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Elul understood that the Phalangists were talking about the murder of women and children, and told Yaron what he had overheard. Yaron went over to Hobeika and spoke with him quietly for five minutes, but Elul could not hear what was said. An hour later, a Phalangist liaison officer reported to Israeli officers, including Yaron, that the Phalangists had killed large numbers of people inside the camp.
Despite this and other indications of mass murder, Yaron failed to report the information to his superior, General Drori, that night or the following day. Afterward, when everyone knew about the massacre, Yaron told colleagues that "the whole [military] system showed insensitivity." He added, "I did badly, I admit it." The commission agreed. It recommended that Yaron should not serve as a field commander for at least three years.
The commission also took a fairly strong position against Major General Yehoshua Saguy, 49, the director of Israeli military intelligence. Saguy had not trusted the Phalangists and did not want to cooperate with them. But he had been overruled by Sharon, who had preferred to take the advice of the Mossad, the Israeli civil intelligence agency, which had previous dealings of long standing with the Phalangists. Saguy testified that he was not informed beforehand that the Phalangists would be allowed to enter the camps. When he learned what had happened, he did nothing. As he told the commission, "So what could I say? 'Why did you send [them] in without asking me?' Or should I act insulted? No, I simply stepped aside in this matter, that's all." The commission concluded that he had displayed "indifference and a conspicuous lack of concern" about the whole affair, and recommended that he be relieved of his post.
On the other hand, the commission decided that no action should be taken against the head of Mossad (whose identity is never disclosed), since he had served as the agency's director for only four days at the time of the massacre. The commission also recommended that no action be taken against General Drori, who had made some effort to get the Phalangists out of the camps, even though he had failed to "continue with these actions."
One section of the report, known as Appendix B, was not published at all, mainly for security reasons. That section contains the names of several intelligence agents referred to elsewhere in the report. TIME has learned that it also contains further details about Sharon's visit to the Gemayel family on the day after Bashir Gemayel's assassination. Sharon reportedly told the Gemayels that the Israeli army would be moving into West Beirut and that he expected the Christian forces to go into the Palestinian refugee camps. Sharon also reportedly discussed with the Gemayels the need for the Phalangists to take revenge for the assassination of Bashir, but the details of the conversation are not known.