The News Tribune · Tacoma, Washington · 20 September 1982
CP-1982-012
Papers say Israel knew of massacre
Government denies advance knowledge
The Associated Press, Jerusalem
Transcribed from the clipping
“JERUSALEM (AP) — Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s government knew for at least 36 hours that Lebanese Christian Phalangists were killing Palestinians in west Beirut refugee camps but took no action to stop the slaughter, Israeli newspapers claimed today.
The reports were rejected by Minister Without Portfolio Yitzhak Modai, who said the Israeli army ‘acted as soon as it learned of the action, Friday afternoon.’… Modai told Israel radio that the Israeli army intervened to stop the massacre Friday afternoon. ‘If they didn’t intervene then, it would have been much worse,’ Modai said.
He said Israeli troops knew the Christian Phalangists were entering the camps, largely inhabited by Moslem Palestinians, but did not know there would be a massacre.
‘If they had the vaguest idea that this was the intent, they would have stopped it beforehand,’ he told Israel radio.… Yedioth Ahronoth’s Eitan Haber wrote that the government permitted Phalangist militiamen to enter the Sabra and Chatilla camps on Thursday.
‘On Thursday and Friday morning ministers and officers knew of the massacre and took no steps to stop it,’ Haber wrote. ‘For 36 hours, the Phalange killed everybody in their path.’
‘Though the government knew on Thursday night,’ Haber wrote, ‘it didn’t raise a finger nor did it do anything to prevent the massacre until Saturday morning.’ Between 300 and 1,500 Palestinians were killed, according to various estimates.
‘On Friday morning, I knew about the massacre in the camps and reported to a senior officials,’ Zeev Schiff, Israel’s most respected military affairs commentator, wrote in Haaretz.”
Context added by this archive
The accusation and the denial ran in the same column. Both are here. The papers making the accusation are Israeli: the independent Haaretz and the conservative Yedioth Ahronoth, with Davar of the opposition Labor Party.
Cite this clipping
"Papers say Israel knew of massacre," The News Tribune, 20 September 1982, p. 1. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1982-012. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1982-012
This clipping is read closely in the section below
More from The News Tribune
- Displaced Arabs Nurse Wrath Against IsraelThe News Tribune · 7 October 1957
- Ancient Port Of Phoenicia Still ResistingThe News Tribune · 8 May 1958
- The Big ‘If’: What Will Israel Do If Jordan Falls?The News Tribune · 1 September 1958
- Israel to block diplomatic visits to PLO at Jerusalem siteThe News Tribune · 7 November 1994
- Truce fails, fighting rages onThe News Tribune · 7 October 2000
- Israel to release 26 Palestine prisonersThe News Tribune · 12 August 2013
- 2 more from this paper in the full text →
More from the 1980s
- Even Israelis protest West Bank university shutdownThe Evening Sun · 11 January 1982
- Israel renews charge against PalestiniansThe Baltimore Sun · 3 March 1982
- Israelis Survive Storm Over Bedouin Baby’s DeathThe New York Times · 9 March 1982
- art review/Childhood reflectionsNewsday · 12 March 1982
- Looking the Other WayThe New York Times · 15 March 1982
- Begin will stay on despite voteStamford Advocate · 24 March 1982
- All 527 clippings from the 1980s →
In these collections
Last updated 2 November 2026
This record is part of Covering Palestine, an archive of American newspaper clippings about Palestinians, 1724 to 2023. Researched and assembled by Maria Robles.
The clipping belongs to the newspaper that printed it, or to the news agency that supplied the copy. It is reproduced here for research, criticism and commentary. A city here is where the newspaper was published, not where the story came from, and on most records it was taken from the masthead.
Something wrong here, or something you know about this clipping? The archive is still being built and corrections are wanted: maria@rozumstudio.com, quoting CP-1982-012.
Read in: Sabra and Shatila: from who fired to who knew
Everything printed in 1982 · Printed on this day · See it in the archive reel · Full text of every clipping · Dataset