
the consultation, the Minister of Defense informed the Prime Minister
by phone that "the fighting has ended. The refugee camps are
surrounded. The firing has stopped. We have not suffered any more
casualties. Everything is calm and quiet. Sitting opposite me is the
chief of Staff, who has just come from there. All the key points are in
our hands. Everything's over. I am bringing the Chief of Staff to the
Cabinet meeting. That's the situation as of now..." After this
conversation, the Chief of Staff reported on the contacts during the
night of 14.9.82 with the members of the Mourabitoun, in which the
members of this militia said that they were unable to hide, that they
were Lebanese, and that they would undoubtedly all be killed by the
Phalangists, whether immediately or some time later. The Chief of Staff
added that "there's such a dual kind of situation that they're
confused. They're seething with a feeling of revenge, and there might
have been rivers of blood there. We won't go into the refugee camps"
(p. 7, exhibit 27). As stated, participating in this consultation was
the director of Military Intelligence, who in the course of the
discussion stated a number of things that appear in the aforementioned
record.
The commanders of the Phalangists arrived for their
first coordinating session regarding the entry of their forces into the
camps at about 11:00 a.m. on Thursday, 16.9.82, and met with
Major-General Drori at the headquarters of one of the divisions. It was
agreed at that meeting that they would enter the camps and coordinate
this action with Brigadier-General Yaron, commander of the division.
This coordination between Brigadier-General Yaron and the Phalangist
commanders would take place on Thursday afternoon at the forward
command post. It was likewise agreed at that meeting that a company of
150 fighters from the Phalangist force would enter the camps and that
they would do so from south to north and from west to east.
Brigadier-General Yaron spoke with the Phalangists about the places
where the terrorists were located in the camps and also warned them not
to harm the civilian population. He had mentioned that, he stated,
because he knew that the Phalangists' norms of conduct are not like
those of the I.D.F. and he had had arguments with the Phalangists over
this issue in the past, Brigadier-General Yaron set up lookout posts on
the roof of the forward command post and on a nearby roof even though
he knew that it was impossible to see very much of what was going on in
the camps from these lookouts. An order was also issued regarding an
additional precautionary measure whose purpose was to ascertain the
actions of the Phalangist forces during their operation in the camps
(this measure is cited in section 5, Appendix B). It was also agreed
that a Phalangist liaison officer with a communications set would be
present at all times on the roof of the forward command post - in
addition to the Mossad liaison officer at the Phalangist headquarters.
The Phalangist unit that was supposed to enter the camps was an
intelligence unit headed, as we have said, by Elie Hobeika. Hobeika did
not go into the camps with his unit and was on the roof of the forward
command post during the night (testimony of Brigadier-General Yaron, p.
726). This unit was assigned the task of entering the camps at that
time for two reasons, first - since the ... Phalangists had difficulty
recruiting another appropriate force till then; second - since the
members of this unit were considered specially trained in discovering
terrorists, who tried to hide among the civilian population.
On 16.9.82 a document was issued by the Defense
Minister's office, signed by the personal aide to the Defense Minister,
Mr. Avi Dudai, which contained "The Defense Minister's Summary of 15
September 1982." This document is (exhibit 34) a summary of the things
which Mr. Dudai had recorded during his visit with the Defense Minister
in Beirut on 15.9.82, as detailed above. In various paragraphs of the
document there is mention of the Defense Minister's instructions
regarding the entry into West Beirut. The instruction in paragraph F.
is important to the matter at had; it is stated there:
"F. Only one element, and that is the I.D.F., shall
command the forces in the area. For the operation in the camps the
Phalangists should be sent in."
The document is directed to the Chief of Staff, the
Deputy Chief of Staff and the director of Military Intelligence. The
document was received at the office of the director of Military
Intelligence, according to the stamp appearing on the copy (exhibit
35), on 17.9.82.
In the testimonies we have heard, different
interpretations were given to the instruction that only the I.D.F.
command the forces in the area. According to one interpretation, and
this is the interpretation given the document by the Chief of Staff (p.
257), the meaning of the instruction is that in contacts with external
elements, and especially with the Phalangists, only the I.D.F., and not
another Israeli element, such as the Mossad, will command the forces in
the area - but this does not mean that the Phalangist force will be
under the command of the I.D.F. On the other hand, according to the
interpretation given the document by the director of Military
Intelligence (pp. 127, 1523), the meaning is that all forces operating
in the area, including the Phalangists, will be under the authority of
the I.D.F. and will act according to its instructions.
The entry of the Phalangists into the camps began
at about 18.00 on Thursday, 16.9.82 At that time there were armed
terrorist forces in the camps. We cannot establish the extent of these
forces, but they possessed various types of arms,
which they used - even before the entry of the
Phalangists - against I.D.F. forces that had approached the area, as
well as against ' the I.D.F. headquarters at the forward command post.
It is possible to determine that this armed terrorist force
had not been evacuated during the general
evacuation, but had stayed in the camps for two purposes, which were -
renewal of underground terrorist activity at a later period, and to
protect the civilian population which had remained in the camps,
keeping in mind that given the hostility prevailing between the various
sects and organizations, a population without armed protection was in
danger of massacre. It should be added here that during the
negotiations for evacuation, a guarantee for the safety of the Muslims
in West Beirut was given by the representative of the United States who
conducted the negotiations, following assurances received from the
government of Israel and from Lebanon.
Meanwhile, as we have said, the multi-national force
left Lebanon, and all the previous plans regarding the control of West
Beirut by the Lebanese government were disrupted due to the
assassination of President-elect Bashir Jemayel.
The Events from the Entry of
the Phalangists into the Sabra and Shatilla Camps until their Departure
On Thursday, 16.9.82, at approximately 18:00 hours,
members of the Phalangists entered the Shatilla camp from the west and
south. They entered in two groups, and once they had passed the battery
surrounding the camps their movements within the camps were not visible
from the roof of the forward command post or from the observation sites
on other roofs. The Divisional Intelligence Officer tried to follow
their movements using binoculars which he shifted from place to place,
but was unable to see their movements or their actions. With the entry
of the Phalangists into the camps, the firing which had been coming
from the camps changed direction; the shooting which had previously
been directed against the I.D.F. now shifted in the direction of the
Phalangists' liaison officer on the roof of the forward command post.
G. (his full name appears in the list of names, Section 1, Appendix B)
requested the I.D.F. to provide illumination for the force which was
moving in, since its entry was taking place after dark. Initially, the
illumination was provided by a mortar company, and subsequently also by
aircraft; but because the illumination from the planes interfered with
the evacuation of casualties of an I.D.F. unit, this source of
illumination was halted; mortar illumination continued intermittently
throughout the night.
At approximately 8:00 p.m., the Phalangists' liaison
officer, G., said that the Phalangists who had entered the camps had
sustained casualties, and the casualties were evacuated from the camps.
Major General Drori was at the forward command post from approximately
7:30 p.m. and followed the fighting as it was visible from the roof of
the forward command post. He left the site after 8:00 p.m.
Several Intelligence Branch personnel, headed by the
Division Intelligence Officer, were in the building on whose roof the
forward command post was situated. The Intelligence officer, who wanted
to obtain information on the Phalangists' activities, ordered that two
actions be carried out to obtain that information (these actions are
detailed in Section 5, Appendix B). No information was obtained in the
wake of the first action. As a result of the second action the
Intelligence Officer received a report according to which the
Phalangists' liaison officer had heard via radio from one of the
Phalangists inside the camps that he was holding 45 people. That person
asked what he should do with the people, and the liaison officer's
reply was "Do the will of God," or words to that effect. The
Intelligence Officer received this report at approximately 20:00 hours
from the person on the roof who heard the conversation. He did not
convey the report to anyone else, because an officers' briefing was
scheduled to take place at field headquarters shortly afterward.
At about the same time or slightly earlier, at
approximately 7:00 p.m., Lieutenant Elul, who was then serving as Chief
of Bureau of the Divisional Commander, overheard another conversation
that took place over the Phalangists' transmitter. According to Lt.
Elul's testimony, while he was on the roof of the forward command post,
next to the Phalangists' communications set, he heard a Phalangist
officer from the force that had entered the camps tell Elie Hobeika (in
Arabic) that there were 50 women and children, and what should he do.
Elie Hobeika's reply over the radio was: "This is the last time you're
going to ask me a question like that, you know exactly what to do;" and
then raucous laughter broke out among the Phalangist personnel on the
roof. Lieutenant Elul understood that what was involved was the murder
of the women and children. According to his testimony, Brigadier
General Yaron, who was also on the forward command post roof then,
asked him what he had overheard on the radio; and after Lieutenant Elul
told him the content of the conversation, Brigadier General Yaron went
over to Hobeika and spoke with him in English for about five minutes
(for Lt. Elul's testimony, see pp. 1209-1210a). Lt. Elul did not hear
the conversation between Brigadier General Yaron and Hobeika.
Brigadier General Yaron, who was on the roof of the
forward command post, received from Lt. Elul a report of what he had
heard. According to Brigadier General Yaron's testimony, the report
conveyed to him by Lt. Elul stated that one of the Phalangists had
asked the commander what to do with 45 people, and the reply had been
to do with them what God orders you to do (testimony of Brigadier
General Yaron, pp. 696 and 730). According to Brigadier General Yaron,
he understood from what he had heard that the reference was to 45 dead
terrorists. In his testimony, Brigadier General Yaron linked this
report with what he had heard in the update briefing that evening -
which will be discussed below - from the Divisional Intelligence
Officer. From Brigadier General Yaron's remarks in his testimony it
emerges that he regarded the two reports - from Lt. Elul and from the
Intelligence officer - as being one report from two different sources.
We have no doubt that in this instance there were two different and
separate reports. As noted the report which the Intelligence Officer
obtained originated in a conversation held over the radio with Elie
Hobeika. Although both reports referred to a group of 45-50 persons,
and it is, not to be ruled out that the questions asked over the radios
referred to the same group of persons, it is clear, both from the fact
that the replies given were different in content - the reply of the
liaison officer was to do with the group of people as God commands,
while Hobeika's reply was different - that two different conversations
took place regarding the fate of the people who had fallen into the
Phalangists' hands. As noted, Brigadier General Yaron did not deny in
his testimony that Lt. Elul had translated for him and told him what he
had heard when the two of them were on the roof of the forward command
post. We have no reason to think that Lt. Elul did not inform Brigadier
General Yaron of everything he had heard. It is noteworthy that Lt.
Elul testified before us after Brigadier General Yaron had testified
and before the notices were sent in accordance with section 15(A) of
the law; and his statement to the Staff Investigators (no. 87) was also
given after Brigadier General Yaron's testimony. Brigadier General
Yaron did not testify again after the notice in accordance with section
15(A) had been sent, nor was there any request on his part to question
Lt. Elul. We assert that Lt. Elul informed Brigadier General Yaron of
the content of the conversation which took place with Elie Hobeika as
specified above.
An additional report relating to the actions of the
Phalangists in the camps vis-a-vis the civilians there came from
liaison officer G. of the Phalangists. When he entered the dining room
in the forward command post building at approximately 8:00 p.m., that
liaison officer told various people that about 300 persons had been
killed by the Phalangists, among them also civilians. He stated this in
the presence of many I.D.F. officers who were there, including
Brigadier General Yaron. We had different versions of the exact wording
of this statement by Phalangist officer G., but from all the testimony
we have heard it is clear that he said that as a result of the
Phalangists' operations up to that time, 300 terrorists and civilians
had been killed in the camps. Shortly thereafter, Phalangist officer G.
returned to the dining room and amended his earlier report by reducing
the number of casualties from 300 to 120.
At 20:40 hours that evening an update briefing was
held in the forward command post building with the participation of
various I.D.F. officers who were in the building at that time, headed
by Brigadier General Yaron. The remarks made at that meeting were
recorded by a Major from the History Section in the Operations Branch/
Training Section. We were given the tape recording and a transcript
thereof (exhibit 155). At the meeting Brigadier General Yaron spoke of
the I.D.F.'s progress and deployment, and about the Phalangists' entry
into the camps and the combing operations they were carrying out.
Following that briefing, the Divisional Intelligence Officer spoke. In
the course of his intelligence survey regarding the terrorists and
other armed forces in west Beirut, he said the following (pp. 4 and 5
of the transcript, exhibit 155):
"The Phalangists went in today. I do not know what
level of combat they are showing. It is difficult to see it because it
is dark... The impression is that their fighting is not too serious.
They have casualties, as you know - two wounded, one in the leg and one
in the hand. The casualties were evacuated in one of their ambulances.
And they, it turns out, are pondering what to do with the population
they are finding inside. On the one hand, it seems, there are no
terrorists there, in the camp; Sabra camp is empty. On the other hand,
they have amassed women, children and apparently also old people, with
whom they don't exactly know what to do (Amos, this refers back to our
talk), and evidently they had some sort of decision in principle that
they would concentrate them together, and lead them to some place
outside the camps. On the other hand, I also heard (from - the
Phalangists' liaison officer G.)... that 'do what your heart tells you,
because everything comes from God. 'That is, I do not -"
At this point Brigadier General Yaron interrupted the Intelligence Officer and the following dialogue ensued between them:
Brigadier General Yaron: "Nothing, no, no. I
went to see him up top and they have no problems at all.
Intelligence Officer: "People remaining in the
field? Without their lives being in any danger?
Brigadier General Yaron: "It will not, will
not harm them."
Following this exchange, the Intelligence Officer
went on to another subject. The Phalangists' actions against the people
in the camps were not mentioned again in this update briefing.
In his testimony, Brigadier General Yaron explained
his remark about his visit "with him up top and they have no problems
at all" by saying that he had spoken several times that evening with
the Phalangist officers on the roof of the forward command post after
he had heard the first report about 45 people and also after the
further report about 300 or 120 casualties; and even though he had been
skeptical about the reliability of these reports and had not understood
from them that children, women or civilians had been murdered in
massacres perpetrated by the Phalangists, he had warned them several
times not to harm civilians and had been assured that they would issue
the appropriate orders to that effect. (pp. 731-732).
Between approximately 22:00 hours and 23:00 hours
the Divisional Intelligence Officer contacted Northern Command, spoke
with the Deputy Intelligence Officer there, asked if Northern Command
had received any sort of report, was told in reply that there was no
report, and told the Deputy Intelligence officer of Northern Command
about the Phalangist officer's report concerning 300 terrorists and
civilians who had been killed, and about the amendment to that report
whereby the number of those killed was only 120. The divisional
Intelligence Officer asked the Deputy Intelligence Officer of Northern
Command to look into the matter more thoroughly. Intelligence Officer
A. was in the room while that conversation took place, and when he
heard about that report he phoned Intelligence Branch Research at the
General Staff, spoke with two Intelligence Branch officers there and
told them that Phalangist personnel had so far liquidated 300
terrorists and civilians (testimony of Intelligence Officer A., p.
576). He went on to add that he had a heavy feeling about the
significance of this report, that he regarded it as an important and
highly sensitive report which would interest the senior responsible
levels, and that this was the kind of report that would prove of
interest to the Director of Military Intelligence personally. In the
wake of these remarks, the personnel in Intelligence Branch research of
the General Staff Branch who had been given the report carried out
certain telephone clarifications, and the report was conveyed to
various persons. The manner in which the report was conveyed and the
way it was handled are described in Section 6, Appendix B. Suffice it
to note here that a telephone report about this information was
conveyed to Lt. Col. Hevroni, Chief of Bureau of the director of
Military Intelligence, on 17.9.82 at 5:30 a.m. The text of the report,
which was distributed to various Intelligence units and, as noted, also
reached the office of the director of Military Intelligence, appears in
Appendix A of Exhibit 29 That document contained a marking, noting that
its origin lay with the forward command post of Northern Command, that
it was received on 16.9.82 at 23:20 hours, and that the content of the
report was as follows:
"Preliminary information conveyed by the commander
of the local Phalangist force in the Shatilla refugee camp states that
so far his men have liquidated about 300 people. This number includes
terrorists and civilians."
The action taken in the wake of this report in the
office of the Director of Military Intelligence will be discussed in
this report below.
On Thursday, 16.9.82, at 19:30 hours, the Cabinet
convened for a session with the participation of - besides the Prime
Minister and the Cabinet Ministers (except for 5 Ministers who were
abroad) - a number of persons who are not Cabinet members, among them
the Chief of Staff, the head of the Mossad and the director of Military
Intelligence. The subject discussed at that meeting was the situation
in Lebanon in the wake of the assassination of Bashir Jemayel. At the
start of the session, the Prime Minister reported on the chain of
events following the report about the attempt on Bashir's life. The
Minister of Defense then gave a detailed survey. The Chief of Staff
provided details about the I.D.F.'s operation in West Beirut and about
his meetings with Phalangist personnel. He said, inter alia,
that he had informed the Phalangist commanders that their men would
have to take part in the operation and go in where they were told, that
early that evening they would begin to fight and would enter the
extremity of Sabra, that the I.D.F. would ensure that they did not fail
in their operation but I.D.F. soldiers would not enter the camps and
would not fight together with the Phalangists, rather the Phalangists
would go in there "with their own methods" (p. 16 of the minutes of the
meeting, Exhibit 122). In his remarks the Chief of Staff explained that
the camps were surrounded "by us," that the Phalangists would begin to
operate that night in the camps, that we could give them orders whereas
it was impossible to give orders to the Lebanese Army, and that the
I.D.F. would be assisted by the Phalangists and perhaps also the
Lebanese Army in collecting weapons. With respect to the consequences
of Bashir's assassination, the Chief of Staff said that in the
situation which had been created, two things could happen. One was that
the entire power structure of the Phalangists would collapse, though as
yet this had not occurred. Regarding the second possibility, the Chief
of Staff said as follows (pp. 21-22 of Exhibit 122):
"A second thing that will happen - and it makes no
difference whether we are there or not - is an eruption of revenge
which, I do not know, I can imagine how it will begin, but I do not
know how it will end. it will be between all of them, and neither the
Americans nor anyone else will be of any help. We can cut it down, but
today they already killed Druze there. What difference does it make who
or what? They have already killed them, and one dead Druze is enough so
that tomorrow four Christian children will be killed; they will find
them slaughtered, just like what happened a month ago; and that is how
it will begin, if we are not there - it will be an eruption the likes
of which has never been seen; I can already see in their eyes what they
are waiting for.
"Yesterday afternoon a group of Phalangist officers
came, they were stunned, still stunned, and they still cannot conceive
to themselves how their hope was destroyed in one blow, a hope for
which they built and sacrificed so much; and now they have just one
thing left to do, and that is revenge; and it will be terrible."
At this point the Chief of Staff was asked "if there
is any chance of knowing who did it, and to direct them at whoever
perpetrated the deed," and he continued:
"There is no such thing there. Among the Arabs
revenge means that if someone kills someone from the tribe, then the
whole tribe is guilty. A hundred years will go by, and there will still
be someone killing someone else from the tribe from which someone had
killed a hundred years earlier...
"I told Draper this today, and he said there is a
Lebanese Army, and so on. I told him that it was enough that during
Bashir's funeral Amin Jemayel, the brother, said 'revenge'; that is
already enough. This is a war that no one will be able to stop. It
might not happen tomorrow, but it will happen.
"It is enough that he uttered the word 'revenge' and the whole establishment is already sharpening knives..."
Toward the end of his remarks, the Chief of Staff
referred to a map and explained that with the exception of one section
everything was in the hands of the I.D.F., the I.D.F. was not entering
the refugee camps, "and the Phalangists are this evening beginning to
enter the area between Sabra and Fakahani" (p. 25). At that meeting the
Head of the Mossad also gave a briefing on the situation after the
assassination of Bashir, but made no reference to the Phalangists'
entry into the camps. There was considerable discussion in that meeting
about the danger of the United States at the I.D.F.'s entry into West
Beirut, the general opinion being that the decision to go in was
justified and correct. Toward the close of the meeting there was
discussion regarding the wording of a resolution, and then Deputy Prime
Minister D. Levy said that the problem was not the formulation of a
resolution, but that the I.D.F.'s continued stay in Beirut was liable
to generate an undesirable situation of massive pressure regarding its
stay there. Minister Levy stated that he accepted the contention
regarding the I.D.F.'s entry into Beirut, and he then continued (p. 91):
"We wanted to prevent chaos at a certain moment
whose significance cannot be disregarded. When confusion exists which
someone else could also have exploited, the situation can be explained
in a convincing way. But that argument could be undercut and we could
come out with no credibility when I hear that the Phalangists are
already entering a certain neighborhood - and I know what the meaning
of revenge is for them, what kind of slaughter. Then no one will
believe we went in to create order there, and we will bear the blame.
Therefore, I think that we are liable here to get into a situation in
which we will be blamed, and our explanations will not stand up..."
No reaction was forthcoming from those present at
the meeting to this part of Deputy Prime Minister D. Levy's remarks.
Prior to the close of the session the Prime Minister put forward a
draft resolution which, with certain changes, was accepted by all the
Ministers. That resolution opens with the words:
"In the wake of the assassination of the
President-elect Bashir Jemayel, the I.D.F. has seized positions in West
Beirut in order to forestall the danger of violence, bloodshed and
chaos, as some 2,000 terrorists, equipped with modern and heavy
weapons, have remained in Beirut, in flagrant violation of the
evacuation agreement..."
Here we must note that the Director of Military
Intelligence was present at the outset of the meeting but left, after
having received permission to do so from the Minister of Defense, not
long after the start of the session, and certainly a considerable time
before Minister D. Levy made the remarks quoted above.
Brigadier-General Yaron did not inform Major-General
Drori of the reports which had reached him on Thursday evening
regarding the actions of the Phalangists vis-a-vis
non-combatants in the camps, and reports about aberrations did not
reach Major-General Drorl until Friday, 17.9.82, in the morning hours.
On Friday morning Major-General Drori contacted Brigadier-General
Yaron, received from him a report about various matters relating to the
war, and heard from him that the Phalangists had sustained a number of
casualties, but heard nothing about casualties among the civilian
population in the camps (testimony of Major-General Drori, p. 404).
That same morning Major General Drori spoke with the Chief of Staff and
heard from him that the Chief of Staff might come to Beirut that day.
In the early hours of that morning a note lay on a
table in the Northern Command situation room in Aley. The note read as
follows:
"During the night the Phalangists entered the Sabra
and Shatilla refugee camps. Even though it was agreed that they would
not harm civilians, they 'butchered.' They did not operate in orderly
fashion but dispersed. They had casualties, including two killed. They
will organize to operate in a more orderly manner - we will see to it
that they are moved into the area."
Lieutenant-Colonel Idel, of the History Section in
Operations Branch/Training Section, saw this note on the table and
copied it into a notebook in which he recorded details about certain
events, as required by his position. It has not been clarified who
wrote the note or what the origin was of the information it contained,
even though on this matter the staff investigators questioned many
persons who held various positions where the note was found. The note
itself was not found, and we know its content only because
Lieutenant-Colonel Idel recorded it in his notebook.
The G.O.C. held a staff meeting at 8:00 a.m. in
which nothing was said about the existence of reports regarding the
Phalangists' actions in the camps.
Already during the night between Thursday and
Friday, the report about excesses committed by the Phalangists in the
camps circulated among I.D.F. officers who were at the forward command
post. Two Phalangists were killed that night during their operation in
the camps. When the report about their casualties reached the
Phalangists' liaison officer, G., along with a complaint from one of
the Phalangist commanders in the field that the I.D.F. was not
supplying sufficient illumination, the liaison officer asked
Lieutenant-Colonel Treiber, one of the Operations Branch officers at
the forward command post, to increase the illumination for the
Phalangists. Lieutenant-Colonel Treiber's response was that the
Phalangists had killed 300 people and he was not willing to provide
them with illumination (testimony of Lieutenant Elul, pp. 1212-1213).
Lieutenant-Colonel Treiber subsequently ordered that limited
illumination be provided for the Phalangists.
In the early hours of the morning, additional
officers at the forward command post heard from the Phalangists'
liaison officer, G., that acts of killing had been committed in the
camps but had been halted (statements 22 and 167).
At approximately 9:00 a.m. on Friday, Brigadier
General Yaron met with representatives of the Phalangists at the
forward command post and discussed with them the entry of an additional
force of Phalangists into the camps. Afterwards, according to the
testimony of Major General Drori (p. 1600), he met with Brigadier
General Yaron in the Cite of Beirut, where they discussed the activity
of the I.D.F. troops and other matters related to the war; but
Brigadier General Yaron said nothing to him at that meeting about
excesses committed by the Phalangists.
