Report by Robert L Friedman in NEW YORK TIMES

"The scene was made all the more frightening, the doctors said, by the illumination flares that were being fired by Israeli troops over the camps and dropped by Israeli aircraft. A Sky Aglow With Flares"
"The throng, showing a white flag, moved from the school up Rue Mohammed Ali Beyhum to Corniche Mazraa. As they approached the Israeli checkpoint on the main boulevard, kitty-corner to the Barbir Hospital, they were stopped by an Israeli soldier. The soldier, by all accounts, was clearly surprised and probably frightened to see all of these people coming at him.
The soldier shouted in Arabic to the crowd to stay back, then went into crouch position at the corner of a building and aimed his gun at the people, who immediately started shrieking and turned around. Crowd Chooses a Spokesman
The soldier, members of the crowd recalled, then told them to send one person forward to explain what they wanted. A man was chosen and sent to speak to the Israeli.
According to the people, the spokesman told the soldier that Haddad militiamen were slaughtering civilians in the camps and that they were trying to escape.
The Israeli soldier told the spokesman that there was nothing he could do, and added that if they remained in the area, he would open fire.
People began protesting; women started weeping. The Israeli soldier then reportedly fired two volleys into the air to scatter the crowd. At that point, witnesses say, an Israeli tank rolled from Corniche Mazraa onto Rue Mohammed Ali Beyhum and chased the people a few hundred feet back toward the camps. A Witness Corroborates Account"

"Fortunately for the physician, by about 5 P.M. Friday, an International Red Cross convoy made it to the hospital and evacuated everyone left there. The doctor said that at about 5:30 P.M., as he was leaving the facility for safety, he saw at the southern end of Shatila what he estimated to be 80 to 90 bodies. They had been mixed together with sand and were being pushed by bulldozers."

Israeli co-operation with Falangists
"Whatever the Israelis knew about the massacre by Saturday morning, and however disturbed they were by the events, some of the Palestinians say the Israeli soldiers threatened to turn them over to the Phalangists if they did not cooperate. 'Don't Worry About Anything'
Saleh H., 55, quotes an Israeli soldier as telling him at the stadium: ''You are now under the protection of the Israeli defense forces. Don't worry about anything, just be honest with us. If we find out you are not honest . . . ''
He said the soldier added, ''the Phalangists are here.'' Mr. Saleh said the Israeli soldier then motioned toward the area from where the Phalangists had brought them to the stadium. Finally Ahmed, 27 years old, a teacher at the school of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Sabra camp, was asked by an Israeli if he knew any guerrillas."

"A few miles away, around 9 A.M., the first outsiders were entering Shatila and discovering the bodies. The Israeli officer in charge of the stadium interrogations, Col. Naftali Bahiry, was asked if there was any truth to reports that Phalangists were in the area of the camps.
''We asked the Phalangists to leave,'' said the colonel. ''We don't need anyone to do the job for us.''

Jim Carroll