Editing Sabra and Shatila massacre (section)

=== Lead-up events ===
On the night of 14/15 September 1982 the [[Israel Defense Forces|IDF]] chief of staff [[Raphael Eitan]] flew to [[Beirut]] where he went straight to the Phalangists' headquarters and instructed their leadership to order a general mobilisation of their forces and prepare to take part in the forthcoming Israeli attack on West Beirut. He also ordered them to impose a general curfew on all areas under their control and appoint a liaison officer to be stationed at the IDF forward command post. He told them that the IDF would not enter the refugee camps but that this would be done by the Phalangist forces. The militia leaders responded that the mobilisation would take them 24 hours to organise.{{sfn|Kahan|Barak|Efrat|1983|p=9}}

On morning of Wednesday 15 September Israeli Defence Minister, Sharon, who had also travelled to Beirut, held a meeting with Eitan at the IDF's forward command post, on the roof of a five-storey building 200 metres southwest of Shatila camp. Also in attendance were Sharon's aide [[Avi Duda'i]], the Director of [[Military Intelligence Directorate (Israel)|Military Intelligence]] -[[Yehoshua Saguy]], a senior [[Mossad]] officer, General [[Amir Drori]], General [[Amos Yaron]], an Intelligence officer, the Head of [[Shin Bet|GSS]]—[[Avraham Shalom]], the Deputy Chief of Staff—General [[Moshe Levi]] and other senior officers. It was agreed that the Phalange should go into the camps.{{sfn|Kahan|Barak|Efrat|1983|p=9}} According to the Kahan Commission report throughout Wednesday, R.P.G. and light-weapons fire from the Sabra and Shatila camps was directed at this forward command post, and continued to a lesser degree on Thursday and Friday (16–17 September). It also added that by Thursday morning, the fighting had ended and all was 'calm and quiet'.{{sfn|Kahan|Barak|Efrat|1983|p=11}}

Following the assassination of Lebanese Christian President [[Bachir Gemayel]], the Phalangists sought revenge. <!--(commented out paragraph - does not belong in this section): The massacre is regarded as a reprisal for the [[Damour massacre]] by [[Palestinians]] a few years earlier,<ref name="ict">{{cite web |date=5 July 2008 |url=https://www.ict.org.il/Articles/tabid/66/Articlsid/291/currentpage/1/Default.aspx |title=PLO Policy towards the Christian Community during the Civil War in Lebanon |publisher=ict.org.il |access-date=16 August 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130731131638/https://ict.org.il/Articles/tabid/66/Articlsid/291/currentpage/1/Default.aspx |archive-date=31 July 2013}}</ref> which personally impacted [[Elie Hobeika]].<ref name="au">{{cite web |url=http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/hobeika.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041215213908/http://www.moreorless.au.com:80/killers/hobeika.html |archive-date=15 December 2004 |url-status=dead |title=Elie Hobeika killer file |publisher=web.archive.org |access-date=16 August 2015}}</ref> The view of the Sabra and Shatila killing as a revenge for the [[Damour massacre]] was asserted by the prominent writer Samir Khalaf,<ref>{{cite book |last=Samir |first=Khalaf |title=Civil and Uncivil Violence in Lebanon |location=New York |publisher=[[Columbia University Press]] |date=2002 |page=45}}</ref> by ''[[The New York Times]]'' writer [[Thomas Friedman]],<ref>{{cite book |last=Friedman |first=Thomas L. |author-link=Thomas Friedman |title=From Beirut to Jerusalem |location=Glasgow |publisher=Fontana-Collins |date=1990 |page=161}}</ref><ref name="google">{{cite book |title=Massacring: Webster's Quotations, Facts and Phrases |author=Icon Group International, Inc. Staff |date=2008 |publisher=Icon Group International, Incorporated |isbn=9780546713459 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=98N2un6iXUkC&pg=PA72 |page=72 |access-date=16 August 2015}}</ref> and by author B. Gabriel who wrote that "Palestinian militiamen started the killings in 1976, long before the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacres. Beit Mellat, Deir Achache, Damour."<ref name="google2">{{cite book |title=Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America |last=Gabriel |first=B. |date=2006 |publisher=St. Martin's Press |isbn=9780312358372 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f8PzwOjR7Z4C&pg=PA92 |page=92 |access-date=16 August 2015}}</ref> In the Damour massacre, Yasser Arafat's [[PLO]] killed nearly 600 Christians.<ref>{{cite book |last=Nisan |first=Mordechai |date=2003 |title=The Conscience of Lebanon: A Political Biography of Etienne Sakr (Abu-Arz) |location=London |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=0-7146-5392-6}}</ref>{{pn|date=January 2025}} The Damour massacre, however, had been a response to the [[Karantina massacre]], which had taken place earlier in 1976. In the Karantina massacre, Phalangists killed an estimated 1500 Muslims.<ref>Harris (p. 162) notes "the massacre of 1,500 Palestinians, Shi'is, and others in Karantina and Maslakh, and the revenge killings of hundreds of Christians in [[Damour massacre|Damour]]"</ref> --->By noon on 15 September, Sabra and Shatila had been surrounded by the [[Israel Defense Forces|IDF]], which set up checkpoints at the exits and entrances, and used several multi-story buildings as observation posts. Amongst them was the seven-story Kuwaiti embassy which, according to ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine, had "an unobstructed and panoramic view" of Sabra and Shatila. Hours later, IDF tanks began shelling Sabra and Shatila.{{sfn|Shahid|2002|p=57}}