Brigadier General Yaron's testimony contains a
different version of the talk between him and Major General Drori that
morning. According to that testimony, Brigadier General Yaron received
reports that morning about a woman who claimed that she had been struck
in the face by Phalangists, [and] about a child who had been kidnapped
and whose father had complained to the Divisional Operations Officer;
and Brigadier General Yaron had seen liaison officer G. arguing with
other Phalangists. From all this Brigadier General Yaron inferred that
something was amiss, or as he put it, "something smelled fishy to me"
(p. 700). He phoned Major General Drori and told him something did not
look right to him, and as a result of this conversation, Major General
Drori arrived at the forward command post at approximately 11:00 a.m.
According to Major General Drori, he arrived at the forward command
post without having heard any report that something was wrong in the
camps, simply as part of a routine visit to various divisions. We see
no need to decide between these two versions.
When Major General Drori arrived at the Divisional
forward command post he spoke with Colonel Duvdevani and with Brigadier
General Yaron. We also have differing versions regarding what Major
General Drori heard on that occasion. In his statement (No. 2) Colonel
Duvdevani related that he said he had a bad feeling about what was
going on in the camps. According to his statement, this feeling was
caused by the report of liaison officer G. about 100 dead and also
because it was not known what the Phalangists were doing inside the
camps. Colonel Duvdevani did not recall whether Major General Drori had
asked him about the reasons for his bad feeling. Brigadier General
Yaron testified (p. 701) that he had told Major General Drori
everything he knew at that time, namely those matters detailed above
which had caused his bad feeling. According to Major General Drori's
testimony, he heard about three specific matters on that occasion. The
first was the blow to the woman's head; the second - which was not
directly related to the camps - was that in one neighbourhood, namely
San Simon, Phalangists had beaten residents; and the third matter was
that a feeling existed that the Phalangists were carrying out "an
unclean mopping-up" - that is, their soldiers were not calling on the
residents - as I.D.F. soldiers do - to come out before opening fire on
a house which was to be "mopped up," but were "going into the house
firing" (testimony of Major General Drori, pp. 408, 1593-1594). No
evidence existed that, at that meeting or earlier, anyone had told
Major General Drori about the reports of 45 people whose fate was
sealed, or about the 300 killed; nor is there any clear evidence that
he was told of a specific number of people who had been killed. After
Major General Drori heard what he heard from Colonel Duvdevani and
Brigadier General Yaron, he ordered Brigadier General Yaron to halt the
operations of the Phalangists, meaning that the Phalangists should stop
where they were in the camps and advance no further. Brigadier General
Yaron testified that he suggested to Major General Drori to issue this
order (p. 701). The order was conveyed to the Phalangist commanders. On
that same occasion Major General Drori spoke with the Chief of Staff by
phone about several matters relating to the situation in Beirut, told
him that he thought the Phalangists had perhaps "gone too far" and that
he had ordered their operation to be halted (p. 412). A similar version
of this conversation appears in the Chief of Staff's testimony (pp.
232-233). The Chief of Staff testified that he had heard from Major
General Drori that something was amiss in the Phalangists' actions. The
Chief of Staff asked no questions, but told Major General Drori that he
would come to Beirut that afternoon.
As mentioned above, the cable report (appendix
exhibit 29) regarding 300 killed reached the office of the director of
Military Intelligence on 17.9.82 at 5:30 a.m. The text of this cable
was transmitted to the director of Military Intelligence at his home in
a morning report at 6:15 a.m., as part of a routine update transmitted
to the director of Military Intelligence every morning by telephone.
From the content of the cable, the director of Military Intelligence
understood that the source of the report is Operations and not
Intelligence, and that its source is the Northern Command forward
command post. According to the testimony of the director of Military
Intelligence, the details of which we shall treat later, he did not
know then that it had been decided to send the Phalangists into the
camps and that they were operating there; therefore, when he heard the
report, he asked what the Phalangists were doing - and he was told that
they had been operating in the camps since the previous day (p. 120,
123). When the director of Military Intelligence arrived at his office
at 8:00 a.m., he asked his bureau chief where the report had
originated, and he was told that it was an "Operations" report. He
ordered that it be immediately ascertained what was happening in the
Sabra and Shatilla camps. The clarifications continued in different
ways (described in section 6 of appendix B) during Friday morning, but
no confirmation of the report was obtained; and the intelligence
personnel who dealt with the clarifications treated it as a report
which for them is unreliable, is unconfirmed, and therefore it would
not be proper to circulate it according to the standard procedure, by
which important and urgent intelligence reports are circulated. The
content of the cable was circulated to a number of intelligence
personnel (whose positions were noted on the cable form) and was
conveyed to the Mossad and the General Security Services. Since the
source of the report seemed to those Intelligence Branch personnel who
dealt with the matter to be Operations, it was not accorded the
standard treatment given reports from Intelligence sources, but rather
the assumption was that Operations personnel were dealing with the
report in their own way. The answers received by the director of
Military Intelligence to his demand for clarification were that there
were no further details. The director of Military Intelligence did not
know that the report had been transmitted by Intelligence Officer A.
The report was transmitted verbally, incidentally, by the assistant to
the bureau chief of the director of Military Intelligence to Lieutenant
Colonel Gai of the Defense Ministry's situation room, when the latter
arrived at about 7:30 a.m. at the office of the director of Military
Intelligence. One of the disputed questions in this inquiry is whether
Lieutenant Colonel Gai transmitted, the report to Mr. Dudai; we shall
discuss this matter separately. Suffice it to say here that we have no
evidence that the report was transmitted to the Defense Minister or
came to his knowledge in another way.
At 7:30 a.m. on Friday there was a special morning
briefing at the [office of] the assistant for research to the director
of Military Intelligence. At the meeting, in which various intelligence
personnel participated, the aforementioned report was discussed, and it
was said that it can not be verified. The assistant for research to the
director of Military Intelligence gave an order to continue checking
the report. He knew that the source of the report was Intelligence
officer A. The assistant for research to the director of Military
Intelligence also treated this report with skepticism, both because the
number of killed seemed exaggerated to him and since there had been no
additional confirmation of the report (pp. 1110-1113). The director of
Military Intelligence took no action on his part regarding the
aforementioned report, except for requesting the clarification, and did
not speak about it with the Chief of Staff or the Minister of Defense,
even though he met with them that morning.
As mentioned above, the reports of unusual things
occurring in the camps circulated among the officers at the forward
command post already during the night and in the morning hours of
Friday, and they reached other I.D.F. officers and soldiers in the
area. At approximately 8:00 a.m., the journalist Mr. Ze'ev Schiff
received a report from the General Staff in Tel Aviv, from a man whose
name he has refused to disclose, that there was a slaughter in the
camps. The transmitter of the report used the Arabic expression dab'h.
He was not told of the extent of the slaughter. He tried to check the
report with Military Intelligence and Operations, and also with the
Mossad, but received no confirmation, except the comment that "there's
something." At 11:00 a.m. Mr. Schiff met with Minister Zipori at the
minister's office and spoke with him about the report he had received.
Minister Zipori tried to contact the director of Military Intelligence
and the head of the General Security Services by phone, but did not
reach them. At approximately 11:15 a.m., he called the Foreign
Minister, Mr. Yitzhak Shamir, and spoke with him about the report he
had received from Mr. Schiff. According to the testimony of Minister
Zipori, he said in that telephone conversation with Mr. Shamir that he
had received reports that the Phalangists "are carrying out a
slaughter" and asked that Minister Shamir check the matter with the
people who would be with him momentarily and whose planned visit was
known to Minister Zipori (Minister Zipori's testimony, p. 1097).
According to Mr. Schiff's statement to the staff investigators (no.
83), Minister Zipori said in that conversation that "they are killing
in the camps" and proposed that "it is worth checking the matter
through your channels."
We heard a different version of the content of the
conversation from Minister Shamir. Minister Shamir knew of the entry of
the Phalangists into the camps from what he had heard at the
aforementioned cabinet meeting of 16.9.82. According to him, Minister
Zipori told him in the aforementioned telephone conversation that he
knows that Minister Shamir was to meet soon with representatives of the
United States on the situation in West Beirut, and therefore he deems
it appropriate to report what he had heard about what is occurring
there. The situation in West Beirut is still not as quiet as it may
seem from the media, and he had heard that three or four I.D.F.
soldiers had been killed, and had also heard "about some rampage by the
Phalangists" (p. 1232). Minister Shamir said in his testimony that as
far as he could remember there was no mention in that conversation of
the words massacre or slaughter. According to him, he was not asked by
Minister Zipori to look into the matter, he did not think that he was
talking about massacre, [rather] he got the impression from the
conversation that its main aim was to inform him of the losses suffered
by the I.D.F., and therefore he himself made no check and also did not
instruct Foreign Ministry personnel to check the report, but asked
someone in the Foreign Ministry whether new reports had arrived from
Beirut and was satisfied with the answer that there is nothing new.
In addition, Minister Shamir thought, according to
his testimony, that since a meeting would shortly be held at his office
with Ambassador Draper, in which the Defense Minister, the director of
Military Intelligence, the head of the General Security Services and
their aides would be participating on the Israeli side, then he would
hear from them about what is happening in West Beirut. This meeting was
held at the Foreign Minister's office at 12:30, between Ambassador
Draper and other representatives of the United States and a group of
representatives of Israel, including the Minister of Defense, the
director of Military Intelligence, and the head of the General Security
Services (exhibit 124). The Foreign Minister did not tell any of those
who came to the meeting about the report he had received from Minister
Zipori regarding the actions of the Phalangists, and he explained this
inaction of his by the fact that the matter did not bother him, since
it was clear to him that everything going on is known to the persons
sitting with him, and he did not hear from them any special report from
Beirut (p. 1238). The meeting ended at 3:00 p.m., and then the Foreign
Minister left for his home and took no additional action following the
aforementioned conversation with Minister Zipori.
Let us return to what occurred on that Friday in West Beirut.
In the morning hours, Brigadier General Yaron met
with Phalangist commanders for coordination, and agreed with them that
a larger Phalangist force would organize at the airport, that this
force would not be sent in to the camps until it receives approval from
the Chief of Staff and after the Chief of Staff holds an additional
meeting at Phalangist headquarters (pp. 705-706).
Already prior to the Chief of Staff's arrival, Major
General Drori held a meeting with the commander of the Lebanese Army in
which he again tried to persuade the commander, and through him the
Prime Minister and Ambassador Draper, that the Lebanese Army enter the
camps. Major General Drori told that commander, according to his
testimony, the following (p. 1633):
"You know what the Lebanese are capable of doing to
each other; when you go now to Wazzan (the Prime Minister of Lebanon)
tell him again, and you see what is out here, and the time has come
that maybe you'll do something, and you're going to Draper, to meet
with Draper... get good advice from him this time, he should give it to
you this time, he should agree that you enter the camps, it's
important, the time has come for you to do it, and get good advice this
time from Draper, or permission from him to enter or do it."
Major General Drori explained in his testimony that
he had approached the commander so that the latter would speak with
Ambassador Draper, since he had heard that Ambassador Draper had told
the commander of the Lebanese Army a day earlier that the Americans
would get the Israelis out of Beirut, that they should not talk to them
and not negotiate with them. The answer which Major General Drori later
received to his request from the commander of the Lebanese Army was
negative.
On Friday, 17.9.82, already from the morning hours,
a number of I.D.F. soldiers detected killing and violent actions
against people from the refugee camps. We heard testimony from
Lieutenant Grabowsky, a deputy commander of a tank company, who was in
charge of a few tanks which stood on an earth embankment - a ramp - and
on the adjacent road, some 200 meters from the first buildings of the
camps. In the early morning hours he saw Phalangist soldiers taking
men, women and children out of the area of the camps and leading them
to the area of the stadium. Between 8:00 and 9:00 a.m. he saw two
Phalangist soldiers hitting two young men. The soldiers led the men
back into the camp, after a short time he heard a few shots and saw the
two Phalangist soldiers coming out. At a later hour he went up the
embankment with the tank and then saw that Phalangist soldiers had
killed a group of five women and children. Lieutenant Grabowsky wanted
to report the event by communications set to his superiors, but the
tank crew told him that they had already heard a communications report
to the battalion commander that civilians were being killed, [and] the
battallion commander had replied, "We know, it's not to our liking, and
don't interfere." Lieutenant Grabowsky saw another case in which a
Phalangist killed a civilian. In the afternoon hours his soldiers spoke
with a Phalangist who had arrived at the spot, and at the request of
Grabowsky, who does not speak Arabic, one of the soldiers asked why
they were killing civilians. The answer he received was that the
pregnant women will give birth to terrorists and children will grow up
to be terrorists. Grabowsky left the place at 16:00 hours. Late in the
afternoon he related what he had seen to his commander in the tank
battalion and to other officers. At their suggestion he related this to
his brigade commander at 20:00 hours (Grabowsky testimony, pp.
380-388). In various statements made to the staff investigators,
soldiers and officers from Lieutenant Grabowsky's unit and from other
units stationed nearby related that they saw on Friday various acts of
maltreatment by the Phalangist soldiers against men, women and children
who were taken out of the camp, and heard complaints and stories
regarding acts of killing carried out by the Phalangists. One of those
questioned heard a communications report to the battalion commander
about the Phalangists "running wild."
The battalion commander did not confirm in his
statements (no. 21 and no. 175) and testimony that he had received
reports on Friday from any of his battalion's soldiers about acts of
killing or violent actions by the Phalangists against the residents of
the camps. According to him, he indeed heard on Thursday night, when he
was in the forward command post, about 300 killed, a number which was
later reduced to 120 killed; but on Friday the only report he received
was about the escape of a few dozen beaten or wounded persons northward
and eastward, and this was in the afternoon. At a later date, after the
massacre in the camps was publicized, the battalion commander made
special efforts to obtain a monitoring report of the battalion's radio
frequency and he submitted this report to us (exhibit 1240). In this
document no record was found of a report of acts of killing or
maltreatment by the Phalangists on Friday.
We did not send a notice as per Section 15 to this
battalion commander, and this for the reasons explained in the
Introduction. We have not arrived at any findings or conclusions on the
contradictory versions regarding the report to the battalion commander,
and it appears to us that this subject can and should be investigated
within the framework of the I.D.F., as we have proposed in the
Introduction. For the purposes of the matters we are discussing, we
determine that indeed I.D.F. soldiers who were near the embankment
which surrounded the camp saw certain acts of killing and an attempt
was made to report this to commanders of higher ranks; but this report
did not reach Brigadier General Yaron or Major General Drori.
The Chief of Staff reached the airport at Khalde
near Beirut at 15:30 hours with a number of I.D.F. officers. At the
airport he met with Major General Drori and travelled with him to a
meeting at Phalangist headquarters. Major General Drori testified that
he had told the Chief of Staff on the way what he knew regarding the
Phalangists' actions. The Chief of Staff was satisfied with what he had
heard and did not ask about additional matters (Drori testimony, pp.
451, 416). Brigadier General Yaron joined those travelling to the
meeting with the Phalangist commanders. The Chief of Staff testified in
his first appearance that he had heard from Major General Drori and
from Brigadier General Yaron only those things which he had heard on
the telephone, and does not remember that he asked them how the
improper behavior of the Phalangists had expressed itself. In that
testimony he explained that he had refrained from asking additional
questions since the discussion had dealt mainly with the situation in
the city, that he generally does not like to talk while travelling, and
the he thought the matter would be clarified at Phalangist
headquarters, where they were headed (testimony of the Chief of Staff,
pp. 243, 234). In his additional testimony before us, when the Chief of
Staff was asked for his response to Major General Drori's testimony
that the latter had told the Chief of Staff about the three things
which he knew about (see above), the Chief of Staff said that he is
prepared to accept that these were the things said to him, but
emphasized that the meaning of the things he had heard was not from his
point of view that there had been acts of revenge and bloodshed by the
Phalangists (p. 1663). In any case, according to his second testimony
as well, the Chief of Staff was satisfied with hearing a short report
from Major General Drori about the reasons for the halting of the
Phalangists' actions, and did not pose questions regarding this.
At about 16:00 hours, the meeting between the Chief
of Staff and the Phalangist staff was held. We have been presented with
documents containing summaries from this meeting. In a summary made by
Mossad representative A who was present at the meeting (exhibit 80 A)
it was said that the Chief of Staff "expressed his positive impression
received from the statement by the Phalangist forces and their behavior
in the field" and concluded that they "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. There is a
chance that the Lebanese Army will enter instead of them." Other
matters in this summary do not relate to the matter of the two camps (a
summary with identical contents appears in exhibit no. 37). We heard
more precise details on the content of the meeting from witnesses who
participated in it. The Chief of Staff testified that the Phalangists
had reported that the operation had ended and that everything was
alright that the Americans are pressuring them to leave and they would
leave by 5:00 a.m., and that they had carried out all the objectives.
His reaction was "O.K., alright, you did the job."
According to the Chief of Staff, the discussion was
very relaxed, there was a very good impression that the Phalangists had
carried out the mission they had been assigned or which they had taken
upon themselves, and there was no feeling that something irregular had
occurred or was about to occur in the camps. During the meeting they
requested a tractor from the I.D.F. in order to demolish illegal
structures; the Chief of Staff saw this as a positive action, since he
had long heard of illegal Palestinian neighborhoods, and therefore he
approved their request for tractors (pp. 234-239). In his second
testimony, the Chief of Staff added that the commander of the
Phalangists had said that there was almost no civilian population in
the camps, and had reported on their killed and wounded (p. 1666). He
did not ask them questions and did not debrief them about what had
happened in the camps. They wanted to send more forces into the camps,
but he did not approve this; and there was no discussion at that
meeting of relieving forces (pp. 1667-1670). At the same meeting, the
Chief of Staff approved the supply of certain arms to the Phalangists,
but this has nothing to do with events in Beirut. Major General Drori
testified during his first appearance that the commander of the
Phalangist force, who was present at the meeting, gave details of where
his forces were and reported heavy fighting - but did not make mention
of any irregularities, and certainly not of a massacre. The Phalangist
commanders spoke of American pressure [on them] to leave the camps.
When Major General Drori was asked for additional details of that
conversation he replied that he could not recall (pp. 415-420,
444-444). Brigadier General Yaron also testified that at that meeting
the Phalangists commanders had said nothing about unusual actions in
the camps, [that] the reason given for departure from the camps the
next morning was American pressure, and that it seemed to him that the
Chief of Staff even had had some good words to say, from a military
standpoint, about their action. It was also agreed at that meeting that
they would get tractors in order to raze illegal structures. At the end
of the meeting it was clear to Brigadier General Yaron, as he
testified, that the Phalangists could still enter the camps, bring in
tractors, and do what they wanted - and that they would leave on
Saturday morning (pp. 709-716).
In the matter of sending in additional Phalangist
forces, Brigadier General Yaron testified that he did not think that
limitations had been imposed on them with regard to bringing in an
additional force, and he did not know whether they brought in an
additional force after that meeting - but since they were supposed to
leave at 5:00 a.m. on the following morning, there was no need for
additional forces. On the same subject, Brigadier General Yaron also
said that there was no restriction on the Phalangists' bringing in
additional forces; it seemed to him that they had brought in a certain
additional force - although the major force, at the airport, was not
sent into the camps. He did not check whether they did or did not bring
in additional forces, and from his point of view there was no
impediment to their bringing in additional forces until Saturday
morning (pp. 715-747).
Also present at that same meeting were the Deputy
Chief of Staff, Mossad representative A, the divisional intelligence
officer (who took the minutes of the meeting) and other Israeli
officers; and there is no need to go into details here of their
testimony on this matter, since the things they said generally agree
with what has already been detailed above. We would add only that in
the matter of the tractors, the Mossad representative recommended to
the Chief of Staff that tractors be given to the Phalangists; but at
the conclusion of the meeting, an order was given to supply them with
just one tractor and to remove I.D.F. markings from the tractor. The
one tractor supplied later was not used and was returned immediately by
the Phalangists, who had their own tractors which they used in the
camps that same night and the following morning.
It is clear from all the testimony that no explicit
question was posed to the Phalangist commanders concerning the rumors
or reports which had arrived until then regarding treatment of the
civilian population in the camps. The Phalangist commanders, for their
part, didn't "volunteer" any reports of this type, and this matter was
therefore not discussed at all at that meeting. The subject of the
Phalangists' conduct toward those present in the camps did not come up
at all at that meeting, nor was there any criticism or warning on this
matter.
During the evening, between 18:00-20:00 hours,
Foreign Ministry personnel in Beirut and in Israel began receiving
various reports from U.S. representatives that the Phalangists had been
seen in the camps and that their presence was liable to lead to
undesirable results - as well as complaints about actions by I.D.F.
soldiers in the hospital building in Beirut. The Foreign Ministry
personnel saw to the clarification of the complaints, and the charges
against I.D.F. soldiers turned out to be unfounded.
After the Chief of Staff returned to Israel, he
called the Defense Minister between 20:00-21:00 hours and spoke with
him about his visit to Beirut. According to the Defense Minister's
testimony, the Chief of Staff told him in that conversation that he had
just returned from Beirut and that "in the course of the Phalangists'
actions in the camps, the Christians had harmed the civilian population
more than was expected." According to the Defense Minister, the Chief
of Staff used the expression that the Lebanese Forces had "gone too
far," and that therefore their activity had been stopped in the
afternoon, the entry of additional forces had been prevented, and an
order had been given to the Phalangists to remove their forces from the
camps by 5:00 a.m. the following morning. The Defense Minister added
that the Chief of Staff also mentioned that civilians had been killed
(testimony of the Defense Minister, pp. 293-294). According to the
Defense Minister's statements, this was the first report that reached
him of irregular activity by the Phalangists in the refugee camps. The
Chief of Staff did not confirm that he had told the Defense Minister
all the above. According to him, he told the Defense Minister that the
Phalangists had carried out their assignment, that they had stopped,
and that they were under pressure from the Americans and would leave by
5:00 a.m. does not recall that he mentioned disorderly behaviour by the
Phalangists, but he is sure he did not speak of a massacre, killing or
the like. When the Chief of Staff was asked whether the Defense
Minister had asked him questions in that same conversation, his reply
was that he didn't remember (p. 242). In his second round of testimony,
the Chief of Staff said that it was possible and also reasonable that
he had told the Defense Minister the content of what he had heard from
Major General Drori, although he reiterated that he didn't recall every
word that was said in that same conversation (pp. 1687-1688). At the
conclusion of his second round of testimony, the Chief of Staff denied
that there had been discussion, in the telephone conversation with the
Defense Minister, of killing beyond what had been expected (p. 1692).
This conversation was not recorded by anyone, and
the two interlocutors testified about it from memory. It is our opinion
that the Defense Minister's version of that same conversation is more
accurate than the Chief of Staff's version. It is our determination
that the Chief of Staff did tell the Defense Minister about the
Phalangists' conduct, and that from his words the Defense Minister
could have understood, and did understand, that the Phalangists had
carried out killings of civilians in the camps. Our opinion finds
confirmation in that, according to all the material which has been
brought before us in evidence, the Defense Minister had not received
any report of killings in the camps until that same telephone
conversation; but after that conversation, the Defense Minister knew
that killings had been carried out in the camps - as is clear from a
later conversation between him and Mr. Ron Ben-Yishai, which we will
discuss further on.
On Friday at approximately 4:00 p.m., when the
television military correspondent Mr. Ron Ben-Yishai was at the airport
in Beirut, he heard from several I.D.F. officers about killings in the
camps. These officers were not speaking from personal knowledge, but
rather according to what they had heard from others. Likewise, he saw
Phalangist forces comprising about 500-600 men deployed at the airport.
The Phalangist officer with whom Mr. Ben-Yishai spoke at that time told
him that the Phalangist forces were going to the camps to fight the
terrorists, so as to remove the terrorists and the arms caches in the
camps. Asked what explanation had been given to the soldiers, the
officer replied that it had been explained to them that they must
behave properly and that they would harm their image if they didn't
behave in the war like soldiers in all respects. He heard members of
the forces in the field shouting condemnations and making threatening
motions toward Palestinians, but he attached no importance to this,
since he had encountered this phenomenon many times, during the war. Mr
Ben-Yishai went from the airport to Baabda; and there, at 8:30 p.m., he
heard from various officers that they had heard about people being
executed by the Phalangists. At 23:30 hours, Mr. BenYishai called up
the Defense Minister and told him that a story was circulating that the
Phalangists were doing unacceptable things in the camps. To the Defense
Minister's questions, Mr. Ben-Yishai replied that he had heard this
story from people he knew who had heard about civilians being killed by
the Phalangists. The Defense Minister did not react to these words
(statement 10 by Mr. Ben-Yishai, and testimony by the Defense Minister,
p. 298). According to the Defense Minister, what he heard from Mr. Ron
Ben-Yishai was nothing new to him, since he had already heard earlier
about killings from the Chief of Staff-, and he also knew that as a
result of the report, entry by additional forces had been halted and an
order had been given to the Phalangists to leave the camps (p. 298).
