Inquiry Panel Told Draper Knew About Massacres and Had the Information Relayed to Sharon

Bruce Cashdan, the Israeli official in charge of the Foreign Ministry’s office in Beirut at the time of the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps massacres, told the commission of inquiry today that U.S. special envoy Morris Draper knew of the mass killings on Saturday, September 18 and had urged him to call Defense Minister Ariel Sharon to halt the carnage.

Cashdan said that on Saturday morning he had an “excited” telephone call from Droper to the effect that Christian Phalangist units were committing murder in the camps. According to Cashdan, Draper said there was “disgusting slaughter” and that the Israel Defense Force’s presence in west Beirut made it responsible for the welfare of the refugee camp inmates.

Draper told him the Phalangists were butchering men, women and children, adding, “I have an officer counting the bodies at the Gaza Hospital,” Cashdan said. He said he immediately relayed Draper’s call to Jerusalem for transmission to the Defense Ministry.

Cashdan’s testimony was the first before the commission to refer to Draper, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near East and South Asian Affairs, who remained in the Lebanese capital to oversee the departure of Palestinian and Syrian forces from west Beirut. Cashdan was also the first witness to appear before the panel armed with copious notes and records in connection with the massacres. He was one of the few witnesses to answer each question straightforwardly and not to claim he had forgotten any detail.

EARLIER TESTIMONY CONTRADICTED

Another witness today was Lt. Col. Azriel Nevo, Premier Menachem Begin’s military secretary, who told the commission he had received no reports from the Foreign Ministry on Friday, September 17of “irregularities” at the refugee camps.

Nevo contradicted an earlier statement by Hannan Bar-On, Deputy Director of the Foreign Ministry, who said he had passed information to Nevo that Friday night. Nevo said that on Friday, Rosh Hashanch eve, he was not home and could not have received a call from Bar-On. His testimony supported Begin’s statement to the commission two weeks ago that he had first learned of the massacre from a BBC broadcast late Saturday, September 18.

Bar-On had testified that he received a repar from the American Charge d’Affaires in Beirut of trouble at the hospitals in the refugee camps and of the presence of Israeli soldiers in the streets of west Beirut. He said he had telephoned Nevo about those reports.