The following morning, 16 September, the sixth IDF order relating to the attack on West Beirut was issued. It specified: "The refugee camps are not to be entered. Searching and mopping up the camps will be done by the Phalangists/Lebanese Army".{{sfn|Kahan|Barak|Efrat|1983|pp=8–9}}

According to Linda Malone of the [[Jerusalem Fund]], Ariel Sharon and Chief of Staff [[Rafael Eitan]]<ref>{{cite web |first=Linda |last=Malone |url=http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/images/informationbrief.php?ID=40 |title=Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, A War Criminal |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060714051037/http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/images/informationbrief.php?ID=40 |archive-date=14 July 2006 |series=Information Brief |number=78 |date=14 June 2001 |website=[[The Jerusalem Fund]] / The [[Palestine Center]] |access-date=24 February 2006}}</ref> met with Phalangist militia units and invited them to enter Sabra and Shatila, claiming that the PLO was responsible for Gemayel's assassination.<ref>{{cite book |first=Robert |last=Fisk |author-link=Robert Fisk |title=The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East |date=13 February 2007 |pages=484, 488–489 |publisher=[[National Geographic Books]] |isbn=978-1-4000-7517-1}}</ref> The meeting concluded at 15:00 on 16 September.{{sfn|Shahid|2002|p=38}}

Shatila had previously been one of the PLO's three main training camps for foreign fighters and the main training camp for European fighters.{{sfn|Becker|1984|pp=239, 356–357}} The Israelis maintained that 2,000 to 3,000 terrorists remained in the camps, but were unwilling to risk the lives of more of their soldiers after the Lebanese army repeatedly refused to "clear them out."{{sfn|Becker|1984|p=264}} No evidence was offered for this claim. There were only a small number of forces sent into the camps and they suffered minimal casualties.{{sfn|Shahid|2002|p=39}} Two Phalangists were wounded, one in the leg and another in the hand.{{sfn|Kahan|Barak|Efrat|1983|p=13}} Investigations after the massacre found few weapons in the camps.{{sfn|Shahid|2002|p=39}}<ref name="Byman2011">{{cite book |first=Daniel |last=Byman |title=A High Price: The Triumphs and Failures of Israeli Counterterrorism |url=https://archive.org/details/highpricetriumph0000byma|url-access=registration |date=2011 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]], US |isbn=978-0-19-983045-9 |page=[https://archive.org/details/highpricetriumph0000byma/page/68 68]}}</ref> Thomas Friedman, who entered the camps on Saturday, mostly found groups of young men with their hands and feet bound, who had been then lined up and machine-gunned down gang-land style, not typical he thought of the kind of deaths the reported 2,000 terrorists in the camp would have put up with.<ref>{{cite book |last=Friedman |first=Thomas L. |author-link=Thomas Friedman |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=877DR3un9rIC&pg=PT110 |title=From Beirut to Jerusalem |publisher=Macmillan |date=2010 |page=109 |isbn=978-0-374-70699-9 |access-date=22 February 2020 |archive-date=8 October 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241008001758/https://books.google.com/books?id=877DR3un9rIC&pg=PT110#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live}}</ref>