In concluding the description of the events of
Thursday and Friday, it should be noted that no information on the
reports which had arrived during those two days regarding the
Phalangists' deeds, as these were detailed above, was given to the
Prime Minister during those same two days. It should also be added that
on Friday evening, there were several calls from U.S. representatives
complaining about entry by Phalangist forces and about the consequences
which might ensue, as well as about actions that had been taken in
other parts of West Beirut. Foreign Ministry personnel handled these
complaints, and a summary of them was also sent to the situation room
at the Defense Ministry and was brought to the Defense Minister's
attention at approximately 22:00 hours.
The Departure of the Phalangists
and the Reports of the Massacre
The Phalangists did not leave by 5:00 a.m. on
Saturday, 18.9.82. Between 6:30-7:00 a.m., a group of Phalangist
soldiers entered the Gaza Hospital, which is located at the end of the
Sabra camp and which is run by the Palestinian Red Crescent
organization. These soldiers took a group of doctors and nurses,
foreign nationals working in that same hospital, out of the hospital
and led them under armed escort via Sabra St. We heard from three
members of the group, Drs. Ang and Morris and the nurse Ellen Siegel,
about what happened in that hospital from the time of Bashir's murder
until Saturday morning. As this group passed along Sabra St., the
witnesses saw several corpses on both sides of the street, and groups
of people sitting on both sides of the street with armed soldiers
guarding them. The members of the group also saw bulldozers moving
along Sabra St. and entering the camp's alleyways. The group of doctors
and nurses arrived, with those who were leading them, at a plaza at the
end of Sabra St.; they passed by the Kuwaiti Embassy building and were
brought into a former U.N. building by their guards. There several
members of the group were interrogated by the Phalangists, but the
interrogation was halted, their passports restored to them, and they
were taken to a building where there were I.D.F. soldiers - that is,
the forward command post. After a while, the members of the group were
taken by I.D.F. soldiers to another part of Beirut, where they were
released; and several of them, at their request, returned to the
hospital after receiving from one of the I.D.F. officers a document
which was meant to grant them passage as far as the hospital. We will
return again later to the testimony of three of the members of this
group.
When Brigadier General Yaron realized that the
Phalangists had not left the camps by 06:30 hours, he gave the
Phalangist commander on the scene an order that they must vacate the
camps without delay. This order was obeyed, and the last of the
Phalangist forces left the camps at approximately 8:00 a.m. Afterwards
there was an "announcement" - that is, it was declared over
loudspeakers that people located in the area must come out and assemble
in a certain place, and all those who came out were led to the stadium.
There, refugees from the camps gathered, and the I.D.F. gave them food
and water. In the meantime, reports circulated about the massacre in
the camps, and many journalists and media personnel arrived in the area.
The Chief of Staff testified before us that on
Saturday morning, the Prime Minister phoned him and told him that the
Americans had called him and complained that the Phalangists had
entered the Gaza Hospital and were killing patients, doctors, and staff
workers there. The Chief of Staff's reply was that as far as he knew,
there was no hospital called "Gaza" in the western part of the city,
but he would look into the matter. At his order, an investigation was
conducted in the Northern Command and also in the Operations Branch,
and the reply he received was that there was indeed a hospital called
"Gaza" but that no killings had been perpetrated, and he so informed
the Prime Minister. According to the Chief of Staff's initial
testimony, the Prime Minister called him on this matter at
approximately 10:00 a.m. (p. 243). In his second round of testimony,
when the Chief of Staff was presented with the fact that the Prime
Minister was in synagogue at 8:00 a.m. on that same Saturday, the first
day of the Rosh Hashana holiday, the Chief of Staff said that the first
telephone conversation with the Prime Minister had apparently taken
place at an earlier hour of the morning. The Prime Minister stated in
his testimony that he had gone to synagogue at 8:15-8:30 hours,
returning at 13:15-13:30 hours; that he had had no conversation with
the Chief of Staff before going to synagogue; that there had been no
American call to him regarding the Gaza Hospital; and therefore, the
conversations regarding the Gaza Hospital about which the Chief of
Staff testified (pp. 771-772) had not taken place. The Defense Minister
testified that the Chief of Staff apparently spoke with him by phone
between 9:00-10:00 on Saturday morning and told him that the Prime
Minister had called his attention to some occurrence at the Gaza
Hospital; but the Defense Minister was not sure that such a
conversation had indeed taken place, and said that he things that there
was such a conversation (p. 300). We see no need, for the purpose of
determining the facts in this investigation, to decide between the two
contradictory versions regarding the conversations about Gaza hospital.
We assume that the contradictions are not deliberate, but stem from
faulty memory, which is understandable in view of the dramatic turn of
events taking place in those days.
On Saturday, the Defense Minister received
additional reports about the acts of slaughter. He heard from the
Director-General of the Foreign ministry, Mr Kimche, that Ambassador
Draper had called him to say that I.D.F. soldiers had entered banks on
the Street of Banks and that Palestinians had been massacred. It
emerged that the report about the entry into the banks was incorrect.
Regarding the report about the massacre, the Defense Minister's reply
to the Foreign Ministry Director-General, which was given at about
13:00 hours, was that the Phalangists' operation had been stopped, the
entry of additional forces blocked, and all the forces in the camps had
been expelled. At 15:00 hours, Major General Drori spoke with the
Defense Minister and told him about the reports concerning the
massacre, adding that the Phalangists had already left the camps and
that the Red Cross and the press were inside (testimony of Maj. Gen.
Drori, pp. 428-429). At about 17:00 hours, Major General Drori met with
a representative of the Lebanese army and appealed to him to have the
Lebanese army enter the camps. The representative of the Lebanese army
replied that he had to get approval for such a move. Between 21:30 and
22:00 hours the reply was received that the Lebanese army would enter
the camps. Its entry into the camps was effected on Sunday, 19.9.82.
After the Phalangists had left the camps, Red Cross
personnel, many journalists and other persons entered them, and it then
became apparent that in the camps, and particularly in Shatilla,
civilians - including women and children -had been massacred. It was
clear from the spectacle that presented itself that a considerable
number of the killed had not been cut down in combat but had been
murdered, and that no few acts of barbarism had also been perpetrated.
These sights shocked those who witnessed them; the reports were
circulated by the media and spread throughout the world. Although for
the most part the reports said that the massacre had been executed by
members of the Phalangists, accusations were immediately hurled at the
I.D.F. and at the State of Israel, since, according to the reports
published at that time, the Phalangists' entry into the camps had been
carried out with the aid and consent of the I.D.F. On Saturday and the
days following, the I.D.F. refrained as far as possible from entering
the camps, for fear that should any I.D.F. soldiers be seen there,
accusations would be forthcoming about their participation in the
massacre. The burial of the dead was carried out under the supervision
of the Red Cross, and the victims' families also engaged in their
burial.
It is impossible to determine precisely the number
of persons who were slaughtered. The numbers cited in this regard are
to a large degree tendentious and are not based on an exact count by
persons whose reliability can be counted on. The low estimate came from
sources connected with the Government of Lebanon or with the Lebanese
Forces. The letter (exhibit 153) of the head of the Red Cross
delegation to the Minister of Defense stated that Red Cross
representatives had counted 328 bodies. This figure, however, does not
include all the bodies, since it is known that a number of families
buried bodies on their own initiative without reporting their actions
to the Red Cross. The forces who engaged in the operation removed
bodies in trucks when they left Shatilla, and it is possible that more
bodies are lying under the ruins in the camps or in the graves that
were dug by the assailants near the camps. The letter noted that the
Red Cross also had a list of 359 persons who had disappeared in West
Beirut between 18 August and 20 September, with most of the missing
having disappeared from Sabra and Shatilla in mid-September. According
to a document which reached us (exhibit 151), the total number of
victims whose bodies were found from 18.9.82 to 30.9.82 is 460. This
figure includes the dead counted by the Lebanese Red Cross, the
International Red Cross, the Lebanese Civil Defense, the medical corps
of the Lebanese army, and by relatives of the victims. According to
this count, the 460 victims included 109 Lebanese and 328 Palestinians,
along with Iranians, Syrians and members of other nationalities.
According to the itemization of the bodies in this list, the great
majority of the dead were males; as for women and children, there were
8 Lebanese women and 12 Lebanese children, and 7 Palestinian women and
8 Palestinian children. Reports from Palestinian sources speak of a far
greater number of persons killed, sometimes even of thousands. With
respect to the number of victims, it appears that we can rely neither
on the numbers appearing in the document from Lebanese sources, nor on
the numbers originating in Palestinian sources. A further difficulty in
determining the number of victims stems from the fact that it is
difficult to distinguish between victims of combat operations and
victims of acts of slaughter. We cannot rule out the possibility that
various reports included also victims of combat operations from the
period antedating the assassination of Bashir. Taking into account the
fact that Red Cross personnel counted no more that 328 bodies, it would
appear that the number of victims of the massacre was not as high as a
thousand, and certainly not thousands.
According to I.D.F. intelligence sources, the number
of victims of the massacre is between 700 and 800 (testimony of the
director of Military Intelligence, pp. 139-140). This may well be the
number most closely corresponding with reality. It is impossible to
determine precisely when the acts of slaughter were perpetrated;
evidently they commenced shortly after the Phalangists entered the
camps and went on intermittently until close to their departure.
According to the testimony we heard, no report of
the slaughter in the camps was made to the Prime Minister on Saturday,
with the possible exception of the events in the Gaza Hospital,
regarding which we made no finding. The Prime Minister heard about the
massacre on a B.B.C. radio broadcast towards evening on Saturday. He
immediately contacted the Chief of Staff and the Defense Minister, who
informed him that the actions had been halted and that the Phalangists
had been removed from the camps (p. 771).
When a public furor erupted in Israel and abroad in
the wake of the reports about the massacre, and accusations were
levelled that the I.D.F. and Haddad's men had taken part in the
massacre, several communiqus were issued by the I.D.F. and the Foreign
Ministry which contained incorrect and imprecise statements about the
events. These communiqus asserted explicitly or implied that the
Phalangists' entry into the camps had been carried out without the
knowledge of - or coordination with - the I.D.F. The incorrect
statements were subsequently amended, and it was stated publicly that
the Phalangists' entry into the camps had been coordinated with the
I.D.F. There is no doubt that the publication of incorrect and
imprecise reports intensified the suspicions against Israel and caused
it harm.
After the end of the Rosh Hashanah holy day, at
21:00 hours on Sunday, 19.9.82, a Cabinet meeting took place at the
Prime Minister's residence with the participation of, in addition to
the Cabinet members, the Chief of Staff, the head of the Mossad, the
director of Military Intelligence, Major General Drori, and others. The
subject discussed in that meeting was "the events in West Beirut - the
murder of civilians in the Shatilla camp" (minutes of the meeting,
Exhibit 121). At that meeting the Prime Minister, the Minister of
Defense, the Chief of Staff and Major General Drori reported on the
course of events. The Defense Minister stressed that the I.D.F. had not
entered the camps, which were terrorist bastions, because it was our
interest not to endanger even on soldier in the camps (p. 5, minutes of
the meeting). He added that on the day following the entry, "when we
learned what had taken place there, the I.D.F. intervened immediately
and removed those forces" (p. 6). According to him (p. 7) no one had
imagined that the Phalangists would commit such acts. It his remarks,
the Chief of Staff stressed, among other points, that in previous
Cabinet meetings various Ministers had asked why the Phalangists were
not fighting - after all, this was their war. He, too, noted that no
one could have known in advance how the Phalangists would behave, and
in his view even the Phalangists' commanders did not know what would
happen, but had lost control of their men. The Chief of Staff added
that "the moment we learned how they were behaving there, we exerted
all the pressure we could, we removed them from there and we expelled
them from the entire sector" (pp. 9, 10). Major General Drori said that
even before the Phalangists entered the camps, "we made them swear, not
one oath but thousands, regarding their operation there. There was also
their assurance that the kind of actions that were committed would not
be committed. The moment it became clear to us what had happened, we
halted the operation and demanded that they get out - and they got
out." Major General Drori also told about the group of 15 persons,
among them doctors, whom the I.D.F. had extricated from the hands of
the Phalangists, thus preventing a major complication. He gave details
of his appeal to the heads of the Lebanese army that they agree to
enter the camps, and about the negative replies he had received (pp.
18-22). Afterward the Chief of Staff spoke again, and according to the
recorded minutes (p. 25) he said as follows:
"On Friday, I met with them at around noon, at their
command post. We did not yet know what had happened there. In the
morning we knew that they had killed civilians, so we ordered them to
get out and we did not allow others to enter. But they did not say they
had killed civilians, and they did not say how many civilians they had
killed; they did not say anything..."
In his second testimony the Chief of Staff explained
that by his words, "in the morning we knew they had killed civilians,"
he was referring to reports that existed on Saturday morning and not to
the reports that existed Friday morning, as might have perhaps been
understood (p. 1665). The remarks quoted above are not unequivocal;
they are ambivalent. We accept the Chief of Staff's explanation that he
was not referring to the reports in his possession on Friday, but to
the reports that reached him on Saturday morning. This interpretation
of the Chief of Staff's remarks is consistent with his other statements
in this section of his remarks.
Several remarks were made in that meeting by the
Prime Minister, who opened the session with a general survey in which
he complained about accusations - in his view unfounded - which had
been levelled against Israel. Various ministers took part in the
discussion. In response to the remark of Minister Modai that the Prime
Minister had spoken of "protecting life" as one of the goals of the
entry into West Beirut, the Prime Minister stated (p. 73, exhibit 121):
"That was our pure and genuine intention. That night
I also spoke of this with the Chief of Staff. I told him that we must
seize positions precisely to protect the Muslims from the vengeance of
the Phalangists. I could assume that after the assassination of Bashir,
their beloved leader, they would take revenge on the Muslims."
To this, Minister Hammer commented that "if we
suspected that they would commit murder, we should have thought before
we let them enter." The Prime Minister's reply was, "In the meantime
days have passed. What are you objecting to? At night I said that we
must prevent this." When in the course of his testimony the Prime
Minister's attention was drawn to these remarks of his - that on the
night when the decision about the entry into West Beirut was taken, he
had spoken with the Chief of Staff about the goal "to protect the
Muslims from the vengeance of the Phalangists" - he confirmed having
said this, although he had not known at that time that the Phalangists
would enter the camps (p. 764). In the Cabinet meeting of 19.9.82 the
Chief of Staff did not react to these remarks by the Prime Minister,
and did not deny them. In his second testimony the Chief of Staff said
that in the conversation between him and the Prime Minister that night,
the Prime Minister might have said "that there must be no rioting...
they must not cross over or flee or not do things like... crossing from
side to side"; but the Prime Minister had not gone into any greater
detail (p. 1690). Since that night conversation was not taken down and
it is difficult to rely on the memory of the conversants regarding the
accuracy of what was said, we cannot determine with certainty what the
Prime Minister said at that time, except for the fact that he mentioned
that one of the purposes of the entry was to prevent rioting. The
meeting concluded with a resolution to issue a communique expressing
deep regret and pain at the injuries to a civilian population done by a
Lebanese unit which had entered a refugee camp "at a place distant from
an I. D.F. position." The resolution added that "immediately after
learning about what had happened in the Shatilla camp, the I.D.F. had
put a stop to the murder of innocent civilians and had forced the
Lebanese unit to leave the camp." It was stressed in the resolution
that the accusations regarding I.D.F. responsibility for the human
tragedy in the Shatilla camp were in the nature of "a blood libel
against the Jewish state and its Government," were groundless, and "the
Government rejects them with repugnance." The resolution also stated
that had it not been for the intervention of the I.D.F., the number of
losses would have been far greater, and that it had been found that the
terrorists had violated the evacuation agreement by leaving 2,000
terrorists and vast stocks of weapons in West Beirut. The resolution
concludes:
"No one will preach to us moral values or respect
for human life, on whose basis we were educated and will continue to
educate generations of fighters in Israel."
The furor that erupted in the wake of the massacre,
and various accusations that were levelled, led those concerned to
carry out debriefings and clarifications. A clarification of this kind
was carried out on behalf of the General Staff (exhibit 239) and in the
office of the director of Military Intelligence (exhibit 29 from
October 1982). The summation of the Military Intelligence report states
that "it emerges from a retrospective examination that the telephone
report... had its source in a rumour/'gut feeling' that the
(Intelligence Officer A) had happened to overhear, and that he himself
was unable to verify that rumor in his on-site examinations, or in
reaction to the briefings he had received..." The cable in question is
Appendix A to Exhibit 29, which has already been quoted above; and from
what has already been said above it is clear that it was not based on a
"gut feeling." This investigative report contains other inaccuracies,
which we shall note when we come to discuss the responsibility of Mr.
A. Duda'i. A more detailed clarification was carried out in a Senior
Command Meeting (SCM) with the participation of the Chief of Staff. The
minutes of that meeting were submitted to us (exhibit 241). At that
meeting, the Chief of Staff said, inter alia, that whereas prior to the
I. D.F.'s entry into Lebanon atrocities had been perpetrated throughout
that country, after the I.D.F.'s entry "the Phalangists did not commit
any excesses officially and did nothing that could have indicated any
danger from them," and they looked to him to be a regular, disciplined
army. In his remarks the Chief of Staff also stressed the pressure from
various elements for the Phalangists to take part in the combat
operations. Major General Drori related the course of events from his
point of view, which in general lines is consistent with what he
related in his testimony before us. He said, inter alia, that he had
originally wanted the I.D.F. or the Lebanese army to enter the camps,
and that he did not concur in the considerations which had led to the
decision regarding the entry of the Phalangists. Major General Drori
was asked by one of the participants why a tractor had been needed, and
he replied that there was a plan of the Lebanese administration,
including the Phalangists and the Lebanese army, to destroy all the
illegal structures, including the many structures in the camps.
Brigadier General Yaron also related the course of events. He said,
inter alia, that when he had been informed by the command that approval
had come to let the Christians into the refugee camp he had expressed
no opposition or reservation, but had been quite pleased because it was
clear to him that this camp contained many terrorists and the battalion
had come under quite heavy fire from it. Brigadier General Yaron
stressed that he had warned the Phalangists not to harm civilians,
women, children, old people or anyone raising his hands, but to clean
out the terrorists from the camps, with the civilians to go to the area
of the stadium. He said that until Saturday morning he did not know
what was happening and when he saw the group of doctors and nurses,
they had not told him about the acts of slaughter either. Following a
quite lengthy debate, Brigadier General Yaron responded to the remarks
of the participants by stating, inter alia (pp. 85 to 87, exhibit 241):
"The mistake, as I see it, the mistake is
everyone's. The entire system showed insensitivity. I am speaking now
of the military system. I am not speaking about the political system.
The whole system manifested insensitivity...
"On this point everyone showed insensitivity, pure
and simple. Nothing else. So you start asking me, what exactly did you
feel in your gut on Friday... I did badly, I admit it. I did badly. I
cannot, how is it possible that a divisional commander - and I think
this applies to the Division Commander and up - how is it possible that
a Division Commander is in the field and does not know that 300, 400,
500 or a thousand, I don't know how many, are being murdered here? If
he's like that, let him go. How can such a thing be"? But why didn't he
know? Why was he oblivious? That's why he didn't know and that's why he
didn't stop it... but I take myself to task...
"I admit here, from this rostrum, we were all insensitive, that's all."
At the conclusion of his remarks, the Chief of Staff
stressed that if the I.D.F. had provided the Phalangists with the tank
and artillery support they had requested, far more people would have
been killed (p. 121).
On 28.9.82 a Senior Command Meeting was held with
the Defense Minister, who related the course of events from his point
of view. His remarks at that meeting are consistent with what we heard
in his testimony. Several senior I.D.F. officers expressed their views
at that meeting (exhibit 242).
The Responsibility for the Massacre
In this section of the report, we shall deal with
the issue of the responsibility for the massacre from two standpoints:
first from the standpoint of direct responsibility - i.e., who actually
perpetrated the massacre - and then we shall examine the problem of
indirect responsibility, to the extent that this applies to Israel or
those who acted on its behalf.
The Direct Responsibility
According
to the above description of events, all the evidence indicates that the
massacre was perpetrated by the Phalangists between the time they
entered the camps on Thursday, 16.9.82,. at 18:00 hours, and their
departure from the camps on Saturday, 18.9.82, at approximately 8:00
a.m. The victims were found in those areas where the Phalangists were
in military control during the aforementioned time period. No other
military force aside from the Phalangists was seen by any one of the
witnesses in the area of the camps where the massacre was carried out,
or at the time of the entrance into or exit from this area. The camps
were surrounded on all sides: on three sides by I.D.F. forces, and on
the fourth side was a city line (that divided between East and West
Beirut) that was under Phalangist control. Near the point of entry to
the camps a Lebanese army force was encamped, and their men did not see
any military force besides the Phalangist one enter the camps. It can
be stated with certainty that no organized military force entered the
camps at the aforementioned time besides the Phalangist forces.
As we have said, we heard testimony from two doctors
and a nurse who worked in the Gaza hospital, which was run by and for
Palestinians. There is no cause to suspect that any of these witnesses
have any special sympathy of Israel, and it is clear to us - both from
their choosing that place of employment and from our impression of
their appearance before us - that they sympathize with the Palestinians
and desired to render service to Palestinians in need. From these
witnesses' testimony as well it is clear that the armed military unit
that took them out of the hospital on Saturday morning and brought them
to the building that formerly belonged to the U.N. was a Phalangist
unit. The witness Ms. Siegel did indeed tell of a visit to the hospital
at 7:00 p.m. on Friday evening of two men dressed in civilian clothes
who spoke to the staff in German, and she hinted at the possibility
that perhaps they were Sephardic Jews; but this assumption has no basis
in fact, and it can be explained by her tendentiousness. Ms. Siegel
even said that these men looked like Arabs (pp. 499-500). It is clear
that these men did not belong to an armed force that penetrated the
camps at the time. The two doctors Ang and Morris did not see any other
military force aside from the Phalangists, who presented themselves as
soldiers of a Lebanese force. Dr. Ang also saw soldiers with a band
with the letters M.P. in red on it. There is evidence that some of the
Phalangist units who came to the camps wore tags with the letters M.P.,
and along the route the Phalangists travelled to the camps, road
directions containing the letters M.P. were drawn. To be sure, Dr.
Morris did not say specifically that the armed men who came to the
hospital were Phalangists, but he described their uniforms, which bore
Arabic inscriptions, and also heard them talking among themselves in
Arabic and with someone from the hospital staff in French. Dr. Morris
does not read Arabic, but Ms. Siegel, who does read Arabic, testified
that the Arabic inscription was the one that signifies Phalangists.
Therefore, the testimony of these three witnesses also indicates that
the only military force seen in the area was a Phalangist one. A
similar conclusion can be drawn from the statement of Norwegian
journalist John Harbo (no. 62).
In the course of the events and also thereafter,
rumors spread that personnel of Major Haddad were perpetrating a
massacre or participating in a massacre. No basis was found for these
rumors. The I.D.F. liaison officer with Major Haddad's forces testified
that no unit of that force had crossed the Awali River that week. We
have no reason to doubt that testimony. As we have already noted, the
relations between the Phalangists and the forces of Major Haddad were
poor, and friction existed between those two forces. For this reason,
too, it is inconceivable that a force from Major Haddad's army took
part in military operations of the Phalangists in the camps, nor was
there any hint of such cooperation. Although three persons from
southern Lebanon - two of them from the Civil Guard in southern Lebanon
- were in West Beirut on Friday afternoon, and got caught in the
exchanges of fire between an I.D.F. unit and Jumblatt's militia, with
one of them being killed in those exchanges, this did not take place in
the area of the camps; and the investigation that was carried out
showed that the three of them had come to Beirut on a private visit.
There is no indication in this event that Haddad's men were at the site
where the massacre was perpetrated. We can therefore assert that no
force under the command of Major Haddad took part in the Phalangists'
operation in the camps, or took part in the massacre.
