"The soldiers were not expecting such a thing"
Exerpts from Amnon Kapeliouk's book:
More to come.
Jim Carroll

"The Israeli Army decided otherwise. As early as noon on Wednesday, the camps of Sabra and Shatila, which were not separated by any exact boundary, were surrounded by Israeli tanks pointing their guns at the camps. A little later, Israeli soldiers set up check-points around the camps, allowing them to control all entrances and exits. Anxiety began to mount inside the camps. The great majority of the inhabitants locked themselves inside their homes. The PLO fighters -who had always defended the camps and resisted the siege of Beirut for weeks- were no longer there. No visible sign of their presence remained except for old posters glued to the walls of shattered homes. The Palestinian refugees of both camps -mostly elderly, women, and children- had avoided any confrontation with the Israeli Army for fear of reprisals. In anticipation of the rainy season, they had just begun to rebuild their homes shelled during the Israeli siege. Since the departure of the Palestinian fighters, all traces of armed presence in the camps had disappeared.
During the late afternoon and early evening, a few shells were fired by the Israeli Army in the direction of Sabra and Shatila. Norwegian Doctor Per Maehlumshagen, an orthopedic surgeon at Gaza Hospital situated to the west of Sabra, testified that the first wounded, about fifteen persons, started to be brought in that Wednesday evening. Others, generally victims of sniper fire, arrived the same evening at Akka Hospital, across the road that marks the southern edge of Shatila.
Zaki, an electrician from Sabra, recounted that he had accompanied other camp residents to an Israeli military post to express their fear of being captured by armed Lebanese groups. The Israeli soldiers reassured them, claiming that nothing would happen to them, "because they were civilians, not terrorists." Then, they ordered them to return to their homes."

"At 3:00 P.M., the commander of the Israeli forces in Beirut, Brigadier General Amos Yaron, and two of his staff officers met with Elie Hobeika, director of intelligence in the Lebanese Forces, and Fadi Frem, their chief of staff. With the assistance of aerial Photographs furnished by Israel, they coordinated the details of the Phalangist entry into the camps. The Israeli general confirmed that his troops would supply all the necessary assistance: "to mop up the terrorists in the camps. Then, Major General Drori called Ariel Sharon to announce: "Our friends are marching on the camps. " We have coordinated their entry." "Congratulations!" replied Ariel Sharon, "The operation of our friends is approved.""

"Various accounts are in full agreement concerning the precise time of the assailants' entry into the camps. According to Israeli soldiers present in the area, the time of entry was 5:15 P.M. Camp residents confirm that the first organized murders began at 5:00, or even a little earlier in certain locations in Shatila. Ariel Sharon declared before the Knesset that "the forces entered [the camps] at night." Furthermore, everyone agrees that the attackers entered from two directions: from the south through the main road leading to the camps, and from the southwest coming down the hill near the Kuwaiti Embassy. Leading the campaign was Elie Hobeika."

"Ha'aretz correspondent Michael Gerti and photographer Uzi Keren, who arrived at Shatila the day after the massacre, filed the following account by two Israeli paratroopers: "It was possible to stop the massacre in Shatila, even on Thursday; had they acted on what we reported to our commander." One of the soldiers voluntarily admitted to the journalists: "On Thursday evening, as darkness fell, Palestinian women from Shatila arrived at the post and hysterically told us that the Phalangists were shooting their children and putting the men in trucks. I reported this to my commander, but all he said was: 'It is okay, do not worry.' My order was to tell the women to go back home. However, many women, and entire families as well, ran away from the camps to the north. I went back and repeated my report over and over. Each time, however, the answer was the same: "It is okay." An Israeli officer belonging to the same select unit reported to Gerti and Keren that he had received several reports of this type. However, he added: "Everybody was sure it was just hysterics." (Ha'aretz, September 23, 1982)."