Middle East: A More Visible Presense

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The key witness last week was Major General Amir Drori, who, as commander of Israel's northern front, was in charge of Israeli operations in Beirut at the time of the massacre. He acknowledged that he had had some misgivings about what might happen if the militiamen were allowed to enter the Palestinian camps. Said he: "Everyone, somewhere in his mind, feared this possibility [of massacre]." He recalled that not long before the militiamen entered the camps at 6 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 16, an Israeli officer named "Reuven," who served under Drori, had "raised the possibility that these kinds of things might occur." But, continued Drori, "I told him that we knew [the militiamen] and that they had not done this kind of thing when we were near by."

Drori's statements conflicted with the testimony of Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, who had said earlier that "no one in his worst dreams could have foreseen such a conclusion." Drori noted that "the question of morality" had been raised by the Israelis at previous meetings and that "it was clear that [the militiamen's] battlefield morality was not that of the Israeli Defense Forces." Interjected Supreme Court Justice Aharon Barak, one of the three members of the commission: "What do you mean—that they were capable of killing women and children?" Replied Drori: "Throughout the war, the I.D.F. made supreme efforts to spare civilians. That was not clear with the Phalangists."

At 11:30 a.m. Friday, Drori testified, he ordered a halt to the operation because he had a "bad feeling about what was happening in the camps." In fact, he made no special effort to get the militiamen out of the camps until 5 a.m. Saturday, the deadline that had been previously arranged. Drori said that he had felt no sense of urgency because no one knew that a massacre was taking place.

Lieut. Avi Grabovsky, an assistant tank company commander in Beirut at the time of the massacre, disagreed. He testified that between 8 and 9 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 17, he and several members of his tank crew had been standing at their post and had seen militiamen kill five women and children in the Shatila camp, some 500 yds. away. When Grabovsky reported what he had seen to his regimental commander, he was told: "We know; it's not to our liking." But no one was ordered to intervene. At noon Friday, Grabovsky and his crew approached a militiaman and asked him why the Lebanese Forces were killing civilians. Replied the Christian militiaman: "Pregnant women give birth to terrorists. Children, when they grow up, will become terrorists."

Israeli reaction to the latest testimony was muted, since the law forbids public comment until the commission has completed its work. The implication, however, was clear to all: it was becoming increasingly difficult for Israeli officials to deny that their soldiers knew what was going on in the camps as early as Friday morning, and that their senior officers could have taken action much sooner than they did. —By William E. Smith. Reported by Robert Slater/Jerusalem and William Stewart/Beirut