It cannot be ruled out that the rumors about the
participation of Haddad's men in the massacre also had their origin in
the fact that Major Haddad arrived at Beirut airport on Friday,
17.9.82. From the testimony of the I.D.F. liaison officer with Major
Haddad's forces, and from Major Haddad's testimony, it is clear that
this visit by Major Haddad to the suburbs of Beirut and the vicinity
had no connection with the events that took place in the camps. Major
Haddad arrived at Beirut airport in an air force helicopter at 8:30
a.m. on 17.9.82. The purpose of his visit was to pay a condolence call
on the Jemayel family at Bikfaya. At the, airport he was met by three
vehicles with members of his escort party, who had arrived that morning
from southern Lebanon. En route, they were joined by another jeep with
three of Haddad's commanders, who also arrived to pay a condolence
call. Major Haddad and his escorts paid their condolence visit at
Bikfaya, and then for security reasons returned via a different route,
arriving at the point where the road from Bikfaya meets the coastal
road. From there, Major Haddad, along with about eight of his men, went
to visit relatives of his in Jouniyeh. Following that visit to his
relative, Major Haddad returned that same afternoon to his home in
southern Lebanon, from where he phoned the aforementioned liaison
officer that evening.
Hints were made about the participation of Haddad's
men in the massacre on the basis of a southern Lebanese accent which
several of the survivors mentioned, and they also said that a few of
the participants in the massacre had Moslem names. This, too, does not
constitute concrete evidence, since among the Phalangist forces there
were also Shiites - albeit not many - and they were joined also by
persons who had fled from southern Lebanon.
We cannot rule out the possibility - although no
evidence to this effect was found either - that one of the men from
Major Haddad's forces who was visiting in Beirut during the period
infiltrated into the camps, particularly in the interim period between
the departure of the Phalangists and the entry of the Lebanese army,
committed illegal acts there; but if this did happen, no
responsibility, either direct or indirect, is to be imputed to the
commanders of Major Haddad's forces.
Here and there, hints, and even accusations, were
thrown out to the effect that I.D.F. soldiers were in the camps at the
time the massacre was perpetrated. We have no doubt that these notions
are completely groundless and constitute a baseless libel. One witness,
Mr. Franklin Pierce Lamb, of the United States, informed us of the fact
that on 22.9.82 a civilian I.D. card and a military dogtag belonging to
a soldier named Benny Haim Ben Yosef, born on 9.7.61, were found in the
Sabra camp. Following that testimony, these details were investigated
and it was found that a soldier bearing that name was in hospital after
having undergone operations for wounds he sustained during the entry
into West Beirut. A statement was taken from this soldier in Tel
Hashomer Hospital. It emerged from his remarks that he is a soldier in
the battalion, he arrived in Beirut on Wednesday, 15.9.82, his unit was
moving not far from the Shatilla camp and was fired on; he was hit and
the protective vest he was wearing began to burn. A medic cut the vest
with scissors and threw it to the side of the road, as it contained
grenades which were liable to explode. Personal documents belonging to
the soldier were in the pocket of the vest. He was evacuated on a
stretcher and taken by helicopter to Rambam Hospital. Already in the
initial medical treatment his left arm was amputated; he was also
wounded in the legs and in his upper left hip. It is clear that he was
not in the camps at all. This testimony is confirmed by the statement
of the medic Amir Hasharoni (statement 117). Evidently, someone who
found the documents on the side of the road brought them to the camp,
where they were discovered. The discovery of these documents belonging
to an I.D.F. soldier in the camp does not indicate that any I.D.F.
soldiers were in the camp while the massacre was being perpetrated.
Mr. Lamb also testified - not from personal
knowledge but based on what he had heard from others - that cluster
bombs were placed under bodies found in the camps, apparently as
booby-traps. According to the witness, the I.D.F. used cluster bombs
when the camps were shelled; these bombs exploded easily and
considerable caution is required in handling them, with only specially
trained people having the technical knowledge to make use of these
bombs as booby-traps. He raised the question whether the Phalangists,
or the forces of Major Haddad - if any of them were in the camps -
possessed the requisite technical skills to make use of these bombs as
booby-traps. This question implies that the bombs were placed beneath
the bodies by I.D.F. personnel. That implication is totally without
foundation. As noted, Mr. Lamb had no personal knowledge regarding the
use of such bombs as booby-traps, and it would be extremely far-fetched
to view this section of Mr. Lamb's testimony as containing anything
concrete pointing to direct involvement of anyone from the I.D.F. in
the massacre that was perpetrated in the camps.
Following the massacre, the Phalangist commanders
denied, in various interviews in the media, that they had perpetrated
the massacre. On Sunday, 19.9.82, the Chief of Staff and Major General
Drori met with the Phalangist commanders. Notes of that meeting were
taken by a representative of the Mossad who was present (exhibit 199).
The Chief of Staff told the Phalangist commanders that he had come from
the camps, it was said that a massacre had taken place there, and that
for the sake of their future they must admit to having perpetrated the
acts and explain the matter, otherwise they would have no future in
Lebanon. Their reaction was that if the Chief of Staff says they must
do so, they would. The Chief of Staff formed the impression that they
were bewildered, that it was possible that they did not know what had
happened in the camps and had no control over their people there
(testimony of the Chief of Staff, p. 251). Even after that meeting the
Phalangist heads continued in their public appearances to deny any
connection with the massacre. That denial is patently incorrect.
Contentions and accusations were advanced that even
if I.D.F. personnel had not shed the blood of the massacred, the entry
of the Phalangists into the camps had been carried out with the prior
knowledge that a massacre would be perpetrated there and with the
intention that this should indeed take place; and therefore all those
who had enabled the entry of the Phalangists into the camps should be
regarded as accomplices to the acts of slaughter and sharing in direct
responsibility. These accusations too are unfounded. We have no doubt
that no conspiracy or plot was entered into between anyone from the
Israeli political echelon or from the military echelon in the I.D.F.
and the Phalangists, with the aim of perpetrating atrocities in the
camps. The decision to have the Phalangists enter the camps was taken
with the aim of preventing further losses in the war in Lebanon; to
accede to the pressure of public opinion in Israel, which was angry
that the Phalangists, who were reaping the fruits of the war, were
taking no part in it; and to take advantage of the Phalangists'
professional service and their skills in identifying terrorists and in
discovering arms caches. No intention existed on the part of any
Israeli element to harm the non-combatant population in the camps. It
is true that in the war in Lebanon, and particularly during the siege
of West Beirut, the civilian population sustained losses, with old
people, women and children among the casualties, but this was the
result of belligerent actions which claim victims even among those who
do not fight. Before they entered the camps and also afterward, the
Phalangists requested I.D.F. support in the form of artillery fire and
tanks, but this request was rejected by the Chief of Staff in order to
prevent injuries to civilians. It is true that I.D.F. tank fire was
directed at sources of fire within the camps, but this was in reaction
to fire directed at the I.D.F. from inside the camps. We assert that in
having the Phalangists enter the camps, no intention existed on the
part of anyone who acted on behalf of Israel to harm the non-combatant
population, and that the events that followed did not have the
concurrence or assent of anyone from the political or civilian echelon
who was active regarding the Phalangists' entry into the camps.
It was alleged that the atrocities being perpetrated
in the camps were visible from the roof of the forward command post,
that the fact that they were being committed was also discernible from
the sounds emanating from the camps, and that the senior I.D.F.
commanders who were on the roof of the forward command post for two
days certainly saw or heard what was going on in the camps. We have
already determined above that events in the camps, in the area where
the Phalangists entered, were not visible from the roof of the forward
command post. It has also been made clear that no sounds from which it
could be inferred that a massacre was being perpetrated in the camps
reached that place. It is true that certain reports did reach officers
at the forward command post - and we shall discuss these in another
section of this report - but from the roof of the forward command post
they neither saw the actions of the Phalangists nor heard any sounds
indicating that a massacre was in progress.
Here we must add that when the group of doctors and
nurses met I.D.F. officers on Saturday morning, at a time when it was
already clear to them that they were out of danger, they made no
complaint that a massacre had been perpetrated in the camps. When we
asked the witnesses from the group why they had not informed the 1. D.
F. officers about the massacre, they replied that they had not known
about it. The fact that the doctors and nurses who were in the Gaza
Hospital - which is proximate to the site of the event and where
persons wounded in combative action and frightened persons from the
camps arrived - did not know about the massacre, but only about
isolated instances of injury which they had seen for themselves, also
shows that those who were nearby but not actually inside the camps did
not form the impression, from what they saw and heard, that a massacre
of hundreds of people was taking place. Nor did members of a unit of
the Lebanese army who were stationed near the places of entry into the
camps know anything about the massacre until after the Phalangists had
departed.
Our conclusion is therefore that the direct
responsibility for the perpetration of the acts of slaughter rests on
the Phalangist forces. No evidence was brought before us that
Phalangist personnel received explicit orders from their command to
perpetrate acts of slaughter, but it is evident that the forces who
entered the area were steeped in hatred for the Palestinians, in the
wake of the atrocities and severe injuries done to the Christians
during the civil war in Lebanon by the Palestinians and those who
fought alongside them; and these feelings of hatred were compounded by
a longing for revenge in the wake of the assassination of the
Phalangists' admired leader Bashir and the killing of several dozen
Phalangists two days before their entry into the camps. The execution
of acts of slaughter was approved for the Phalangists on the site by
the remarks of the two commanders to whom questions were addressed over
the radios, as was related above.
The Indirect Responsibility
Before we discuss the essence of the problem of the
indirect responsibility of Israel, or of those who operated at its
behest, we perceive it to be necessary to deal with objections that
have been voiced on various occasions, according to which if Israel's
direct responsibility for the atrocities is negated - i.e., if it is
determined that the blood of those killed was not shed by I.D.F.
soldiers and I.D.F. forces, or that others operating at the behest of
the state were not parties to the atrocities - then there is no place
for further discussion of the problem of indirect responsibility. The
argument is that no responsibility should be laid on Israel for deeds
perpetrated outside of its borders by members of the Christian
community against Palestinians in that same country, or against Muslims
located within the area of the camps. A certain echo of this approach
may be found in statements made in the cabinet meeting of 19.9.82, and
in statements released to the public by various sources.
We cannot accept this position. If it indeed becomes
clear that those who decided on the entry of the Phalangists into the
camps should have foreseen - from the information at their disposal and
from things which were common knowledge - that there was danger of a
massacre, and no steps were taken which might have prevented this
danger or at least greatly reduced the possiblity that deeds of this
type might be done, then those who made the decisions and those who
implemented them are indirectly responsible for what ultimately
occurred, even if they did not intend this to happen and merely
disregarded the anticipated danger. A similar indirect responsibility
also falls on those who knew of the decision; it was their duty, by
virtue of their position and their office, to warn of the danger, and
they did not fulfill this duty. It is also not possible to absolve of
such indirect responsibility those persons who, when they received the
first reports of what was happening in the camps, did not rush to
prevent the continuation of the Phalangists' actions and did not do
everything within their power to stop them. It is not our function as a
commission of inquiry to lay a precise legal foundation for such
indirect responsibility. It may be that from a legal perspective, the
issue of responsibility is not unequivocal, in view of the lack of
clarity regarding the status of the State of Israel and its forces in
Lebanese territory. If the territory of West Beirut may be viewed at
the time of the events as occupied territory - and we do not determine
that such indeed is the case from a legal perspective - then it is the
duty of the occupier, according to the rules of usual and customary
international law, to do all it can to ensure the public's well-being
and security. Even if these legal norms are invalid regarding the
situation in which the Israeli government and the forces operating at
its instructions found themselves at the time of the events, still, as
far as the obligations applying to every civilized nation and the
ethical rules accepted by civilized peoples go, the problem of indirect
responsibility cannot be disregarded. A basis for such responsibility
may be found in the outlook of our ancestors, which was expressed in
things that were said about the moral significance of the biblical
portion concerning the "beheaded heifer" (in the Book of Deuteronomy,
chapter 21). It is said in Deuteronomy (21:6-7) that the elders of the
city who were near the slain victim who has been found (and it is not
known who struck him down) "will wash their hands over the beheaded
heifer in the valley and reply: our hands did not shed this blood and
our eyes did not see." Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi says of this verse
(Talmud, Tractate Sota 38b):
"The necessity for the heifer whose neck is to be
broken only arises on account of the niggardliness of spirit, as it is
said, 'Our hands have not shed this blood.' But can it enter our minds
that the elders of a Court of Justice are shedders of blood! The
meaning is, [the man found dead] did not come to us for help and we
dismissed him, we did not see him and let him go - i.e., he did not
come to us for help and we dismissed him without supplying him with
food, we did not see him and let him go without escort." (Rashi
explains that escort means a group that would accompany them; Sforno, a
commentator from a later period, says in his commentary on Deuteronomy,
"that there should not be spectators at the place, for if there were
spectators there, they would protest and speak out.')
When we are dealing with the issue of indirect
responsibility, it should also not be forgotten that the Jews in
various lands of exile, and also in the Land of Israel when it was
under foreign rule, suffered greatly from pogroms perpetrated by
various hooligans; and the danger of disturbances against Jews in
various lands, it seems evident, has not yet passed. The Jewish
public's stand has always been that the responsibility for such deeds
falls not only on those who rioted and committed the atrocities, but
also on those who were responsible for safety and public order, who
could have prevented the disturbances and did not fulfill their
obligations in this respect. It is true that the regimes of various
countries, among them even enlightened countries, have side-stepped
such responsibility on more than one occasion and have not established
inquiry commissions to investigate the issue of indirect
responsibility, such as that about which we are speaking; but the
development of ethical norms in the world public requires that the
approach to this issue be universally shared, and that the
responsibility be placed not just on the perpetrators, but also on
those who could and should have prevented the commission of those deeds
which must be condemned.
We would like to note here that we will not enter at
all into the question of indirect responsibility of other elements
besides the State of Israel. One might argue that such indirect
responsibility falls, inter alia, on the Lebanese army, or on the
Lebanese government to whose orders this army was subject, since
despite Major General Drori's urgings in his talks with the heads of
the Lebanese army, they did not grant Israel's request to enter the
camps before the Phalangists or instead of the Phalangists, until
19.9.82. It should also be noted that in meetings with U.S.
representatives during the critical days, Israel's spokesmen repeatedly
requested that the U.S. use its influence to get the Lebanese Army to
fulfill the function of maintaining public peace and order in West
Beirut, but it does not seem that these requests had any result. One
might also make charges concerning the hasty evacuation of the
multi-national force by the countries whose troops were in place until
after the evacuation of the terrorists. We will also not discuss the
question of when other elements besides Israeli elements first learned
of the massacre, and whether they did all they could to stop it or at
least to immediately bring the reports in their possession to Israeli
and other elements. We do not view it as our function to discuss these
issues, which perhaps should be clarified in another framework; we will
only discuss the issue of Israel's indirect responsibility, knowing
that if this responsibility is determined, it is not an exclusive
responsibility laid on Israel alone.
Here it is appropriate to discuss the question
whether blame may be attached regarding the atrocities done in the
camps to those who decided on the entry into West Beirut and on
including the Phalangists in actions linked to this entry.
As has already been said above, the decision to
enter West Beirut was adopted in conversations held between the Prime
Minister and the Defense Minister on the night between 14-15 September
1982. No claim may be made that this decision was adopted by these two
alone without convening a cabinet session. On that same night, an
extraordinary emergency situation was created which justified immediate
and concerted action to prevent a situation which appeared undesirable
and even dangerous from Israel's perspective. There is great sense in
the supposition that had I.D.F. troops not entered West Beirut, a
situation of total chaos and battles between various combat forces
would have developed, and the number of victims among the civilian
population would have been far greater than it ultimately was. The
Israeli military force was the only real force nearby which could take
control over West Beirut so as to maintain the peace and prevent a
resumption of hostile actions between various militias and communities.
The Lebanese army could have performed a function in the refugee camps,
but it did not then have the power to enforce order in all of West
Beirut. Under these circumstances it could be assumed that were I.D.F.
forces not to enter West Beirut, various atrocities would be
perpetrated there in the absence of any real authority; and it may be
that world public opinion might then have placed responsibility on
Israel for having refrained from action.
Both the Prime Minister and the Defense Minister
based the participation of the Phalangists in the entry into West
Beirut on the Cabinet resolution adopted at the session of 15.6.82. We
are unable to accept this reasoning. Although there was much talk in
the meeting of 15.6.82 (Exhibit 53) about the plan that the I.D.F.
would not enter West Beirut, and that the entry would be effected by
the Phalangists with support from the I.D.F. - but the situation then
was wholly different from the one that emerged subsequently. During the
discussion of 15.6.82 the terrorists and Syrian forces had not yet been
evacuated from West Beirut, and the entire military picture was
different from the one that developed after the evacuation was executed
and after Bashir's assassination. However, even if the Phalangists'
participation was not based on a formal Cabinet resolution of 15.6.82,
we found no cause to raise objections to that participation in the
circumstances that were created after Bashir's assassination. We wish
to stress that we are speaking now only of the Phalangists'
participation in connection with the entry into West Beirut, and not
about the role they were to play in the camps.
The demand made in Israel to have the Phalangists
take part in the fighting was a general and understandable one; and
political, and to some extent military, reasons existed for such
participation. The general question of relations with the Phalangists
and cooperation with them is a saliently political one, regarding which
there may be legitimate differences of opinion and outlook. We do not
find it justified to assert that the decision on this participation was
unwarranted or that it should not have been made.
It is a different question whether the decision to
have the Phalangists enter the camps was justified in the circumstances
that were created. From the description of events cited above and from
the testimony before us, it is clear that this decision was taken by
the Minister of Defense with the concurrence of the Chief of Staff and
that the Prime Minister did not know of it until the Cabinet session in
the evening hours of 16.9.82. We shall leave to another section of this
report - which will deal with the personal responsibility of all those
to whom notices were sent under Section 15(A) of the law - the
discussion of whether personal responsibility devolves upon the Defense
Minister or the Chief of Staff for what happened afterward in the camps
in the wake of the decision to have the Phalangists enter them. Here we
shall discuss only the question of whether it was possible or necessary
to foresee that the entry of the Phalangists into the camps, with them
in control of the area where the Palestinian population was to be
found, was liable to eventuate in a massacre, as in fact finally
happened.
The heads of Government in Israel and the heads of
the I.D.F. who testified before us were for the most part firm in their
view that what happened in the camps was an unexpected occurrence, in
the nature of a disaster which no one had of hostile actions between
various militias and communities. The Lebanese army could have
performed a function in the refugee camps, but it did not then have the
power to enforce order in all of West Beirut. Under these circumstances
it could be assumed that were I.D.F. forces not to enter West Beirut,
various atrocities would be perpetrated there in the absence of any
real authority; and it may be that world public opinion might then have
placed responsibility on Israel for having refrained from action.
Both the Prime Minister and the Defense Minister
based the participation of the Phalangists in the entry into West
Beirut on the Cabinet resolution adopted at the session of 15.6.82. We
are unable to accept this reasoning. Although there was much talk in
the meeting of 15.6.82 (Exhibit 53) about the plan that the I.D.F.
would not enter West Beirut, and that the entry would be effected by
the Phalangists with support from the I.D.F. - but the situation then
was wholly different from the one that emerged subsequently. During the
discussion of 15.6.82 the terrorists and Syrian forces had not yet been
evacuated from West Beirut, and the entire military picture was
different from the one that developed after the evacuation was executed
and after Bashir's assassination. However, even if the Phalangists'
participation was not based on a formal Cabinet resolution of 15.6.82,
we found no cause to raise objections to that participation in the
circumstances that were created after Bashir's assassination. We wish
to stress that we are speaking now only of the Phalangists'
participation in connection with the entry into West Beirut, and not
about the role they were to play in the camps.
The demand made in Israel to have the Phalangists
take part in the fighting was a general and understandable one; and
political, and to some extent military, reasons existed for such
participation. The general question of relations with the Phalangists
and cooperation with them is a saliently political one, regarding which
there may be legitimate differences of opinion and outlook. We do not
find it justified to assert that the decision on this participation was
unwarranted or that it should not have been made.
It is a different question whether the decision to
have the Phalangists enter the camps was justified in the circumstances
that were created. From the description of events cited above and from
the testimony before us, it is clear that this decision was taken by
the Minister of Defense with the concurrence of the Chief of Staff and
that the Prime Minister did not know of it until the Cabinet session in
the evening hours of 16.9.82. We shall leave to another section of this
report - which will deal with the personal responsibility of all those
to whom notices were sent under Section 15(A) of the law - the
discussion of whether personal responsibility devolves upon the Defense
Minister or the Chief of Staff for what happened afterward in the camps
in the wake of the decision to have the Phalangists enter them. Here we
shall discuss only the question of whether it was possible or necessary
to foresee that the entry of the Phalangists into the camps, with them
in control of the area where the Palestinian population was to be
found, was liable to eventuate in a massacre, as in fact finally
happened.
The heads of Government in Israel and the heads of
the I.D.F. who testified before us were for the most part firm in their
view that what happened in the camps was an unexpected occurrence, in
the nature of a disaster which no one had imagined and which could not
have been - or, at all events, need not have been - foreseen. It was
stressed in the remarks made in testimony and in the arguments advanced
before us, that this matter should not be discussed in terms of
hindsight, but that we must be careful to judge without taking into
account what actually happened. We concur that special caution is
required so as not to fall into the hindsight trap, but that caution
does not exempt us from the obligation to examine whether persons
acting and thinking rationally were duty-bound, when the decision was
taken to have the Phalangists enter the camps, to foresee, according to
the information that each of them possessed and according to public
knowledge, that the entry of the Phalangists into the camps held out
the danger of a massacre and that no little probability existed that it
would in fact occur. At this stage of the discussion we shall not pause
to examine the particular information possessed by the persons to whom
notices were sent under Section 15(A) of the law, but shall make do
with an examination of the knowledge possessed by everyone who had some
expertise on the subject of Lebanon.
In our view, everyone who had anything to do with
events in Lebanon should have felt apprehension about a massacre in the
camps, if armed Phalangist forces were to be moved into them without
the I.D.F. exercising concrete and effective supervision and scrutiny
of them. All those concerned were well aware that combat morality among
the various combatant groups in Lebanon differs from the norm in the
I.D.F. that the combatants in Lebanon belittle the value of human life
far
beyond what is necessary and accepted in wars
between civilized peoples, and that various atrocities against the
non-combatant population had been widespread in Lebanon since 1975. It
was well known that the Phalangists harbor deep enmity for the
Palestinians, viewing them as the source of all the troubles that
afflicted Lebanon during the years of the civil war. The fact that in
certain operations carried out under close I.D.F. supervision the
Phalangists did not deviate from disciplined behavior could not serve
as an indication that their attitude toward the Palestinian population
had changed, or that changes had been effected in their plans - which
they made no effort to hide - for the Palestinians. To this backdrop of
the Phalangists' attitude toward the Palestinians were added the
profound shock in the wake of Bashir's death along with a group of
Phalangists in the explosion at Ashrafiya, and the feeling of revenge
that event must arouse, even without the identity of the assailant
being known.
The written and oral summations presented to us
stressed that most of the experts whose remarks were brought before the
commission - both Military Intelligence personnel and Mossad personnel
- had expressed the view that given the state of affairs existing when
the decision was taken to have the Phalangists enter the camps, it
could not be foreseen that the Phalangists would perpetrate a massacre,
or at all events the probability of that occurring was low; and had
they been asked for their opinion at the time they would have raised no
objections to the decision. We are not prepared to attach any
importance to these statements, and not necessarily due to the fact
that this evaluation was refuted by reality. It is our impression that
the remarks of the experts on this matter were influenced to a certain
extent by the desire of each of them to justify his action or lack
thereof, the experts having failed to raise any objection to the entry
of the Phalangists into the camps when they learned of it. In contrast
to the approach of these experts, there were cases in which other
personnel, both from Military Intelligence, from other I.D.F. branches,
and from outside the governmental framework, warned - as soon as they
learned of the Phalangists' entry into the camps, and on earlier
occasion when the Phalangists' role in the war was discussed - that the
danger of a massacre was great and that the Phalangists would take
advantage of every opportunity offered them to wreak vengeance on the
Palestinians. Thus, for example, Intelligence Officer G. (whose name
appears in Section I of Appendix B), a branch head in Military
Intelligence/ Research, stated that the subject of possible injury by
the Phalangists to the Palestinian population had come up many times in
internal discussions (statement no. 176). Similarly, when Intelligence
Officer A. learned on Thursday, in a briefing of Intelligence officers,
that the Phalangists had entered the camps, he said, even before the
report arrived about the 300 killed, that he was convinced that the
entry would lead to a massacre of the refugee camps' population. In a
working meeting held at 7:00 p.m. between Major General Drori and the
liaison officer with the Lebanese army at Northern Command
[headquarters], the officer was told by Major General Drori that the
Phalangists were about to enter the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps;
his reaction was that this was a good solution, but care should be
taken that they not commit acts of murder (statement No. 4 and
testimony of Major General Drori, pp. 402-403). In his statement,
Captain Nahum Menahem relates that in a meeting he had with the Defense
Minister on 12.9.82, he informed the Defense Minister of his opinion,
which was based on considerable experience and on a study he had made
of the tensions between the communities in Lebanon, that a "terrible"
slaughter could ensue if Israel failed to assuage the inter-communal
tensions in Lebanon (statement No. 161, p. 4). We shall mention here
also articles in the press stating that excesses could be expected on
the part of the Christian fighters (article in the journal Bamahane
from 1.9.82, appended to the statement - No. 24 - of the article's
author, the journal's military reporter Mr. Yinon Shenkar) and that the
refugee camps in Beirut were liable to undergo events exceeding what
had happened at El Tel Za'atar (article in a French paper in Beirut
from 20.8.82 appended to the statement, No. 76, of the journalist M.
