On 16 December 1982, the United Nations General Assembly condemned the massacre and declared it to be an act of genocide.[41] The voting record[42][43][44]

The delegate for Canada stated: "The term genocide cannot, in our view, be applied to this particular inhuman act".[44] The delegate of Singapore – voting 'yes' – added: "My delegation regrets the use of the term 'an act of genocide' ... [as] the term 'genocide' is used to mean acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group." Canada and Singapore also questioned whether the General Assembly was competent to determine whether such an event would constitute genocide.[44]

The United States commented that "While the criminality of the massacre was beyond question, it was a serious and reckless misuse of language to label this tragedy genocide as defined in the 1948 Convention ...".[44]

Such comments led William Schabas, director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights at the National University of Ireland,[45] to state: "the term genocide ... had obviously been chosen to embarrass Israel rather than out of any concern with legal precision".[44]

The commission's report, Israel in Lebanon, concluded that the Israeli authorities or forces were directly or indirectly responsible in the massacres and other killings that have been reported to have been carried out by Lebanese militiamen in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in the Beirut area between 16 and 18 September