Ok, I mixed up the dates a little before- my mistake. Here is the correct information- the massacres took place on the 16th and 17th. The war was basically over, and Israel was trying to transfer military authority back to the Lebanese. The Phalangists were part of the Lebanese Army.
"By June 1982, Israel viewed the Syrian and PLO presence in southern Lebanon as a threat and attacked. Yasser Arafat and PLO followers were forced to evacuate Beirut strongholds and later reestablished their headquarters in Tunisia. With the help of U.S. envoy Philip Habib, the international community in August negotiated the PLO withdrawal agreement and deployed U.S., French, and Italian forces to Beirut to facilitate the move.
Civil war and violence continued to rage in Lebanon and key political figure, president-elect Bachir Gemayel was assassinated before he could even take office. The turmoil and the continued presence of PLO fighters prompted a second Israeli invasion in September 1982. This time Israeli forces moved all the way up to the capital of Beirut, occupying the western half of the city."
That is from PBS-
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middl...eace_sec2.html
There was still PLO in the country, and the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps were PLO strongholds. Among the 7-800 killed were many PLO terrorists, as well as many innocent civilians. At this stage in the war, Israel was trying to transfer military authority back to the Lebanese Army, as they were trying to pull out. The Phalangists were part of the country of Lebanon's military.
The Israeli commision into this, the Kahan commission, found Sharon, as Defense Minister, indirectly responsible, and he was forced to step down. It was ruled that he should have foreseen that a massacre was a possibility, although no one else in the military, media, or anyone else had suggested that this could happen either. He was forced to step down. He bears no direct responsibility.
And Nad Adam, I am not calling you a nazi, but the fabricated quote you posted, from "The Independent Palestinian Information Network", is not legitimate. This is the type of propaganda that was pushed by the nazis to stir up Jew-hatred, which gave Hitler the public support for his "Final solution". I hope you don't really believe what you have posted. If you do, and fail to acknowledge how sick it is, I would consider you an anti-semite. That "quote" is not from a legitimate source, and jewish conspiracy theories have no place in any intellectually honest discourse. I didn't mean to say you were a nazi- you should just be aware of the significance of believing or posting something like that. I did do a google search, and besides the site you mentioned I also found it on another jew-hating sight, the "American defense league", I believed it was called, filled with anti-semitic hate literature.