Strauch). We do not know whether the content of these articles was made
known to the decisionmakers regarding the operation of the Phalangists
in West Beirut, or to those who executed the decision. We mention them
solely as yet another indication that even before Bashir's
assassination the possibility of the Phalangists perpetrating a
massacre in the camps was not esoteric lore which need not and could
not have been foreseen.
We do not say that the decision to have the
Phalangists enter the camps should under no circumstances have been
made and was totally unwarranted. Serious considerations existed in
favor of such a decision; and on this matter we shall repeat what has
already been mentioned, that an understandable desire existed to
prevent I.D. F. losses in hazardous combat in a built-up area, that it
was justified to demand of the Phalangists to take part in combat which
they regarded as a broad opening to assume power and for the
restoration of Lebanese independence, and that the Phalangists were
more expert than the I.D.F. in uncovering and identifying terrorists.
These are weighty considerations; and had the decision-makers and
executors been aware of the danger of harm to the civilian population
on the part of the Phalangists but had nevertheless, having considered
all the circumstances, decided to have the Phalangists enter the camps
while taking all possible steps to prevent harm coming to the civilian
population, it is possible that there would be no place to be critical
of them, even if ultimately it had emerged that the decision had caused
undesirable results and had caused damage. However, as it transpired no
examination was made of all the considerations and their ramifications;
hence the appropriate orders were not issued to the executors of the
decisions and insufficient heed was taken to adopt the required
measures. Herein lies the basis for imputing indirect responsibility to
those persons who in our view did not fulfill the obligations placed on
them.
To sum up this chapter, we assert that the
atrocities in the refugee camps were perpetrated by members of the
Phalangists, and that absolutely no direct responsibility devolves upon
Israel or upon those who acted in its behalf. At the same time, it is
clear from what we have said above that the decision on the entry of
the Phalangists into the refugee camps was taken without consideration
of the danger - which the makers and executors of the decision were
obligated to foresee as probable - that the Phalangists would commit
massacres and pogroms against the inhabitants of the camps, and without
an examination of the means for preventing this danger. Similarly, it
is clear from the course of events that when the reports began to
arrive about the actions of the Phalangists in the camps, no proper
heed was taken of these reports, the correct conclusions were not drawn
from them, and no energetic and immediate actions were taken to
restrain the Phalangists and put a stop to their actions. This both
reflects and exhausts Israel's indirect responsibility for what
occurred in the refugee camps. We shall discuss the responsibility of
those who acted in Israel's behalf and in its name in the following
chapters.
The Responsibility of the Political
Echelon
Among those who received notices sent by the
committee in accordance with Section 15(A) of the Commissions of
Inquiry Law were the Prime Minister and two ministers, and in this
matter no distinction was made between Cabinet ministers and
officeholders and other officials. We took this course because, in our
opinion, in principle, in the matter of personal responsibility, no
distinction should be made between Cabinet members and others charged
with personal responsibility for actions or oversights. We wish to note
to the credit of the lawyers who appeared before us that none of them
raised any argument to the effect that in the investigation being
conducted before us, the status of Cabinet members differed from that
of others. In our view, any claim that calls for a distinction of this
sort is wholly untenable. We shall discuss this argument below,
although it was raised not in the deliberations of the commission but
outside them.
In the report of the "Commission of Inquiry - the
Yom Kippur War" (henceforth the Agranat Commission), the subject of
"personal responsibility of the government echelon" was discussed in
Clause 30 of the partial report. It is appropriate to cite what was
stated there, since we believe that it reflects the essence of the
correct approach, from a legal and public standpoint, to the problem of
the personal responsibility of the political echelon. The partial
report of the Agranat Commission states (Section 30):
"In discussing the responsibility of ministers for
an act or failure to act in which they actually or personally took
part, we are obligated to stress that we consider ourselves free to
draw conclusions, on the basis of our findings, that relate only to
direct responsibility, and we do not see it as our task to express an
opinion on what is implied by parliamentary responsibility.
"Indeed, in Israel, as in England - whence it came
to us - the principle prevails that a member of the Cabinet is
responsible to the elected assembly for all the administrative actions
of the apparatus within his ministry, even if he was not initially
aware of them and was not a party to them. However, while it is clear
that this principle obligates him to report to the members of the
elected assembly on such actions, including errors and failures; to
reply to parliamentary questions; to defend them or to report on what
has been done to correct errors - even the English experience shows
that the traditions have not determined anything regarding the question
of which cases of this kind require him to resign from his ministerial
office; this varies, according to circumstances, from one case to the
next. The main reason for this is that the question of the possible
resignation of a Cabinet member in cases of this kind is essentially a
political question par excellence, and therefore we believe that we
should not deal with it..."
Later on in the partial report, the Agranat
Commission deals (in Section 31) with the "direct personal
responsibility of the Minister of Defense" and arrives at the
conclusion that "according to the criterion of reasonable behavior
demanded of one who holds the office of Minister of Defense, the
minister was not obligated to order additional or different
precautionary measures..."
The Agranat Commission also dealt (in Section 32 of
its partial report) with the personal responsibility of the Prime
Minister and arrived at the conclusion that she was not to be charged
with any responsibility for her actions at the outbreak of the Yom
Kippur War and afterwards.
From the above it is clear that the Agranat
commission did not in any way avoid dealing with the question of the
personal responsibility of the Prime Minister and other ministers, and
regarding responsibility of this kind it did not distinguish between
ministers and other people whose actions were investigated by the
commission. The Agranat Commission did not discuss the question of a
minister's responsibility for the shortcomings and failures of the
apparatus he heads and for which he should not be charged with any
personal responsibility. It is not necessary to deal in this report
with the question of a minister's responsibility for the failures of
his apparatus which occurred without any personal blame on his part,
and we shall not express an opinion on it.
The claim has been made, albeit not in the framework
of the commission's deliberations, that the matter of a minister's
judgment cannot serve as the subject of investigation of a commission
of inquiry according to the Commissions of Inquiry Law, 1968, because a
minister's judgments are political judgments; there are no set norms
regarding judgments of this kind; and therefore one cannot subject such
judgments to scrutiny. We reject this view. It is unfounded from both a
legal and a public point of view. From a legal standpoint, it is a well
known rule, and attested by many rulings of the Supreme Court (sitting
in its capacity as the High Court of Justice), that any judgment of a
public authority, including that of ministers, is subject to scrutiny
and examination in court. Decisions made on the basis of unwarranted,
irrelevant, arbitrary, unreasonable, or immaterial considerations have
more than once been disqualified by the courts.
In examining the considerations that served as the
basis for decisions, the court never distinguished between the
obligations of a minister and those of any other public authority. The
fact that there exists no hard and fast law stating that a public
authority must reach its decision on the basis of correct and
reasonable considerations after examining all matters brought before it
in a proper manner, has not prevented the courts from imposing
obligations of this sort on every public authority.
This has no bearing on the principle that the court
does not substitute its own judgment for the judgment of the public
authority and usually does not intervene in the policy that the
authority sets for itself.
This is all the more reason for rejecting the
above-mentioned view when the matter under discussion is the
deliberations of a commission of inquiry that is obligated to consider
not necessarily the legal aspects of the subject but also, and
occasionally primarily, its public and moral aspects. The absence of
any hard and fast law regarding various matters does not exempt a man
whose actions are subject to the scrutiny of a commission of inquiry
from accountability, from a public standpoint, for his deeds or
failures that indicate inefficiency on his part, lack of proper
attention to his work, or actions executed hastily, negligently,
unwisely, or shortsightedly when - considering the qualifications of
the man who holds a certain office and the personal qualities demanded
of him in fulfilling his duties -he should have acted perspicaciously.
No commission of inquiry would fulfill its role properly if it did not
exercise such scrutiny, in the framework of its competence, vis-a-vis
any man whose actions and failures were under scrutiny, regardless of
his position and public standing.
In conclusion, regarding personal responsibility, we
will not draw a distinction between the political echelon and any other
echelon.
Personal Responsibility
In accordance with a resolution adopted by the
Commission on 24.11.82, notices were sent under Section 15(A) of the
Commissions of Inquiry Law, 1968, to nine persons regarding the harm
liable to be done to them by the inquiry and its results. We shall now
consider the matter of each of those who received such a notice.
The Prime Minister, Mr. Menachem
Begin
The notice sent to the Prime Minister, Mr.
Menachem Begin, stated that he was liable to be harmed if the Commission
were to determine "that the Prime Minister did not properly weigh the
part to be played by the Lebanese Forces during and in the wake of the
I.D.F.'s entry into West Beirut, and disregarded the danger of acts
of revenge and bloodshed by these forces vis-a-vis the population in
the refugee camps."
The Prime Minister's response to the notice stated
that in the conversations between him and the Defense Minister in which
the decision was taken to have I.D.F. units enter West Beirut, and in
the conversations he had held with the Chief of Staff during the night
between 14.9.82 and 15.9.82, nothing at all was said about a possible
operation by the Lebanese Forces.
The Prime Minister testifies that only in the
Cabinet session of 16.9.82 did he hear about the agreement with the
Phalangists that they would operate in the camps, and that until then,
in all the conversations he had held with the Defense Minister and with
the Chief of Staff, nothing had been said about the role of the
Phalangists or their participation in the operations in West Beirut. He
added that since this matter had not come up in the reports he received
from the Defense Minister and the Chief of Staff, he had raised no
questions about it. The Prime Minister's remarks in this regard are
consistent with the testimony of the Defense Minister and the Chief of
Staff, and with the existing documents concerning the content of the
conversations with the Prime Minister. We have described above the two
conversations between the Prime Minister and the Defense Minister from
the roof of the forward command post on Wednesday, 15.9.82, in the
morning hours. According to the testimony and the notes of those
conversations, the matter of the Phalangists was not mentioned in them
at all. In a further conversation between the Defense Minister and the
Prime Minister, on Wednesday at 18:00 hours, nothing was said about the
participation of the Phalangists in the entry into Beirut. Similarly,
on Thursday, 16.9.82, when the Defense Minister spoke by phone with the
Prime Minister during the discussion in the Defense Minister's office,
the Defense Minister said nothing about the Phalangists. According to
the content of the conversation (see Exhibit 27), his report to the
Prime Minister was in an optimistic vein: that the fighting had ended,
the I.D.F. held all the key points, and it was all over. The only
mention of the camps in that conversation was that they were encircled.
We may certainly wonder that the participation of
the Phalangists in the entry to West Beirut and their being given the
task of "mopping up" the camps seemed so unimportant that the Defense
Minister did not inform the Prime Minister of it and did not get his
assent for the decision; however, that question does not bear on the
responsibility of the Prime Minsiter. What is clear is that the Prime
Minister was not a party to the decision to have the Phalangists move
into the camps, and that he received no report about that decision
until the Cabinet session on the evening of 16.9.82.
We do not believe that we ought to be critical of
the Prime Minister because he did not on his own initiative take an
interest in the details of the operation of the entry into West Beirut,
and did not discover, through his own questions, that the Phalangists
were taking part in that operation of the entry into West Beirut. The
tasks of the Prime Minister are many and diverse, and he was entitled
to rely on the optimistic and calming report of the Defense Minister
that the entire operation was proceeding without any hitches and in the
most satisfactory manner.
We have cited above passages from remarks made at
the Cabinet session of 16.9.82, during which the Prime Minister learned
that the Phalangists had that evening begun to operate in the camps.
Neither in that meeting nor afterward did the Prime Minister raise any
opposition or objection to the entry of the Phalangists into the camps.
Nor did he react to the remarks of Deputy prime Minister Levy which
contained a warning of the danger to be expected from the Phalangists'
entry into the camps. According to the Prime Minister's testimony, "no
one conceived that atrocities would be committed... simply, none of us,
no Minister, none of the other participants supposed such a thing..."
(p. 767). The Prime Minister attached no importance to Minister Levy's
remarks because the latter did not ask for a discussion or a vote on
this subject. When Minister Levy made his remarks, the Prime Minister
was busy formulating the concluding resolution of the meeting, and for
this reason as well, he did not pay heed to Minister Levy's remarks.
We have already said above, when we discussed the
question of indirect responsibility, that in our view, because of
things that were well known to all, it should have been foreseen that
the danger of a massacre existed if the Phalangists were to enter the
camps without measures being taken to prevent them from committing acts
such as these. We are unable to accept the Prime Minister's remarks
that he was absolutely unaware of such a danger. According to what he
himself said, he told the Chief of Staff on the night between 14 and 15
September 1982, in explaining the decision to have the I.D.F. occupy
positions in West Beirut, that this was being done "in order to protect
the Moslems from the vengeance of the Phalangists," and he could well
suppose that after the assassination of Bashir, the Phalangists'
beloved leader, they would take revenge on the terrorists. The Prime
Minister was aware of the mutual massacres committed in Lebanon during
the civil war, and of the Phalangists' feelings of hate for the
Palestinians, whom the Phalangists held responsible for all the
calamities that befell their land. The purpose of the I.D.F.'s entry
into West Beirut - in order to prevent bloodshed - was also stressed by
the Prime Minister in his meeting with Ambassador Draper on 15.9.82. We
are prepared to believe the Prime Minister that, being preoccupied at
the Cabinet session with formulating the resolution, he did not pay
heed to the remarks of Minister Levy, which were uttered following
lengthy reviews and discussions. However, in view of what has already
been noted above regarding foresight and probability of acts of
slaughter, we are unable to accept the position of the Prime Minister
that no one imagined that what happened was liable to happen, or what
follows from his remarks: that this possibility did not have to be
foreseen when the decision was taken to have the Phalangists move into
the camps.
As noted, the Prime Minister first heard about the
Phalangists' entry into the camps about 36 hours after the decision to
that effect was taken, and did not learn of the decision until the
Cabinet session. When he heard about the Phalangists' entry into the
camps, it had already taken place. According to the "rosy" reports the
Prime Minister received from the Defense Minister and the Chief of
Staff, the Prime Minister was entitled to assume at that time that all
the operations in West Beirut had been performed in the best possible
manner and had nearly been concluded. We believe that in these
circumstances it was not incumbent upon the Prime Minister to object to
the Phalangists' entry into the camps or to order
their removal. On the other hand, we find no reason
to exempt the Prime Minister from responsibility for not having
evinced, during or after the Cabinet session, any interest in the
Phalangists' actions in the camps. It has already been noted above that
no report about the Phalangists' operations reached the Prime Minister,
except perhaps for the complaint regarding the Gaza Hospital, until he
heard the BBC broadcast towards evening on Saturday. For two days after
the Prime Minister heard about the Phalangists' entry, he showed
absolutely no interest in their actions in the camps. This indifference
would have been justifiable if we were to accept the Prime Minister's
position that it was impossible and unnecessary to foresee the
possibility that the Phalangists would commit acts of revenge; but we
have already explained above that according to what the Prime Minister
knew, according to what he heard in the Thursday cabinet session, and
according to what he said about the purpose of the move into Beirut,
such a possibility was not unknown to him. It may be assumed that a
manifestation of interest by him in this matter, after he had learned
of the Phalangists' entry, would have increased the alertness of the
Defense Minister and the Chief of Staff to the need to take appropriate
measures to meet the expected danger. The Prime Minister's lack of
involvement in the entire matter casts on him a certain degree of
responsibility.
The Minister of Defense, Mr. Ariel Sharon
The
notice sent to the Minister of Defense under Section 15(A) stated that
the Minister of Defense might be harmed if the commission determined
that he ignored or disregarded the danger of acts of revenge or
bloodshed perpetrated by Lebanese forces against the population of the
refugee camps in Beirut and did not order the adoption of the
withdrawal of the Lebanese forces from the refugee camps as quickly as
possible and the adoption of measures to protect the population in the
camps when information reached him about the acts of killing or
excesses that were perpetrated by the Lebanese forces.
In his testimony before us, and in statements he
issued beforehand, the Minister of Defense also adopted the position
that no one had imagined the Phalangists would carry out a massacre in
the camps and that it was a tragedy that could not be foreseen. It was
stressed by the Minister of Defense in his testimony, and argued in his
behalf, that the director of Military Intelligence, who spent time with
him and maintained contact with him on the days prior to the
Phalangists' entry into the camps and at the time of their entry into
the camps, did not indicate the danger of a massacre, and that no
warning was received from the Mossad, which was responsible for the
liaison with the Phalangists and also had special knowledge of the
character of this force.
It is true that no clear warning Was provided by
military intelligence or the Mossad about what might happen if the
Phalangist forces entered the camps, and we will relate to this matter
when we discuss the responsibility of the director of Military
Intelligence and the head of the Mossad. But in our view, even without
such warning, it is impossible to justify the Minister of Defense's
disregard of the danger of a massacre. We will not repeat here what we
have already said above about the widespread knowledge regarding the
Phalangists' combat ethics, their feelings of hatred toward the
Palestinians, and their leaders' plans for the future of the
Palestinians when said leaders would assume power. Besides this general
knowledge, the Defense Minister also had special reports from his not
inconsiderable [number of] meetings with the Phalangist heads before
Bashir's assassination.
Giving the Phalangists the possibility of entering
the refugee camps without taking measures for continuous and concrete
supervision of their actions there could have created a grave danger
for the civilian population in the camps even if they had been given
such a possibility before Bashir's assassination; thus this danger was
certainly to have been anticipated - and it was imperative to have
foreseen it - after Bashir's assassination. The fact that it was not
clear which organization had caused Bashir's death was of no importance
at all, given the known frame of mind among the combatant camps in
Lebanon. In the circumstances that prevailed after Bashir's
assassination, no prophetic powers were required to know that concrete
danger of acts of slaughter existed when the Phalangists were moved
into the camps without the I.D.F.'s being with them in that operation
and without the I.D.F. being able to maintain effective and ongoing
supervision of their actions there. The sense of such a danger should
have been in the consciousness of every knowledgeable person who was
close to this subject, and certainly in the consciousness of the
Defense Minister, who took an active part in everything relating to the
war. His involvement in the war was deep, and the connection with the
Phalangists was under his constant care. If in fact the Defense
Minister, when he decided that the Phalangists would enter the camps
without the I.D.F. taking part in the operation, did not think that
that decision could bring about the very disaster that in fact
occurred, the only possible explanation for this is that he disregarded
any apprehensions about what was to be expected because the advantages
- which we have already noted - to be gained from the Phalangists'
entry into the camps distracted him from the proper consideration in
this instance.
As a politician responsible for Israel's security
affairs, and as a Minister who took an active part in directing the
political and military moves in the war in Lebanon, it was the duty of
the Defense Minister to take into account all the reasonable
considerations for and against having the Phalangists enter the camps,
and not to disregard entirely the serious consideraton mitigating
against such an action, namely that the Phalangists were liable to
commit atrocities and that it was necessary to forestall this
possibility as a humanitarian obligation and also to prevent the
political damage it would entail. From the Defense Minister himself we
know that this consideration did not concern him in the least, and that
this matter, with all its ramifications, was neither discussed nor
examined in the meetings and discussion held by the Defense Minister.
In our view, the Minister of Defense made a grave mistake when he
ignored the danger of acts of revenge and bloodshed by the Phalangists
against the population in the refugee camps.
We have already said above that we do not assert
that the decision to have the Phalangists enter the camps should under
no circumstances ever have been made. It appears to us that no
complaints could be addressed to the Defense Minister in this matter if
such a decision had been taken after all the relevant considerations
had been examined; however, if the decision were taken with the
awareness that the risk of harm to the inhabitants existed, the
obligation existed to adopt measures which would ensure effective and
ongoing supervision by the I.D.F. over the actions of the Phalangists
at the site, in such a manner as to prevent the danger or at least
reduce it considerably. The Defense Minister issued no order regarding
the adoption of such measures. We shall not dwell here on what steps
might have been taken; this we shall consider below. Regarding the
responsibility of the Minister of Defense, it is sufficient to assert
that he issued no order to the I.D.F. to adopt suitable measures.
Similarly, in his meetings with the Phalangist commanders, the Defense
Minister made no attempt to point out to them the gravity of the danger
that their men would commit acts of slaughter. Although it is not
certain that remarks to this effect by the Defense Minister would have
prevented the acts of massacre, they might have had an effect on the
Phalangist commanders who, out of concern for their political
interests, would have imposed appropriate supervision over their people
and seen to it that they did not exceed regular combat operations. It
was related above that a few hours after the Phalangists entered the
camps, soldiers at the site asked what to do with the people who had
fallen into their hands, and the replies they were given not only did
not bar them from harming those people, but even urged them to do so.
It is a highly reasonable assumption that had the commanders who gave
that reply heard from the Defense Minister or from higher Phalangist
commanders a clear and explicit order barring harm to civilians and
spelling out the damage this was liable to cause the Phalangists, their
reply to these questions would have been different.
Had it become clear to the Defense Minister that no
real supervision could be exercised over the Phalangist force that
entered the camps with the I.D.F.'s assent, his duty would have been to
prevent their entry. The usefulness of the Phalangists' entry into the
camps was wholly disproportionate to the damage their entry could cause
if it were uncontrolled. A good many people who heard about the
Phalangists' entry into the camps were aware of this even before the
first reports arrived about the massacre. The Chief of Staff in effect
also held the same opinion, as emerges from his reply to a question
whether he would have issued orders for additional measures to be taken
or would have sufficed with the steps that were in fact taken, had it
been expected that the Phalangists would commit excesses. He replied as
follows (p. 1677):
"No, if I had expected that this was liable to
happen, or if someone had warned me that this was liable to happen,
they would not have entered the camps."
In reply to another question, whether he would have taken additional measures, the Chief of Staff said:
"They would not have entered the camps; I would not have allowed them to enter the camps."
Asked if he would not have allowed the Phalangists
to enter the camps despite the aim of having them operate together with
the I.D.F. and spare the I.D.F. losses, the Chief of Staff replied:
"Then maybe we should have acted differently, by
closing the camps, by surrounding them, or bringing them to surrender
in another week or in another few days, or shelling them with all our
might from the air and with artillery. As for me, if I had anticipated
that this is what would happen, or if such a warning had been given,
they would not have entered the camps."
And the Chief of Staff added that if he had
suspected or feared that what happened would happen, "they would not
have entered the camps at all, they would not have come anywhere near
the camps." We quote these remarks here in order to show that despite
the usefulness of having the Phalangists enter the camps, that step
should have been abandoned if a massacre could not have been prevented
using the means in the I.D.F.'s hands.
We do not accept the contention that the Defense
Minister did not need to fear that the Phalangists would commit acts of
killing because in all outward aspects they looked like a disciplined
and organized army. It could not be inferred from the Phalangists'
orderly military organization that their attitude toward human life and
to the non-combatant population had basically changed. It might perhaps
be inferred from their military organization that the soldiers would
heed the orders of their commanders and not break discipline; but at
the very least, care should have been taken that the commanders were
imbued with the awareness that no excesses were to be committed and
that they give their men unequivocal orders to this effect. The routine
warnings that I.D.F. commanders issued to the Phalangists, which were
of the same kind as were routinely issued to I.D.F. troops, could not
have had any concrete effect.
We shall remark here that it is ostensibly puzzling
that the Defense Minister did not in any way make the Prime Minister
privy to the decision on having the Phalangists enter the camps.
It is our view that responsibility is to be imputed
to the Minister of Defense for having disregarded the danger of acts of
vengeance and bloodshed by the Phalangists against the population of
the refugee camps, and having failed to take this danger into account
when he decided to have the Phalangists enter the camps. In addition,
responsibility is to be imputed to the Minister of Defense for not
ordering appropriate measures for preventing or reducing the danger of
massacre as a condition for the Phalangists' entry into the camps.
These blunders constitute the non-fulfillment of a duty with which the
Defense Minister was charged.
