DOCTORS TESTIFY ABOUT MASSACRE - The New York Times 1982

DOCTORS TESTIFY ABOUT MASSACRE - The New York Times

DOCTORS TESTIFY ABOUT MASSACRE

By William E. Farrell, Special To the New York TimesNov. 2, 1982

Credit...The New York Times Archives
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November 2, 1982, Section A, Page 13
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Three members of the staff of a hospital in Beirut said here today that they had heard gunfire and artillery during the Christian Phalangist operations in nearby Palestinian refugee camps in September but testified that they thought they were the sounds of battle, not the mass slaughter that was taking place.

The three - two British doctors and an American nurse - were in the Gaza Hospital during the assaults on the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps from the time the killings began until they ended four days later. They said they did not realize what had happened until it was all over, even though the wounded - nearly all women and children - began coming into the hospital on the first day of the Phalangist operation, Sept. 16.

The witnesses testified individually at a public hearing conducted by an independent judicial commission of inquiry established to look into events surrounding the massacre of the Palestinians in an area of Beirut then under Israeli control.

''We never really knew what was going on around us,'' said Dr. Paul Morris, a general practitioner. He said that when firing started in the area, the greatly depleted hospital staff prepared for emergency treatment. At first, the witnesses said, patients were slow in coming in. It never occurred to them, they said, that the reason might be that the shots, fired at civilians in their homes, were at close range and lethal. Surgeon Tells of Operations


Another witness, Dr. Swee Chai Ang, an orthopedic surgeon from Britain, said that once the flow of patients increased she had operated steadily for more than 24 hours and that all but one of her patients were women and children.

The exception, she told the three-member inquiry panel, was her Pakistani nurse, who was shot when he went to the top of the 10-story hospital building to get a view of what was happening.

The third witness, Ellen Siegel, a nurse from Washington, D.C., said that during the heaviest fire in the camp areas ''we didn't know what was going on.''

''We were sitting in the intensive care unit crouched between walls,'' she said. On Saturday morning, Sept. 18, the 22 foreign members of the staff were ordered to leave the hospital by Phalangist militiamen, the witnesses said. The group walked along Sabra Street in a single file, they said, and two of them, Dr. Ang and Miss Siegel, said they had seen three bodies lying along the way. Both said that the deaths appeared to have occurred only a few hours before. Refugees Lined Up Along Street

Lining both sides of the street, all three testified, were hundreds of Palestinian refugees, mostly women and children, who were being guarded by uniformed militiamen.

''We left the hospital,'' Miss Siegel said. ''As we started down Rue Sabra there was lots of light artillery fire. I ducked. I said, 'We're sitting ducks,' but the soldiers were unaware or not listening or unconcerned. It was like they didn't hear the shots at all.''

Her implication was that the militiamen knew that the gunfire was contained within areas of the camps and was one-sided. Dr. Ang said that as she walked past the refugees ''a woman tried to pass her baby to me to take it across.'' ''I carried the baby for two minutes - I would have taken it,'' she said, but a soldier made her return the child to the mother. Huge Bulldozers Seen

All three witnesses said they saw huge bulldozers knocking down buildings but they disagreed on the number. Miss Siegel said five or six, Dr. Ang said two and Dr. Morris said more than 10.

Miss Siegel said that on one bulldozer she saw the Hebrew letter ''aleph,'' which she said she had learned as a child. Various accounts have said that the bulldozers were used to plow slaughtered bodies into the rubble of the camps and to bring down buildings around the slain.

The Israelis for years had supplied the Christian Phalangists with arms and equipment in their mutual fight against guerrillas of the Palestine Liberation Organization. A question before the commission is whether the earth-moving equipment was supplied to the militiamen by the Israelis and whether Israeli commanders had any idea of what uses it was intended for.


A uniformed Phalangist woman, two of the witnesses said, berated the medical staff, saying, as Dr. Ang put it, ''How dare you, a Christian, work with Palestinians.''

Outside the camp area, the medical personnel were turned over to Israeli forces, who were then occupying West Beirut in the aftermath of the assassination of President-elect Bashir Gemayel. The Israelis took them to the American Embassy.

The dimensions of what had occurred around them became known late Saturday.

 'Justice Must Be Done'

''Justice must be done,'' Miss Siegel said as she concluded her testimony. ''Justice will be done,'' said Aharon Barak, a Supreme Court justice, one of the inquiry panel members. The other two members of the panel are Israel's Chief Justice, Yitzhak Kahan, and Yona Efrat, a retired major general. The panel was set up under a 1968 Israeli law after initial resistance from the Government of Prime Minister Menachem Begin. The commission has subpoena powers and can, if it wishes, require witnesses to take an oath. In some cases, the commission has not administered oaths. Perjury charges are possible under oath if it is proved that a witness lied.

The panel has no prosecutory powers but its findings are expected to have sufficient influence to lead to possible resignations and dismissals.