We do not believe that responsibility is to be
imputed to the Defense Minister for not ordering the removal of the
Phalangists from the camps when the first reports reached him about the
acts of killing being committed there. As was detailed above, such
reports initially reached the Defense Minister on Friday evening; but
at the same time, he had heard from the Chief of Staff that the
Phalangists' operation had been halted, that they had been ordered to
leave the camps and that their departure would be effected by 5:00 a.m.
Saturday. These preventive steps might well have seemed sufficient to
the Defense Minister at that time, and it was not his duty to order
additional steps to be taken, or to have the departure time moved up, a
step which was of doubtful feasibility.
The Foreign Minister Mr. Yitzhak
Shamir
The Foreign Minister, Mr. Yitzhak
Shamir, was sent a notice under Section 15(A) that he might be harmed
if the commission determined that after he heard from Minister Zipori
on 17.9.82 of the report regarding the Phalangists' actions in the refugee
camps, he did not take the appropriate steps to clarify whether this
information was based in fact and did not bring the information to the
knowledge of the Prime Minister or the Minister of Defense.
In the memorandum that the Foreign Minister
submitted to us in response to the aforementioned notice, he explained
that what he had heard from Minister Zipori about the "unruliness" of
the Phalangists did not lead him to understand that it was a matter of
a massacre; he thought, rather, that it was a matter of fighting
against terrorists. Since he knew that many of them had remained in
Beirut, together with their weapons, he could have had the impression
from Minister Zipori's statement that perhaps the Phalangists' combat
operations were carried out in a manner that differed from the way a
battle was conducted by the I.D.F., but he did not understand that a
massacre of civilians, women and children, was taking place. The
Foreign Minister also explained his attitude to Minister Zipori's
statement by stating that he knew that Minister Zipori had been long
and consistently opposed to cooperation with the Phalangists, and he
was also known in the Cabinet as a constant critic of the Minister of
Defense, the Chief of Staff, and their actions. For these reasons the
Foreign Minister restricted himself to asking a member of his
ministry's staff whether there was any news from West Beirut and
satisfied himself that there was no need for further investigation
after the Minister of Defense and others responsible for security
affairs came to his office and did not mention that anything
extraordinary had occurred in Beirut.
It is not easy to decide between the conflicting
versions of what Minister Zipori said to the Foreign Minister. We tend
to the opinion that in the telephone conversation Minister Zipori spoke
of a "slaughter" being perpetrated by the Phalangists, and it is
possible that he also spoke of "unruliness." He had heard from the
journalist Ze’ev Schiff of reports that a massacre was going on in the
camps and had treated Schiff's information seriously; and it is
difficult to find a reason why he would not have told the Foreign
Minister what he had heard when the point of the telephone
communication was to inform the Foreign Minister what he had learned
from Schiff. Mr. Schiff, in a statement he has submitted, confirms
Minister Zipori's version. Nevertheless, we are unable to rule out the
possibility that the Foreign Minister did not catch or did not properly
understand the significance of what he heard from Minister Zipori. The
Foreign Minister likewise did not conceal that in relating to what
Minister Zipori had told him, he was influenced by his knowledge that
Minister Zipori was opposed to the policy of the Minister of Defense
and the Chief of Staff regarding the war in Lebanon, and particularly
to cooperation with the Phalangists.
The phenomenon that came to light in this case -
namely, that the statement of one minister to another did not receive
the attention it deserved because of faulty relations between members
of the Cabinet - is regrettable and worrisome. The impression we got is
that the Foreign Minister did not make any real attempt to check
whether there was anything in what he had heard from Minister Zipori on
the Phalangists' operations in the camps because he had an a priori
skeptical attitude toward the statements of the minister who reported
this information to him. It is difficult to find a justification for
such disdain for information that came from a member of the Cabinet,
especially under the circumstances in which the information was
reported. As stated, the conversation between the two ministers was
preceded by a Cabinet meeting on 16.9.82 at which Minister Levy had
expressed a warning of the danger involved in sending the Phalangists
into the camps. That Friday was the end of a week in which dramatic
events had occurred, and the situation as a whole was permeated with
tension and dangers. In this state of affairs, it might have been
expected that the Foreign Minister, by virtue of his position, would
display sensitivity and alertness to what he had heard from another
minister - even if we were to accept unconditionally his statement that
the point under discussion was only the "unruliness" of the
Phalangists. The Foreign Minister should at least have called the
Defense Minister's attention to the information he had received and not
contented himself with asking someone in his office whether any new
information had come in from Beirut and with the expectation that those
people coming to his office would know what was going on and would tell
him if anything out of the ordinary had happened. In our view, the
Foreign Minister erred in not taking any measures after the
conversation with Minister Zipori in regard to what he had heard from
Zipori about the Phalangist actions in the camps.
The Chief of Staff, Lieutenant
General Rafael Eitan
The notice sent to the Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Rafael
Eitan, according to Section 15(A), detailed a number of findings
or conclusions that might be harmful to the Chief of Staff if the commission
established them.
The first point in the notice has to do with the
Chief of Staff disregarding the danger of acts of vengeance and
bloodshed being perpetrated by the Phalangists, against the population
of the refugee camps and his failure to take the appropriate measures
to prevent this danger. In this matter, the Chief of Staff took a
position similar to that of the Minister of Defense which was discussed
above and which we have rejected. The Chief of Staff stated in his
testimony before us that it had never occurred to him that the
Phalangists would perpetrate acts of revenge and bloodshed in the
camps. He justified this lack of foresight by citing the experience of
the past, whereby massacres were perpetrated by the Christians only
before the "Peace for Galilee" War and only in response to the
perpetration of a massacre by the Muslims against the Christian
population, and by citing the disciplined conduct of the Phalangists
while carrying out certain operations after the I.D.F.'s entry into
Lebanon. The Chief of Staff also noted the development of the
Phalangists from a militia into an organized and orderly military
force, as well as the interest of the Phalangist leadership, and first
and foremost of Bashir Jemayel, in behaving moderately toward the
Muslim population so that the president-elect could be accepted by all
the communities in Lebanon. Finally, the Chief of Staff also noted, in
justifying his position, that none of the experts in the I.D.F. or in
the Mossad had expressed any reservations about the planned operation
in the camps.
We are not prepared to accept these explanations. In
our view, none of these reasons had the power to cancel out the serious
concern that in going into the refugee camps, the Phalangist forces
would perpetrate indiscriminate acts of killing. We rejected arguments
of this kind in the part of this report that dealt with indirect
responsibility, as well as in our discussion of the responsibility
borne by the Minister of Defense, and the reasons we presented there
likewise hold for the Chief of Staff's position. Here we will restrict
ourselves to brief reasoning.
Past experience in no way justified the conclusion
that the entry of the Phalangists into the camps posed no danger. The
Chief of Staff was well aware that the Phalangists were full of
feelings of hatred towards the Palestinians and that their feelings had
not changed since the "Peace for Galilee" War. The isolated actions in
which the Phalangists had participated during the war took place under
conditions that were completely different from those which arose after
the murder of Bashir Jemayel; and as one could see from the nature of
[those] operations, in the past there had been no case in which an area
populated by Palestinian refugees had been turned over to the exclusive
control of the Phalangists. On a number of occasions, the Chief of
Staff had harsh and clear-cut things to say about the manner of
fighting between the factions and communities in Lebanon, and about the
concept of vengeance rooted in them; and in this matter we need only
refer to the detailed facts presented in this report. We have already
said a number of times that the traumatic event of the murder of Bashir
Jemayel and of a group of Phalangists was sufficient reason to whip up
the Phalangists. It is difficult to understand how it was possible to
justify ignoring the effect of this event on arousing a feeling of
vengeance and hatred toward all those who were inimical to the
Phalangists, and first and foremost the Palestinians. The consideration
that the military organization of the Phalangists and their orderly and
disciplined appearance attested to a change in their mode of fighting
was specious, and we have already pointed this out.
The absence of a warning from experts cannot serve
as an explanation for ignoring the danger of a massacre. The Chief of
Staff should have known and foreseen - by virtue of common knowledge,
as well as the special information at his disposal - that there was a
possibility of harm to the population in the camps at the hands of the
Phalangists. Even if the experts did not fulfill their obligation, this
does not absolve the Chief of Staff of responsibility.
The decision to send the Phalangists into the camps
was taken by the Minister of Defense and the Chief of Staff, and the
Chief of Staff must be viewed as a partner to this decision and as
bearing responsibility both for its adoption and for its
implementation. The Chief of Staff did not express any opposition to or
reservation about the decision to the Minister of Defense, and no one
disputed that it was taken with his consent. There is no reason to
doubt that had the Chief of Staff expressed opposition or reservation,
this fact would have borne serious weight in the consideration of the
decision; and had there been a difference of opinion between him and
the Minister of Defense, he could easily have brought the matter before
the Prime Minister for his decision. It emerges quite clearly from the
Chief of Staff's testimony, as cited above, that his opposition to
sending the Phalangists into the camps would have meant that they would
not have been sent in, and other means (which he detailed in the
statement cited above) would have been adopted for taking control of
the camps.
If the Chief of Staff did not imagine at all that
the entry of the Phalangists into the camps posed a danger to the
civilian population, his thinking on this matter constitutes a
disregard of important considerations that he should have taken into
account. Moreover, considering the Chief of Staff's own statements
quoted above, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Chief of
Staff ignored this danger out of an awareness that there were great
advantages to sending the Phalangists into the camps, and perhaps also
out of a hope that in the final analysis, the Phalangist excesses would
not be on a large scale. This conclusion is likewise prompted by the
Chief of Staff's behavior during later stages, once reports began to
come in about the Phalangists' excesses in the camps.
It has been argued by the Chief of Staff, and in his
behalf, that appropriate steps were taken to avoid the danger. A
similar claim has been made by Major General Drori and Brigadier
General Yaron. In our opinion, this claim is unfounded.
As stated, one of the precautions was a lookout
posted on the roof of the forward command post and on another roof
nearby. It may be that this lookout was of value in obtaining certain
military information on combat operations, but it was worthless in
terms of obtaining information on the Phalangists' operations within
the camps. Another step was taken to obtain information on exchanges
over the communications sets between the Phalangist forces in the field
and their commanders. It is difficult to regard this step as an
efficient way to discover what was going on in the camps, because it
was based on the assumption that what was said over the communications
network would provide an accurate picture not only of the combat
operations but also of any atrocities, and this assumption was not
sufficiently grounded. It is true that the first reports of the
massacres came from this source of information, but that was merely
fortuitous; and just as questions had been asked about the fate of 45
to 50 people, it could have happened that such questions would not have
gone over the communications network. As stated, the fact of 300 dead
was not discovered as a result of listening in on the communications
set; and it is a fact that whatever was said over these sets did not
reveal the fact that the massacre of hundreds of people was going on in
the camps. The final means whereby it was hoped that the Phalangists'
operations in the camps would be revealed was by placing a Phalangist
liaison officer on the roof of the forward command post and a liaison
officer from the Mossad in the Phalangist headquarters. The obtaining
of information from these two sources was likewise based upon unfounded
assumptions. As to the Phalangist officer, there was no reason to
believe that on his own initiative, he would tell the I.D.F. officers
about the Phalangist operations, for he knew that the I.D.F. would
vigorously oppose them if word of such operations came to its
attention. While Phalangist liaison officer G. did tell of 300 dead,
this was evidently a slip of the tongue on his part, for he immediately
tried to play down the assessment by decreasing the number of
casualties to 120. No information was received from the Mossad liaison
officer; and the hope that he would be able to supply information of
this sort was based on the unrealistic expectation that the Phalangist
commanders would let him in on all the information that came in about
the Phalangists' actions, even if it was a report on an action they
knew the I.D.F. would vigorously oppose.
We asked the witnesses why an I.D.F. liaison officer
was not attached to the Phalangist force that entered the camps, and we
received the reply that there were two reasons: first, the point was
that the I.D.F. should not enter the refugee camps, and the presence of
an I.D.F. liaison officer would contradict that point; second, there
was fear for the life of any such liaison officer, for obvious reason.
We are prepared to accept this explanation and have no criticism of the
fact that this step was not adopted. On the other hand, no explanation
was given for falling to provide special briefings to the I.D.F. units
that were in the vicinity of the camps - something which should have
been done, considering the importance of the matter.
The claim that every possible step was taken to
obtain detailed information on the excesses of the Phalangists - in the
event that such excesses would take place - is not congruent with the
claim that such excesses were not foreseen at all. But we do not wish
to go into this logical contradiction, as in any case it is clear that
the steps which were adopted fell far short of satisfying the need to
know what was going on in the camps; and in fact, the truth about what
was happening there only came out after the Phalangists left the camps.
We find that the Chief of Staff did not consider the
danger of acts of vengeance and bloodshed being perpetrated against the
population of the refugee camps in Beirut; he did not order the
adoption of the appropriate steps to avoid this danger; and his failure
to do so is tantamount to a breach of duty that was incumbent upon the
Chief of Staff.
The other matter for which a notice was sent to the
Chief of Staff under Section 15(A) was that when reports reached him
about acts of killing or actions that deviated from usual combat
operations, he did not check the veracity of these reports and the
scope of these actions and did not order the cessation of the
operations, the removal of the Phalangists from the camps as quickly as
possible, and the adoption of steps to protect the population of the
camps. In a meeting with the Phalangist commanders on the morning of
17.9.82, he approved the continuation of their operations until the
morning of 18.9.82 and ordered that they be provided with assistance
for that purpose.
As related in the description of the events in this
report, the Chief of Staff first heard of the excesses perpetrated by
the Phalangists when Major General Drori contacted him by phone on
Friday morning. The Chief of Staff did not ask Major General Drori at
that time what he knew about the excesses and what moved him to halt
the Phalangist operation; and one should not take him to task for this,
because he had decided to go to Beirut and preferred to clarify the
matter during a personal visit, rather than try to clear it up in a
phone conversation. On the other hand, it is difficult to understand or
justify the Chief of Staff's actions after he reached Beirut, and
especially during the meeting with the Phalangist commanders. Upon
reaching Beirut, the Chief of Staff heard from Major General Drori what
the latter knew about the Phalangist actions; he contented himself with
this report and asked no question about this matter either of Major
General Drori or of Brigadier General Yaron. If it is still possible to
comprehend this reticence as stemming from the Chief of Staff's
expectation that he would hear more exact details during his meeting
with the Phalangist commanders, what took place at that meeting raises
questions to which we have not found a reasonable answer. The Chief of
Staff did not raise with the Phalangist commanders any question about
the aberrant operations or the grave actions that might have been
perpetrated in the camps. It is clear from his testimony that he
thought that if any such actions had been perpetrated, the Phalangist
commanders would have told him about them on their own initiative.
There was no real basis for this naive belief. It is impossible to
understand how the Chief of Staff concluded, from the fact that the
Phalangist commanders told him nothing about the operations against the
civilian population in the camps, that the suspicions that had arisen
about those actions had no basis in reality.
The outstanding impression that emerges from the
Chief of Staff's testimony is that his refraining from raising the
issue of the Phalangists' excesses against the population in the camps
stemmed from a fear of offending their honor; but this fear was out of
place and should not have been a cause for the lack of any
clarification of what had happened, when the Chief of Staff had gotten
reports that should have served as a warning about the grave harm
caused to the population in the camps and when, as a result of these
reports, Major General Drori had issued an order to halt the advance of
the Phalangists. Not only did the Chief of Staff not raise the subject
of the Phalangists' behavior in the camps at the meeting which was
called to clarify what was happening in the camps, but he expressed his
satisfaction with the Phalangist operation and agreed to their request
to provide them with tractors so they could complete their operations
by Saturday morning. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that this
conduct on the Chief of Staffs part during the meeting at the
Phalangists' headquarters stemmed from his disregard of the suspicions
that the Phalangists were perpetrating act of slaughter, and this
disregard went so deep that even the information that had arrived in
the meanwhile and reached the Chief of Staff did not shake it.
It emerges from the Chief of Staffs testimony that
after the meeting with the Phalangists, he felt assured that everything
was proceeding properly, that nothing out of the ordinary had happened
that would require the immediate removal of the Phalangists from the
camps, and that there was nothing wrong with - and perhaps there was
benefit to be derived from - their completing their operation through
Saturday morning. It is impossible to reconcile what we heard from the
Chief of Staff regarding this matter with what he told the Minister of
Defense in a phone conversation when he returned to Israel. We have
already established above that in this conversation, the Chief of Staff
told the Minister of Defense things about the conduct of the
Phalangists that could have led the Minister of Defense to understand
that the Phalangists had perpetrated the murder of civilians in the
camps. But even if we go by the Chief of Staffs version of that
conversation, according to which he said only that the Phalangists had
"overdone it," it is difficult to reconcile this statement with the
absence of all suspicion on his part regarding what had happened in the
camps and the possibility of further similar actions.
Likewise, after the meeting, the Chief of Staff did
not issue any order to major General Drori or Brigadier General Yaron
to prevent the entry of additional Phalangist forces or to send in or
replace [Phalangist] forces, because he did not have the impression
that there was any reason to stop them.
In our opinion, after the Chief of Staff received
the information from Major General Drori in a telephone conversation
that the Phalangists had "overdone it" and Major General Drori had
halted their operation, this information should have alerted him to the
danger that acts of slaughter were being perpetrated in the camps and
made him aware of his obligation to take appropriate steps to clarify
the matter and prevent the continuation of such actions if the
information proved to be of substance. Toward that end, the Chief of
Staff should have held a detailed clarification [session] with Major
General Drori, Brigadier General Yaron, and other officers of the
division, as well as with the Phalangist commanders, immediately upon
his arrival in Beirut. If, as a result of this clarification, he was
not satisfied that excesses had not been committed in the camps, he
should have ordered the immediate removal of the Phalangist forces from
the camp, admonished the Phalangist commanders about the aberrant
actions, and demanded that they issue immediate orders to their forces
to refrain from any act that would cause harm to civilians while they
were still in the camp. None of these things were done by the Chief of
Staff. On the contrary, the Phalangist commanders could have gotten the
impression from the Chief of Staff's words and from his agreement to
supply them with tractors that they could continue their operations in
the camp without interference until Saturday morning and that no report
of excesses had reached the I.D.F. - and if they had reached the
I.D.F., they had not roused any sharp reaction.
We determine that the Chief of Staff's inaction,
described above, and his order to provide the Phalangist forces with
tractors, or a tractor, constitute a breach of duty and dereliction of
the duty incumbent upon the Chief of Staff.
Director of Military Intelligence
Major General Yehoshua Saguy
In the notice sent to the Director of Military
Intelligence, Major General Yehoshua Saguy, non-fulfillment of duty was
ascribed to him because he did not give sufficient attention to the
decision regarding sending the Phalangists into the camps and did not
warn after the murder of Bashir Jemayel of the danger of acts of
revenge and bloodshed by these forces against the Palestinian
population in West Beirut, and especially in the refugee camps.
The Director of Military Intelligence testified that
he did not know at all about the decision regarding the sending of the
Phalangists into the camps and did not hear about the role assigned to
the Phalangists in connection with the entry into Beirut until he
discovered the matter in the cable regarding the 300 killed on Friday
morning (17.9.82). We find it difficult to accept this claim. The
decision regarding the sending of the Phalangists into the camps was
discussed on the roof of the forward command post on Wednesday morning,
15.9.82, in conversations between the Minister of Defense, the Chief of
Staff and Major General Drori; and we find it hard to believe that a
decision discussed in these conversations did not at all reach the
Director of Military Intelligence, who was present on the roof of the
forward command post. According to the description of the detailed
discussions which were held that morning on the roof of the forward
command post, the Director of Military Intelligence had ample
opportunities to hear on that occasion about the plans regarding the
participation of the Phalangists in the entry to Beirut and about the
role assigned to them. If indeed the Director of Military Intelligence
did not hear then about the plan to send the Phalangists into the
camps, then the only reason that can be given for this is that he was
completely indifferent to what was being said and what was happening at
that time on the roof of the forward command post, and showed no
interest in the subjects which by virtue of his position should have
interested him.
From the forward command post the Director of
Military Intelligence travelled together with the Defense Minister to
the meeting at Phalangist headquarters; and there the Defense Minister
said that the Phalangist forces would enter West Beirut - though he
apparently did not say explicitly that they would enter the camps.
Regarding this meeting, Major General Saguy testified that it seems to
him that it was said that the Phalangists should participate in
something, but he does not remember exactly (p. 1561). After that
meeting as well, the Director of Military Intelligence evinced no
special interest in the question of what would be the role of the
Phalangists in the entry into Beirut. He spent a considerable amount of
time with the Defense Minister and did not find it necessary to pose
any question to him regarding this matter. An additional meeting in
which the Director of Military Intelligence could have, if he had
wanted to, obtained information on the plans regarding the roles of the
Phalangists in West Beirut took place at a gas station, after the
condolence call in Bikfaya, when Major General Drori reported to the
Defense Minister on the course of events during the I.D.F.'s entry into
Beirut and showed him maps. This opportunity was also missed, for some
reason, by the Director of Military Intelligence. An additional
discussion in which the Director of Military Intelligence participated
and in which the entry of the Phalangists into the camps was explicitly
mentioned was in the meeting at the Defense Minister's office on
Thursday, 16.9.82, at 10:00 a.m. According to Major General Saguy he
did not pay attention to things said at that meeting on the sending of
the Phalangists into the camps. The inattention [displayed] in this
meeting as well is surprising and inexplicable. Major General Saguy was
present at the beginning of the Cabinet meeting on Thursday evening and
left the meeting a short time after it had begun. It has not been
explained why Major General Saguy did not demonstrate sufficient
interest in the role of the Phalangists in the entry into West Beirut
and left the place without even trying to ascertain from anyone present
there who knew what was happening in Beirut what the plan was for
involving the Phalangists. To all this it should be added that already
on Wednesday, 15.9.82, the assistant for research to the Director of
Military Intelligence heard at a meeting in the office of the Deputy
Chief of Staff about the plan that the Phalangists would enter the
camps (p. 7 in exhibit 130).
We cannot believe that no information about the plan
to send the Phalangists into the camps reached the Director of Military
Intelligence until Friday morning, keeping in mind that he was present
at a number of meetings in which this plan was mentioned and he had
ample opportunities to ascertain the role given to the Phalangists.
Even if we were to unreservedly accept Major Saguy's testimony in this
matter, his statements would have been surprising. The Director of
Military Intelligence, who is required to provide an intelligence
assessment regarding the Phalangists, knows that the I.D.F. is entering
Beirut, knows that in the past there had been complaints about the
non-involvement of the Phalangists in the fighting, hears, at the
latest on Wednesday morning during the meeting at Phalangist
headquarters, that these forces will cooperate with the I.D.F. in the
entry into West Beirut, he does not demonstrate any interest and does
not raise any question as to the role assigned them and does not make
any comment to the Defense Minister or the Chief of Staff on this
matter in the meetings in which he participated. The picture received
according to the testimony of Major General Saguy himself is of
indifference and a conspicuous lack of concern, of shutting of eyes and
ears to a matter regarding which it was incumbent on the director of
the intelligence arm of the I.D.F. to open his eyes and listen well to
all that was discussed and decided.
The only explanation which can be found for the
aforementioned behavior of the Director of Military Intelligence
apparently lies in the fact that the approach of the Director of
Military Intelligence to the Phalangists and to cooperation between
Israel and these forces was much more skeptical that the sympathetic
approach of the Mossad, and that he knew that the Defense Minister,
Chief of Staff and perhaps also the Prime Minister accept the Mossad's
approach, and Military Intelligence's approach had been rejected in
favor of the Mossad's approach. Therefore, the Director of Military
Intelligence was satisfied with Intelligence reports compiled and sent
on his behalf, in which, according to his claim, there is sufficient
warning of the dangers to be expected from cooperation with the
Phalangists.
In our opinion, the Director of Military
Intelligence did not fulfill his duty by [providing only] these
situation evaluations. The verbal warning following the murder of
Bashir, about which the Defense Minister testified, was given rather
weakly. According to Major General Saguy's testimony (pp. 105-106), he
said in a telephone conversation with the Defense Minister on the night
of 14.9.82, when it became clear that Bashir had been killed, that
there were two possibilities: one, that there would be acts of revenge
on the part of the Phalangists; and two, that they would fall apart. It
is difficult to view these vague statements as a substantial warning.
On 15.9.82, at about 18:00 hours, Intelligence Branch prepared a
document (exhibit 26) bearing the title, "Main Emphases for Situation
Assessment," and the only thing said there regarding the danger of acts
of revenge by the Phalangists is that the I.D.F.'s entry into West
Beirut could "be received by some of the parties involved, and perhaps
even among some of the Muslim elements, as a development which might
contribute, at least temporarily, to stability in the city, and provide
them with protection from possible acts of revenge by the Phalangists"
(paragraph I-a in exhibit 26). This document cannot be considered a
clear warning of the danger of involving the Phalangists in the
I.D.F.'s entry into Beirut or an indication of the need to take special
precaution in order not to enable the Phalangists to carry out acts of
revenge against the Palestinians. In an additional Intelligence
document which was issued on 15.9.82 and bears the title "The Murder of
Bashir Jemayel - Main Implications," it was said that "the
assassination creates conditions for heightening the polarization
between the rival Lebanese power elements, for mutual settling of
accounts, and for deterioration, which, in the absence of a stabilizing
element, is liable to develop into a general civil war" (paragraph 4,
exhibit 25). Neither can this be considered a substantial warning which
draws attention to the dangers of acts of revenge by the Phalangists
entering West Beirut with the I.D.F. or in its wake.
The director of Military Intelligence said in his
testimony that for the issue of sending the Phalangists into the camps
to have been discussed and clarified properly, situation-assessment
discussions ought to have been held to examine the various topics
(which he enumerated in his testimony, p. 1587) connected with the
Phalangists' entry into the camps. In his opinion, such a clarification
could have been made within a short time; and had it emerged in such a
discussion that it were possible to ensure the coordination with - and
the command by - the I.D.F. "all the way," he would have supported the
entry of the Phalangists, and not the I.D.F., into the camps. We accept
these statements of his; but it appears to us that the director of
Military Intelligence should have demonstrated sufficient interest in
the matter in order to ascertain the role assigned the Phalangists, if
for some reason he had not heard about it in the meetings in which he
had participated; and it was incumbent upon him to demand that a
clarification or discussion be held regarding those topics which he
raised in his testimony before us. The fact which the director of
Military Intelligence and his representatives point out, namely that
the combat morals of the Phalangists and the massacres carried out in
the past during the civil war in Lebanon were known to everyone, did
not exempt the director of Military Intelligence from the fulfillment
of his duties, especially when the issue was cooperation with the
Phalangists after the murder of Bashir Jemayel - and this, even if
there had not been an organized discussion of this matter.
Less so is there any satisfactory explanation for
the lack of substantial action by the director of Military Intelligence
in connection with the entry of the Phalangists into the camps, after
he had heard on Friday morning not only about the entry of the
Phalangists into the camps, but also about the killing of 300 persons
in this operation. All he did was give an order to check the veracity
of this report, and nothing else. He made no attempt to contact the
Chief of Staff or the Defense Minister, to make them aware of the
danger in the very operation of the Phalangists in the camps,
especially after receipt of the report of the killing of 300 persons.
Indeed, this report was unconfirmed, and he thought that it was from an
Operations and not Intelligence source; but it contained information
which could have confirmed his fears regarding actions by the
Phalangists. In his testimony, the director of Military Intelligence
explained why he had made no attempt to warn at that stage of the
danger in the situation which had been created. His remarks on this
matter are as follows:
I "I am labelled as one who has always opposed the
Phalangists, not from today, [but] for four years already. In the
morning, I read that the Phalangists were inside the camps; and I know
that this is as per the Defense Minister's orders - since I have the
Dudai document in hand - and that it is under the command of the I.D.F.
So what could I say now? Why did you send it [sic] in without asking
me? Or should I act insulted? No, I simply step aside in this matter.
That's all. "
We believe that in these remarks Major General Saguy
revealed the main reason why he "stepped aside" regarding the whole
issue; and these remarks of his explain not only his inaction after
receiving the report on Friday, but also his behavior at previous
stages, as we have described. In our opinion, it was the duty of the
director of Military Intelligence, as long as he occupies this post, to
demonstrate alertness regarding the role of the Phalangists in the
entry into Beirut after Bashir's assassination, to demand an
appropriate clarification, and to explicitly and expressly warn all
those concerned of the expected danger even prior to receipt of the
report on Friday, and certainly after receipt of the report. The fear
that his words would not receive sufficient attention and be rejected
does not justify total inaction. This inaction constitutes breach of
the duty incumbent on the director of Military Intelligence in this
capacity.
Head of the Institute for Intelligence
and Special Projects (Mossad)
The head of the Mossad was sent a notice under
Section 15(A) of the law in which it is stated that he is liable to be
harmed if the commission determines that he did not pay appropriate
attention to the decision taken regarding the roles to be played by the
Phalangists during the I.D.F.'s entry into West Beirut, and did not
warn after the murder of Bashir Jemayel of the danger of bloodshed by
these forces against the Palestinian population.
The head of the Mossad testified that he first
learned of the role given to Phalangists to enter the camps, only at
the cabinet meeting on Thursday 16.9.82 On Friday, 15.9.82, he received
cables from the Mossad representative in Beirut (exhibits 161 and 162)
in which it was reported to him about the meetings of the Chief of
Staff and Defense Minister with the Phalangist elite; but in neither of
these documents is there any report of the role given the Phalangists
in the camps, but rather there is general mention in them that the
Phalangists will enter West Beirut after the I.D.F. and will assist the
I.D.F. in its operations. In a third cable (exhibit 163), sent on
Thrusday at 12:00, it was stated that there had been a coordination
meeting with the G.O.C. to prepare the Phalangists "for operations to
clear the city of terriorists." In an additional cable sent at that
time (exhibit 164) it was said that the Phalangists would start work at
the Burj el-Barajneh camp.
Apparently, the Mossad was not explicitly informed
of the Phalangists' entry into the camps, and the head of the Mossad
did not know of the decision which had been made on this matter. The
testimony of the head of the Mossad should therefore be accepted, that
only at the cabinet meeting of Thursday evening did he hear of the
decision regarding the role of the Phalangists and of their entry into
the camps, which by then had already taken place.
In the aforementioned circumstances it does not
appear to us that the head of the Mossad was obligated, before knowing
of the decision regarding the role of the Phalangists, to offer at his
initiative an assessment regarding the situation which was liable to
develop, if the Phalangists would be given the opportunity to take
revenge on the Palestinians and attempt to carry out their plans for
them in West Beirut. The head of the Mossad was present at the cabinet
meeting until its conclusion. He heard what was said there, but did not
himself give a situation assessment regarding the entry of the
Phalangists into the camps, and did not express any reservation about
this entry. He spoke at that meeting about the Mossad's assessment
regarding the situation created after the murder of Bashir, but his
remarks did not explicitly deal with the issue of the Phalangists'
entry into the camps or with the problems which could ensue therefrom.
A certain hint of the danger of irregular actions by the Phalangists
can be found in the following remarks made by the head of the Mossad at
that meeting (p. 26 in exhibit 122):
"When we learned of the death of Bashir - and this
was close to midnight – we thought that there could be two phenomena:
one, that the whole forest would catch fire, and the Phalangist forces
themselves, which were suddenly left without a commander, [and] with a
desire for revenge, could also have taken uncontrolled action; and on
the other hand, those Palestinians and Lebanese organizations which
were in West Beirut, when they suddenly learned that the leader of the
Phalangists is dead and possibly the Phalangists have been weakened
following this, it was possible that they would start up - i.e., there
was definitely the possibility that a situation of total conflagration
would flare up in the city."
These remarks should not be considered an
unequivocal warning of the danger entailed in the entry of the
Phalangists into the camps, an entry about which the head of the Mossad
made no comment in the situation assessment which he gave at the
cabinet meeting. The head of the Mossad did not express any reservation
about the entry of the Phalangists into the camps. In his first
testimony he said that had he been asked at that meeting about the
entry of the Phalangists into the camps, he would have recommended this
"with the warning that they not carry out a massacre" and with the
belief that such a warning would be effective - and this, according to
the Mossad's experience with certain operations carried out together
with the Phalangists in the past (p. 173). In his additional testimony,
the head of the Mossad said that the data which the Mossad had at the
time of the cabinet meeting did not indicate and did not warn of the
possibility of atrocities in the camps.
The data which he presented (p. 1428) were that
according to the reports received, despite the murder of Bashir, the
military commander of the Phalangists was in control of his forces; and
in addition, according to the information which the Mossad had, the
murder of Bashir was carried out not by the Palestinians but by the
Mourabitoun. This last argument is far from convincing. It is not at
all certain that the Phalangists knew at that time who carried out the
assassination; and even if they had known this, it is most doubtful
whether this would have moderated their actions against the
Palestinians, whom they considered the source of all the tragedies
which had befallen Lebanon, and who had cooperated with the Mourabitoun
in the fighting against the Phalangists.
The question is whether this inaction by the head of
the Mossad constitutes breach of a duty incumbent upon the head of the
Mossad.
The answer to this question is not easy. As
mentioned above, the view of the Mossad, which had been expressed for a
fairly long period prior to the I.D.F.'s entry into Lebanon, as well as
afterwards, was that there should be greater cooperation with the
Phalangists. The view prevalent in the Mossad, as expressed in various
documents, was that the Phalangists are a trustworthy element which can
be relied upon, and this despite the Phalangists' past regarding their
attitude to the Palestinians and their statements on the way to solve
the Palestinian problem once they reach power. The head of the Mossad
himself noted in part of his testimony mentioned above, that this
approach of the Mossad was influenced by the development of subjective
feelings by representatives of the Mossad, who were in constant contact
with the leaders of the Phalangists. We do not believe that the head of
the Mossad can be held responsible for the existence of such a
"conception." He assumed the position of head of the Mossad only on
12.9.82 that is, two days before the murder of Bashir. He had
previously been the deputy head of the Mossad and was acquainted with
the Mossad's affairs; but the responsibility for the way in which the
Mossad operated was not his. The entry of the Phalangists into the
camps did not contradict the Mossad's situation assessment; and
therefore it is difficult to expect that the head of the Mossad would
have reservations about this decision when he heard about it at the
Cabinet meeting on 16.9.82. In this matter as well, it should be taken
into account that he had then been serving as head of the Mossad for
only four days, and that this was the first Cabinet meeting in which he
participated in this capacity.
It appears to us, that even in the situation
described above, the head of the Mossad was obligated to express his
opinion at the Cabinet meeting on the entry of the Phalangists and deal
in this expression of opinion with the dangers involved in the
Phalangists' operations - especially after he had heard Minister David
Levy's remarks. In consideration of all the aforementioned
circumstances, it is our opinion that this inaction of the head of the
Mossad should not be considered serious.
G.O.C. Northern Command Major
General Amir Drori
In the notification sent to G.O.C. Northern Command
Amir Drori, it was stated that he is liable to be harmed if the
commission determines that he did not take appropriate or sufficient
steps to prevent the continuation of the Phalangists' actions in the
refugee camps when he received reports of acts of killing or acts which
deviate from regular combat operations which were carried out in the
camps.
On Thursday night, the division intelligence officer
transmitted the report of 300 killed to the Northern Command, but this
report did not reach Major General Drori and he did not hear a thing
about what was happening in the camps until Friday morning.
We have enumerated above the differences between the
versions of Major General Drori and Brigadier General Yaron regarding
the circumstances surrounding Major Drori's visit to the forward
command post, the conversation which preceded this visit, and the
conversation which took place during the visit. According to the
testimony of Major General Drori, the visit was made at his initiative,
without his knowing that any problem had arisen regarding the camps,
while according to Brigadier General Yaron's version, Major General
Drori's appearance was the result of a conversation in which Brigadier
General Yaron reported his uneasy feelings regarding what was being
done in the camps. We do not find that the differing versions on this
subject are important in the matter before us.
Neither was there a uniform version regarding the
reports transmitted to Major General Drori during his meeting at the
forward command post. Colonel Duvdevani said in his statement that he
had told Major General Drori about 100 killed in the Phalangists'
operations; while according to Major General Drori's testimony, he did
not hear in this visit about killing in the camps or about a specific
number of killed. From Brigadier General Yaron's remarks it is apparent
that he did not report to Major General Drori about the reports of the
300 killed and the 45 persons who had been captured by the Phalangists,
since he had thought that these reports were unsubstantiated. Regarding
the things Major General Drori heard from Brigadier General Yaron,
Major General Drori's version differs only in unimportant details from
Brigadier General Yaron's version. It appears to us that it is not
possible to determine with sufficient certainly that clear reports were
given to Ma . or General Drori about killing in the camps. We believe,
however, that in his testimony before us, Major General Drori belittled
the importance and significance of the things about which he had heard
in the meeging at the forward command post, as well as the impression
these had made on him. It should be noted that Major General Drori was
aware that the Phalangists were liable to act in an uncontrolled way,
and this not necessarily from his conversation with an officer
connected with the Lebanese Army on Thursday evening, but mainly from
his knowledge of the Phalangists, based on his constant contact with
them. There is therefore no room for doubt that after the conversations
which he held on the roof of the forward command post on Friady
morning, he was aware that the continuation of the Phalangists' actions
in the refugee camps posed a danger. Three actions which he took are
evidence of this. The first - the order he gave regarding cessation of
the Phalangists' actions; the second - a telephone report to the Chief
of Staff that the Phalangists "had overdone it" and that he had ordered
their operation stopped; and the third - the continuation of his
efforts to impress upon the commander of the Lebanese Army that this
army enter the camps instead of the Phalangists. Here we should mention
that in this persuasion effort, Major General Drori told the commander
of the Lebanese Army, "You know what the Lebanese are capable of doing
to each other." These remarks, in the context in which they were made,
in a section of Major General Drori's testimony as cited above, show
that Major General Drori had realized the gravity of the matter and the
need to make efforts to terminate the Phalangists' operations in the
camps.
Taking into consideration that it has not been
proved that Major General Drori had [received] explicit reports about
acts of killing and about their extent, it appears to us that he acted
properly, wisely, and responsibly, with sufficient alertness at this
stage. He heard from the Chief of Staff that the latter was to arrive
in Beirut in the afternoon hours and could rely on the fact that this
visit by the Chief of Staff, which was to take place within a few
hours, would lead to positive results regarding the Phalangists'
activity in the camps.
In the notification as per Section 15(A) of the law,
Major General Drori was informed that he is liable to be harmed if it
is determined that he did not warn the Chief of Staff when the latter
arrived in Beirut on 17.9.82 of the danger posed to the population in
the camps from the continued activity or continued presence of the
Phalangists in the camps, and did not try - at a meeting with the
Phalangist commanders, or shortly thereafter - to prevent the
continuation of such activity.
According to the testimony of Major General Drori,
it was clear that he was satisfied with an absolutely passive role
regarding the issue of the Phalangists in the camps, from the time the
Chief of Staff arrived in Beirut and later. Major General Drori did not
emphasize to the Chief of Staff before the meeting with the Phalangist
commanders that it was necessary to end the Phalangists' presence in
the camps or take some kind of action which could ensure that the
Phalangists' actions against the non-combatant populace would stop.
This refraining from bringing the importance and seriousness of the
matter to the attention of the Chief of Staff was explained by Major
General Drori by the fact that after the meeting on the roof of the
forward command post with Brigadier General Yaron, the acuteness of his
sense of imminent danger diminished, for two reasons. The first reason
was that a few hours had gone by before the Chief of Staff arrived, and
no additional reports had come in. The second reason which calmed Major
General Drori was that at his meeting with the commander of the
Lebanese Army, he had not heard anything about irregular occurrences in
the camps, despite the fact that the Lebanese Army was deployed around
the camps, including at the places where the Phalangists had entered,
and Lebanese Army personnel should have known if something unusual had
happened in the camps (Major General Drori's testimony, pp. 1611-1615).
These reasons for the diminished sense of the
matter's importance are not convincing. It is difficult to consider the
lack of additional reports a calming factor, when only few hours are
involved and when Major General Drori made no special efforts, while on
the roof of the forward command post and while speaking with the
officers there, to investigate and testify the details of the reports
reaching him, and did not give orders to conduct special checks on what
was going on in the camps. He also did not speak during the meeting on
the roof of the the forward command post with the Phalangists' liaison
officer, who was present there. At the meeting with the commander of
the Lebanese Army, Major General Drori did not ask whether the
commander had any reports on events in the camps, but drew his
conclusion which reduced his alertness solely from the fact that this
commander did not "volunteer" any information.
We described above what happened at the meeting with
the Phalangist commanders, in which the subject of the Phalangist
forces' behavior in the camps did not come up at all. In our opinion,
even though the Chief of Staff conducted the meeting for the Israeli
side, it was Major General Drori's duty to at least make an attempt to
raise the issue at this meeting. He also made no attempt to persuade
the Chief of Staff to raise the matter at the meeting with the
Phalangists, but was satisfied with sitting idly by. Major General
Drori is a senior commander with a very important task, who bears heavy
responsibility for events on a wide front. A commander at such a level
and rank should be expected to take the initiative when he sees that
the Chief of Staff does not intend to deal with the issue which was the
main cause of his coming to Beirut and holding a meeting with the
Phalangist staff. If this passive behavior by Major General Drori was
the result of a significant decline in his alertness during the time
which had gone by since ordering a halt to the Phalangists' operations,
then we have already said above that this reduced alertness was not at
all justified. Also, after the conclusion of the meeting with the
Phalangist commanders, Major General Drori did nothing about the
behavior of the Phalangists and did not raise the matter for discussion
with the Chief of Staff. The Phalangists' request that the I.D.F.
supply them with tractors should have increased the suspicion that
actions which are difficult to describe as combat operations were being
carried out in the camps; and apparently this suspicion arose, since
the order was to provide the Phalangists with only one tractor and
remove the I.D.F. markings from it. We cannot find justification for
Major General Drori's disengagement from any treatment of the subject
of Phalangist behavior, from the moment the Chief of Staff arrived in
Beirut and until after the departure of the Phalangists from the camps.
We determine that it was the duty of the G.O.C. to
warn the Chief of Staff when the latter arrived in Beirut on 17.9.82
and during the rest of the Chief of Staff's stay in Beirut, that the
population in the camps is endangered by the continued presence of the
Phalangist forces in the camps, and that they should be removed from
there immediately -or that at least steps be taken to ensure the safety
of the population in the camps or to reduce the danger they face to the
barest possible minimum. Major General Drori's refraining from any
action regarding the danger facing the civilian population from the
Phalangist forces, from the time the Chief of Staff arrived in Beirut
and until Saturday, 18.9.82, constitutes, in our opinion, a breach of
the duty which was incumbent on Major General Drori.
Division Commander Brigadier
General Amos Yaron
The first issue specified in the notice sent to
Brigadier General Amos Yaron under section 15(A) of the law is that
Brigadier General Yaron did not properly evaluate and did not check
reports that reached him concerning acts of killing and other irregular
actions of the Phalangists in the camps, did not pass on that
information to the G.O.C. and to the Chief of Staff immediately after
it had been received on 16.9.82, and did not take the appropriate steps
to stop the Phalangists' actions and to protect the population in the
camps immediately upon receiving the reports.
We determined in the specification of the facts
that Brigadier General Yaron received reports of acts of killing in the
evening and night hours of 19.9.82. He received the first report from
Lieutenant Elul, and from it it should have been
clear to him that the Phalangists were killing women
and children in the camps. Brigadier General Yaron heard an additional
report that same evening from the division intelligence officer
concerning the fate of the group of 45 people who
were in the Phalangists' hands. A third report was
delivered by the Phalangists liaison officer, G., about 300 killed, a
number which was later reduced to 120. Even if we suppose that the
first and second report were considered by Brigadier
General ' Yaron to be about the same event,
nevertheless, from all the reports, it became known to Brigadier
General Yaron that the Phalangists were perpetrating acts of killing
which went beyond combat operations, and were killing women
and children as well. That evening he was satisfied
with reiterating the warnings to the Phalangists' liaison officer and
to Elie Hobeika not to kill women and children; but beyond that he did
nothing to stop the killing. He did not pass
on the information that he had received to Major
General Drori that evening nor on the following day in the morning
call, nor when they met before noon. When Brigadier General Yaron heard
from the division intelligence officer, in
the briefing on 16.9.82, about the report indicating
the danger that women and children were being killed, he interrupted
him - and it appears from the transcript of the conversation that took
place then that Brigadier General Yaron wished to
play down the importance of the matter and to cut
off the clarification of the issue at that briefing. Brigadier General
Yaron testified that he was, indeed, aware that the Phalangists' norms
of behavior during wartime are different from those of the I.D.F. and
that there is no sense in arguing with them to change their combat
ethics; but since in previous Phalangist operations conducted jointly
with the I.D.F. they had not behaved aberrantly, he trusted that his
reiterated warnings not to kill women and children would suffice, the
Phalangist commanders' promises would be kept, and the steps that he
had taken in order to obtain information on the Phalangists' operations
would enable him to follow their actions. We are not prepared to accept
this explanation. We have already determined that the means of
supervision over what the Phalangists were doing in the camps could not
ensure the flow of real and immediate information on their actions. It
is difficult to understand how Brigadier General Yaron relied on these
warnings and assurances, when he knew about the Phalangists' combat
ethics. He also did not take into account the influence of the
assassination of Bashir on the fanning of the Phalangists' feelings of
revenge. Already shortly after the Phalangists' entrance into the
camps, he started receiving reports which should have clarified to him
the gravity of the danger of a massacre being perpetrated in the camps
and which should have spurred him to take immediate steps, whether on
his own cognizance or by authorization from the G.O.C. or the Chief of
Staff, to prevent the continuation of operations of these kinds. No
action was taken by Brigadier General Yaron, and neither did he see to
conveying the information in his possession to his superiors.
An additional explanation by which Brigadier General
Yaron tried to justify his behavior was that in the situation which
existed that night, the reports about 300, or fewer, killed did not
seem to him sufficiently important to spur him to check whether they
were true, since on that night, in his role as division commander, he
had combat problems which were much more important than the matter of
the Phalangists in the camps (testimony of Brigadier General Yaron on
p. 699). We cannot accept this explanation either. If Brigadier General
Yaron could find the time to hold a briefing, he could also have issued
orders to pass on the reports and to take appropriate measures such as
were called for by the information received.
Perhaps it is possible to find an explanation for
Brigadier General Yaron's refraining from any substantial reaction to
the serious information which had reached him Thursday evening in that
he was interested that the Phalangists continue to operate in the camps
so that I.D.F. soldiers would not have to engage in fighting in that
area. Brigadier General Yaron had no reservations about admitting the
Phalangists into the camps; he testified that he was happy with this
decision and explained his position in that "we have been fighting here
for four months already and there is a place where they can take part
in the fighting, the fighting serves their purposes as well, so let
them participate and not let the I.D.F. do everything" (p. 695). It is
possible to show understanding for this feeling, but it does not
justify a lack of any action on the part of Brigadier General Yaron,
considering the reports that had reached him.
During Friday as well, Brigadier General Yaron did
not act properly with regard to the Phalangist operation in the camps.
When he met with Major General Drori, he was obligated to report all
the information that had reached him, but he did not do so. As a result
of this failure, Major General Drori was not apprised of all the
information that had reached the division by that time. A number of
times, Brigadier General Yaron approached the Phalangist officers who
were at the forward command post, including Elie Hobeika and repeated
the admonition not to do harm to women and children; but other than
this he did not take any initiative and only suggested that the
Phalangists be ordered not to advance - and an order to this effect was
issued by Major General Drori. This order might have been regarded as
enough of a precaution by Major General Drori, who had not heard about
instances of killing; but Brigadier General Yaron should have known
that halting the advance did not ensure an end to the killing.
The notice sent to Brigadier General Yaron under
Section 15(A) also speaks of the failure to provide any warning to the
Chief of Staff when the latter reached Beirut on 17.9.82, as well as of
Brigadier General Yaron's granting the Phalangists permission to send a
new force into the camps without taking any steps that would bring a
stop to the excesses. When the Chief of Staff came to Beirut, Brigadier
General Yaron did not tell him everything he had heard and did not make
any suggestion to him about the continuation of the Phalangist
operation in the camps. From the time he saw the Chief of Staff (after
his arrival in Beirut) until the Chief of Staff left Beirut, no warning
was heard from Brigadier General Yaron - not even a significant comment
regarding the danger of a massacre. Brigadier General Yaron was not
oblivious to this danger. We have evidence that on Friday he had spoken
to the Phalangist liaison officer charging that his men were killing
women and children (statement No. 23 by Colonel Agmon), but he did not
express this awareness clearly in his meetings with Major General Drori
and the Chief of Staff.
Brigadier General Yaron's inaction regarding the
continuation of the Phalarigist operation in the camps was epitomized
by the fact that he did not issue, any order to prevent them from
replacing forces on Friday and did not impose any supervision on the
movement of the Phalangist forces to and from the camps, despite the
fact that the order halting the operation was not rescinded.
We have already cited Brigadier General Yaron's
statement at the Senior Command Meeting in which he admitted with
laudible candor that this was an instance of "insensitivity" on his
part and on the part of others concerned. As we have already stated
above, Brigadier General Yaron's desire was to save I.D.F. soldiers
from having to carry out the operation in the camps, and this appears
to be the main reason for his insensitivity to the dangers of the
massacre in the camps. This concern of a commander for the welfare of
his men would be praiseworthy in other circumstances; but considering
the state of affairs in this particular instance, it was a thoroughly
mistaken judgment on the part of Brigadier General Yaron, and a grave
error was committed by a high-ranking officer of an I.D.F. force in
this sector.
We determine that by virtue of his failings and his
actions, detailed above, Brigadier General Yaron committed a breach of
the duties incumbent upon him by virtue of his position.
Mr. Avi Dudal, Personal Aide
to The Minister of Defense
The sole issue regarding which the notice was sent
to Mr. Dudai was "that on 17.9.82, during the morning hours or before
noon, Mr. Dudai received a report about killings that had been
perpetrated by the Lebanese Forces in the refugee camps, and did not
pass this report on to the Minister of Defense."
In his testimony, Mr. Dudai denied that any report
on what was happening in the camps was given him on 17.9.82. Yet
Lieutenant Colonel Gai, an officer in the National Security Unit,
testified before us that on Friday morning, 17.9.82, he was in the
office of the director of Military Intelligence, where he met one of
the officers who works in the office, Captain Moshe Sinai, who told him
(according to Lt. Col. Gai) "as a piece of gossip" that about 300
persons had been killed in the camps in Beirut, and that, at around
11:00- 11:30 that same day, he - Lt. Col. Gai - in one of his telephone
conversations with Dudai, told Dudai what he had heard from Captain
Sinai (testimony by Gai, pp. 921-923). In his second round of
testimony, too, Gai stood by his story that he had passed this report
on to Dudai; except that according to this testimony, the report was
not given at about 11:00 but rather at a later hour, between 12:30 -
when Dudai arrived at the Foreign Ministry, whence he spoke with Gai -
and 15:00 hours.
Lieutenant Colonel Hevroni, bureau chief to the
director of Military Intelligence, testified that he had been with
Dudai at the Sde Dov airfield for a meeting that the Defense Minister
had summoned there, [and] afterwards had come to Jerusalem with Dudai
for a meeting at the Foreign Minister's office which had lasted until
15:00 hours; and during that same period of time, Dudai asked him what
was happening regarding Gai's and Sinai's story - and the reply was
that there was no verification of this report. It was clear to Hevroni
from this conversation that Duda'i had gotten the report which Gai had
received from Sinai (testimony of Hevroni, pp. 876-877). We also heard
additional testimony which was intended to show that post factum, Dudai
admitted, in the presence of Gai and the witness Colonel Kniazher
(called Zizi), that Gai had told him about the report on Friday; but
from Colonel Kniazher's testimony (pp. 1466-1468) it turns out that Gai
wasn't present at the time he spoke with Dudai, and Duda'i wasn't
present at the time that Kniazher spoke with Gai (p. 1466); and there
is no evidence in Kniazher's testimony that Duda'i had heard about the
report from Gai on 17.9.82.
As has been said, an investigation was held in the
director of Military Intelligence's bureau after the event, as a result
of which an investigative report was drawn up (exhibit 29). In
Paragraph 6 of this report, it is stated that the visit by Lt. Col. Gai
between the hours of 7:30-8:00 was intended to clarify what had
happened to two Military Intelligence documents which had not yet
reached the Defense Minister.
From the testimonies we have heard, it becomes
apparent that Gai's visit in the morning hours was for the purpose of
receiving reports from Military Intelligence about that attack on the
tank which had occurred in West Beirut. Gai did pay two visits to the
director of Military Intelligence's bureau that same day, but this
second visit was at about 11:00 hours and was carried out on an order
that Duda'i transmitted by phone from Sde Dov to Gai, so that the
latter would clarify the matter of the documents. This inaccuracy would
indeed appear tiny, but it has a certain significance in that it fits
in with testimonies that on that same Friday morning, Dudai complained
to those who work in his office, including Gai, that there were defects
in the reporting of what was happening in Lebanon and that reports
weren't reaching the Defense Ministery. Here it should be noted that on
that same day, the Defense Minister's military adjutant was not in the
office because he was on vacation, and Dudai was taking his place.
In paragraph 13 of exhibit 29, it is said "that in
retrospect (in reconstruction) it turned out that Lt. Col. Gai - after
receiving the report from the bureau chief of the director of Military
Intelligence - looked into the matter on the morning of 17 September
with Operations Branch, after he, too, had gotten the impression that
an operations report/ occurrence was at issue; and in the
investigation, he was told that Operations did not know about such an
action by the Phalangists." In his testimony, Gai said that these
statements were inaccurate, and that he had only inquired at Operations
if there was anything new from Beirut and had received a negative
reply. In paragraph 14 of exhibit 29, it is said that in a second
update between minister's aide Avi Dudai and Lt. Col. Gai, Dudai
reported that he had spoken with the bureau chief of the Director of
Military Intelligence, who had told him that the report had not
received verification from Military Intelligence personnel who had
looked into the matter." What is said here was not confirmed by Lt.
Col. Gai's testimony; and as mentioned, Dudai denied receiving any
report. The rather obvious general trend of exhibit 29 regarding the
report to Gai is: to show that report on the contents of the cable on
the 300 killed was conveyed from the Director of Military
Intelligence's bureau to the Defense Minister's bureau. According to
Lt. Col. Gai's testimony, the conversation between him and Captain
Sinai cannot be viewed as more than "an exchange of gossip," and it is
difficult to treat such a conversation as a proper act of conveying an
important report.
Captain Sinai gave a statement to the staff
investigators (No. 112) in which he said that he had read the cable
(Appendix A, exhibit 29) in front of Lt. Col. Gai, and that the latter
had reacted to it with the words, "Listen, that's very interesting" -
and, as far as Sinai recalls, he said, " I spoke with the minister
during the night, and I'll go talk with him in a little while; the
story is very interesting, and the minister will be very happy to bear
the report." According to Sinai, this is more or less the version he
heard from Gai. We find it difficult to attribute importance to this
statement. In his statement, Sinai gave exact details concerning a
search for the two documents which preceded the conversation between
Gai and himself, and at present it is already clear that he erred in
this, because the search for the documents was not conducted in the
early hours of the morning, but rather close to the noon hour. It is
not reasonable [to suppose that ] if Gai did indeed receive Sinai's
report as an interesting or important report, he would not immediately
convey it to Dudai, who on that same morning complained several times
about a lack of reporting on what was happening in Lebanon and inquired
after such reports from time to time.
It is our opinion that it cannot be determined that
Gai did indeed pass on the contents of the above report to Dudai on
Friday. The doubt stems not only from contradictions revealed in the
witnesses' statements, but also from [the fact] that the witnesses who
told about the conveying of the report have an interest in showing that
they fulfilled their obligation in transmitting the report from the
director of Military Intelligence's bureau to the Defence Minister's
aide. It is also difficult to treat Gai's testimony as testimony by
someone who is a disinterested party in the matter, since it is in his
interest to show, after all that happened, that he did not keep the
contents of the report he'd heard from Sinai to himself. Gai also did
not give a satisfactory explanation as to why, according to his
version, he had told Dudai about this report only in the afternoon,
despite the fact that Duda'i was constantly asking whether reports had
come in from Lebanon and was complaining about a lack of reports. In
view of the entire body of evidence, we do not determine that Dudai
indeed received the report about the 300 people killed on Friday,
17.9.82, and it therefore cannot be determined that he refrained from
fulfilling an obligation which was incumbent upon him, as was stated in
the notice of (possible] harm which was sent to him.
The Functioning of Establishments
Thus far we have dealt with the findings and
conclusions regarding the course of events, and the responsibility for
them of those persons whose actions had a decisive effect on the course
of events. As we noted, we decided not to discuss the activities of
other persons who were close to the course of events but who played a
secondary role. All these persons, whether they had central or
secondary roles, operated within organizational frameworks whose
functioning was flawed.
In this section of the the report we wish to dwell
briefly on the flaws in the functioning of these organizational
establishments. We shall devote only a few comments to this important
topic, with the aim of pointing to a number of flaws which seem to us
worrisome, and to bring about a situation in which all the responsible
authorites - civil and military - will take all the requisite measures
so that the reasons and causes for these flaws will be examined and
analyzed, the lessons therefrom learned, and so that what requires
amending will indeed be amended. As in this entire report, we shall
deal only with the functioning of the various establishments from the
time the decision was taken on the entry of the Phalangists into the
camps until their departure. Within this framework, too, we shall offer
our opinion only regarding outstanding matters which are especially
noteworthy. Unquestionably, there were many establishments that
functioned properly, even excellently; but in the nature of things our
attention is directed toward those establishments in which were
revealed flaws that are relevant to the subject of the commission's
scrutiny. Hence, the major part of our attention is directed to two key
topics which concern us: one is the flaws in the course of
decision-taking by the policy-making institutions; the other is the
flaws in the manner of handling the information which was received.
The decision on the entry of the Phalangists into
the refugee camps was taken on Wednesday (15.9.82) in the morning. The
Prime Minister was not then informed of the decision. The Prime
Minister heard about the decision, together with all the other
ministers, in the course of a report made by the Chief of Staff at the
Cabinet session on Thursday (16.9.82) when the Phalangists were already
in the camps. Thereafter, no report was made to the Prime Minister
regarding the excesses of the Phalangists in the camps, and the Prime
Minister learned about the events in the camps from a BBC broadcast on
Saturday (18.9.82) afternoon. This state of affairs is unsatisfactory
on two planes: first, the importance of the decision on the entry of
the Phalangists, against the backdrop of the Lebanese situation as it
was known to those concerned, required that the decision on having the
Phalangists enter the camps be made with the prior approval of the
Prime Minister. Moreover, once the decision had been taken without the
Prime Minister's participation, orderly processes of government
required that the decision be made known to him at the earliest
possible moment. It is not proper procedure for the Prime Minister to
hear about this decision in an incidental manner along with the other
Cabinet ministers during a Cabinet session, when the Phalangists were
already in the camps.
Second, once the decision was taken, orderly
processes of government required that the Prime Minister be informed of
any excesses committed. What the Defense Minister, the Chief of Staff
and the General Command knew on Friday and on Saturday morning, the
Prime Minister ought also to have known. It is inconceivable that the
Prime Minister should receive his information about this from a foreign
radio station.
As we have seen, the decision on the Phalangists'
entry into the camps took final shape on Wednesday morning (15.9.82) on
the roof of the divisional forward command post. When this decision was
taken its ramifications were not examined, nor were its advantages and
disadvantages weighed. This is explicable in that the decision was
taken under pressure of time. Nonetheless, enough time existed before
the Phalangists' entry on Thursday evening (16.9.82) to carry out a
situation appraisal in which the decision, its manner of execution and
its possible results could be examined. No such deliberation in fact
took place. The discussion held by the Defense Minister on Thursday
morning (exhibit 27), in which he said, "I would move the Phalangists
into the camps," cannot be regarded as a situation appraisal in the
usual sense of the term. The Chief of Staff told us that on Wednesday
he ordered his deputy to hold a consultation among branch heads. Such a
discussion did in fact take, place in the late afternoon hours (exhibit
130), but it was a briefing and not a situation appraisal. The issue of
the Phalangists' entry was mentioned in that discussion in a general
manner, but the decision was not presented in detail, no examination
was made of the security measures to be taken, and no evaluation was
made of the possible ramifications of the decision.
The way in which decisions are to be taken and the
appropriate bodies to that end have been laid down in the procedures.
These formats ought to be exploited in order to enhance the prospect
that when decisions are taken, all the information at hand, the various
positions, the pros and cons, and the possible ramifications of the
decision will be taken into account.
Experience and intuition are very valuable, but it
is preferable that they not constitute the sole basis on which
decisions are taken.
The absence of the required staff discussion
regarding the entry of the Phalangists into the camps was accompanied
by another inevitable flaw. The information about the decision was not
transmitted in an orderly fashion to all the parties who should have
known about it. We have already seen that the Prime Minister was
unaware of the decision. The Foreign Minister, too, learned of the
Phalangists' entry only in the Cabinet session. We have already cited
the account of the director of Military Intelligence that he, too, did
not learn about the decision until Friday morning. Although we have
stated that we find it difficult to accept that account, this cannot
justify the absence of an orderly report about the decision being made
to all the various staff elements.
Thus, for example, it emerged that the Command
Intelligence officers were first briefed by the Command Intelligence
Officer about the fact that the Phalangists would enter the camps on
Thursday, some two hours after the operation had already commenced.
According to the testimony of the Military Intelligence/ Research
officers whose task it is to prepare situation appraisals, they
received no prior information about the decision to have the
Phalangists enter the camps.
As a result, that department was unable to prepare
its own appraisals, as would have been expected of it prior to the
Phalangists' entry into the camps. This also had a certain effect on
the manner in which that department functioned at the stage when it
received the report about the 300 killed (Secion 6, Appendix B).
The head of the Mossad learned of the decision only
at the Cabinet session. Despite the fact that Mossad personnel were in
Beirut when the events occurred, and maintained ongoing contacts with
the Phalangist commanders, no report was received from them regarding
the special role of the Phalangists in the camps prior to their entry,
nor did they collect any data at all on events in the camps after the
Phalangists had entered.
This is not a satisfactory state of affairs. Orderly
processes require that the decision on the entry of the Phalangists be
reported in an orderly and documented manner to the various bodies that
should know about it, so that they can direct their activities and
assessments accordingly.
The military establishments are based, inter alia,
on diverse channels of reporting. An examination of the events on the
dates relevant here indicates the existence of considerable flaws in
these channels of reporting. Matters that should have been reported
were not reported at all, or were reported late and in fragmentary
fashion. For example, the report about the behavior of the Phalangists
in the field was not transmitted to Divisional Intelligence. For its
part, the latter did not relay the reports about the 45 civilians -
which was brought to its attention already on Thursday evening - to
Command Intelligence. As for Command Intelligence, despite the fact
that it received a report from the Division regarding the 300 killed,
it did not convey it to General Staff/Military Intelligence. The
transmission of the report to Military Intelligence was the result of
the fine initiative of Intelligence officer A.
We find a similar picture also in the Operations
Branch channels. Operations Branch Command did not receive an orderly
report of what was happening in the field. As we have seen, already on
Thursday evening and Friday morning -and throughout Friday - reports
were collected by a considerable number of soldiers and officers who
were near the camps. Only some of those reports - and those in
fragmentary fashion - were brought to the attention of the Divisional
Operations elements. Divisional Operations for its part did not relay
the information it had in an orderly fashion to Command Operations
elements. Thus, for example, the reports in the possession of
Divisional Operations about the 300 killed (or the 120 killed) were not
transmitted at all to Command Operations. The latter did not report
(not even on the actual entry of the Phalangists into the camps) to
Operations Branch/ Operation. Thus, for example, the report about the
300 killed was received already on Thursday evening in Command
Intelligence. For some reason that report was not conveyed (neither in
its telephone form nor in the form of the subsequent cable) to the
knowledge of the Command Intelligence Officer. The report was not
transmitted to Command Operations, and ipso facto was not brought to
the knowledge of the G.O.C., either that evening or the following day.
Similarly, no orderly report was made regarding the decision of the
G.O.C. Northern Command about halting the operations of the
Phalangists. These flaws in the reporting require examination and
analysis, since in the absence of an orderly and proper report the
decision-makers at the various levels lack the information required for
their decisions.
The reports that were received via the various
channels were also not always handled according to the standing
procedures, the result being that the reports sometimes became
worthless. Sometimes, reports received were not recorded in the
designated log books; reports that were relayed were sometimes
transmitted with important omissions, which prevented their being
handled properly. Reports that were dealt with (such as the handling of
the report about the 300 killed within the framework of Military
Intelligence/ Research) were at times handled superficially, with a
fruitless internal runaround and without exhausting the various
possibilities for verification and examination. Other Intelligence
means employed sometimes failed to produce the information that was
expected of them (see Section 5 Appendix B). Reports that were received
and which required a preliminary evaluation to determine their
significance and possible implications were not dealt with properly and
in the meantime were rendered worthless due to a protracted process of
examining their authenticity.
In the course of the testimony we heard, we often
came across conversations - whether face-to-face or over the telephone
or radio - between highly responsible personnel. Contradictions were
often evident in the testimony about these conversations - not out of
any intention to conceal the truth, but as a natural result of flaws in
human memory. There is no satisfactory explanation of why no notes were
taken of these conversations. The Prime Minister held many
conversations with the Defense Minister and the Chief of Staff,
including the conversations in which the decision was taken to seize
key positions in West Beirut. It is not surprising, therefore, if a
certain difference exists between the Prime Minister's version of a
guideline issued by him, and that of the Chief of Staff regarding the
guideline he received.
The Defense Minister and the Chief of Staff held a
conversation on Tuesday evening in which a number of important
decisions were taken. This conversation was not recorded in any form.
We believe that it is desirable to determine
guidelines in this matter in order to prevent a situation in which
important decisions are not documented. Precisely because human memory
is often faulty, it is desirable to determine a proper method and
procedure for recording those conversations which, according to
criteria to be determined, it is important to keep on record.
Recommendations and Closing Remarks
Recommendations
With
regard to the following recommendations concerning a group of men who
hold senior positions in the Government and the Israel Defense Forces,
we have taken into account [the fact] that each one of these men has to
his credit [the performance of] many public or military services
rendered with sacrifice and devotion on behalf of the State of Israel.
If nevertheless we have reached the conclusion that it is incumbent
upon us to recommend certain measures against some of these men, it is
out of the recognition that the gravity of the matter and its
implications for the underpinnings of public morality in the State of
Israel call for such measures.
The Prime Minister, The Foreign
Minister, and the Head of the Mossad
We have heretofore established the facts and
conclusions with regard to the responsibility of the Prime Minister,
the Foreign Minister, and the head of the Mossad. In view of what we
have determined with regard to the extent of the responsibility of each
of them, we are of the opinion that it is sufficient to determine
responsibility and there is no need for any further recommendations.
G.O.C. Northern Command Major
General Amir Drori
We have detailed above our conclusions with regard
to the responsibility of G.O.C. Northern Command Major General Amir
Drori. Major General Drori was charged with many difficult and
complicated tasks during the week the I.D.F. entered West Beirut,
missions which he had to accomplish after a long period of difficult
warfare. He took certain measures for terminating the Phalangists'
actions, and his guilt lies in that he did not continue with these
actions. Taking into account these circumstances, it appears to us that
it is sufficient to determine the responsibility of Major General Drori
without recourse to any further recommendation.
The Minister of Defense, Mr.
Ariel Sharon
We have found, as has been detailed in this report,
that the Minister of Defense bears personal responsibility. In our
opinion, it is fitting that the Minister of Defense draw the
appropriate personal conclusions arising out of the defects revealed
with regard to the manner in which he discharged the duties of his
office - and if necessary, that the Prime Minister consider whether he
should exercise his authority under Section 21-A(a) of the Basic Law:
the Government, according to which "the Prime Minister may, after
informing the Cabinet of his intention to do so, remove a minister from
office."
The Chief of Staff, Lt.-Gen.
Rafael Eitan
We
have arrived at grave conclusions with regard to the acts and omissions
of the Chief of Staff, Lt-Gen. Rafael Eitan. The Chief of Staff is
about to complete his term of service in April, 1983. Taking into
account the fact that an extension of his term is not under
consideration, there is no [practical] significance to a recommendation
with regard to his continuing in office as Chief of Staff, and
therefore we have resolved that it is sufficient to determine
responsibility without making any further recommendation.
The Director of Military Intelligence,
Major General Yehoshua Saguy
We have detailed the various extremely serious
omissions of the Director of Military Intelligence, Major General
Yehoshua Saguy, in discharging the duties of his office. We recommend
that Major General Yehoshua Saguy not continue as Director of Military
Intelligence.
Division Commander Brigadier
General, Amos Yaron
We have detailed above the extent of the
responsibility of Brigadier General Amos Yaron. Taking into account all
the circumstances, we recommend that Brigadier General Amos Yaron not
serve in the capacity of a field commander in the Israel Defense
Forces, and that this recommendation not be reconsidered before three
years have passed.
In the course of this inquiry, shortcomings in the
functioning of [several] establishments have been revealed, as
described in the chapter dealing with this issue. One must learn the
appropriate lessons from these shortcomings, and we recommend that, in
addition to internal comptrol in this matter, an investigation into the
shortcomings and the manner of correcting them be undertaken by an
expert or experts, to be appointed by a Ministerial Defense Committee.
It in the course of this investigation it be found that certain persons
bear responsibility for these shortcomings, it is fitting that the
appropriate conclusions be drawn in their regard, whether in accordance
with the appropriate provisions of the military legal code, or in some
other manner.
Closing Remarks
In the witnesses' testimony and in various
documents, stress is laid on the difference between the usual battle
ethics of the I.D.F. and the battle ethics of the bloody clashes and
combat actions among the various ethnic groups, militias, and fighting
forces in Lebanon. The difference is considerable. In the war the
I.D.F. waged in Lebanon, many civilians were injured and much loss of
life was caused, despite the effort the I.D.F. and its soldiers made
not to harm civilians. On more than one occasion, this effort caused
I.D.F. troops additional casualties. During the months of the war,
I.D.F. soldiers witnessed many sights of killing, destruction, and
ruin. From their reactions (about which we have heard) to acts of
brutality against civilians, it would appear that despite the terrible
sights and experiences of the war and despite the soldier's obligation
to behave as a fighter with a certain degree of callousness, I.D.F.
soldiers did not lose their sensitivity to atrocities that were
perpetrated on non-combatants either out of cruelty or to give vent to
vengeful feelings. It is regrettable that the reaction by I.D.F.
soldiers to such deeds was not always forceful enough to bring a halt
to the despicable acts. It seems to us that the I.D.F. should continue
to foster the [consciousness of] basic moral obligations which must be
kept even in war conditions, without prejudicing the I.D.F.'s combat
ability. The circumstances of combat require the combatants to be tough
- which means to give priority to sticking to the objective and being
willing to make!
sacrifices - in order to attain the objectives
assigned to them, even under the most difficult conditions. But the end
never justifies the means, and basic ethical and human values must be
maintained in the use of arms.
Among the responses to the commission from the
public, there were those who expressed dissatisfaction with the holding
of an inquiry on a subject not directly related to Israel's
responsibility. The argument was advanced that in previous instances of
massacre in Lebanon, when the lives of many more people were taken than
those of the victims who fell in Sabra and Shatilla, world opinion was
not shocked and no inquiry commissions were established. We cannot
justify this approach to the issue of holding an inquiry, and not only
for the formal reason that it was not we who decided to hold the
inquiry, but rather the Israeli Government resolved thereon. The main
purpose of the inquiry was to bring to light all the important facts
relating to the perpetration of the atrocities; it therefore has
importance from the perspective of Israel's moral fortitude and its
functioning as a democratic state that scrupulously maintains the
fundamental principles of the civilized world.
We do not deceive ourselves that the results of this
inquiry will convince or satisfy those who have prejudices or selective
consciences, but this inquiry was not intended for such people. We have
striven and have spared no effort to arrive at the truth, and we hope
that all persons of good will who will examine the issue without
prejudice will be convinced that the inquiry was conducted without any
bias.
Publication of the Report
In accordance with Section 20(a) of the Commissions
of Inquiry Law, this report and the attached Appendix A will be
published after the report is submitted to the Government. Appendix B
to this report will not be published, since we are convinced that this
is necessary to protect the security of the state and its foreign
relations.
Transcripts from the commission hearings which were
conducted in open session have already been made public. In accordance
with regulation 8(b) of the Commission of Inquiry Regulations (Rules of
Procedure) 1969, we resolve that the right to examine the transcripts
from those sessions which were held in camera, as well as Appendix B to
the report, will be given to all members of the cabinet, all members of
the Knesset Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee, the General Staff of
the Israel Defense Forces, and any person or class of persons which may
be determined by the Ministerial Defense Committee. Similarly, the
right to examine Appendix B is given to those persons who received a
notice in accordance with section 15(a) of the law, and to their
representatives who appeared before the commission.
This report was signed on 7 February 1983.
Yitzhak Kahan
Commission Chairman
Aharon Barak
Commission Member
Yona Efrat
Commission Member
Source: Israeli
Foreign Ministry |
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