“Yaron ordered flares to be dropped over the Sabra & Shatila camps and Israeli soldiers blocked the exits to prevent civilians from leaving the area,” Fisk

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, January 12 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Director General of the Israeli Ministry of Defense Amos Yaron has been sent by Israel to the United States to hold negotiations with the Bush administration to grant Israel $8bn (£5bn) in loan guarantees.

Israel has sent to Washington one of the former army officers implicated in the 1982 Sabra and Chatila massacre of Palestinian civilians to persuade the Bush administration to grant the money, Robert Fisk of the Independent wrote.

Yaron was the Israeli military commander in Beirut when the Israeli troops entered the refugee camps and slaughtered up to 1,700 Palestinian refugees.

He ordered flares to be dropped over the camps, at the request of the militiamen, and Israeli soldiers blocked the exits to prevent civilians from leaving the area.

Civilians trying to flee the carnage pleaded with Israeli soldiers to allow them to leave the area. On Yaron's orders, they were sent back into the camps – in many cases to their deaths.

The Israeli officers later claimed they didn't know the Palestinians were being murdered, even though individual Israeli soldiers had warned their commanders that the civilians were being slaughtered.

Yaron was appointed to the post of Defense Ministry director by the former Prime Minister, Ehud Barak. The two men are accompanied to Washington by the Israeli Ministry of Finance accountant general, Nir Gilad, the British famous writer wrote.

The Israeli team is negotiating the new loan with Condoleezza Rice's National Security Council but little has emerged about their visit in the American press.

Israel is pleading for the money – along with an additional $4bn in military aid – on the grounds that a U.S. invasion of Iraq will provoke further attacks against Israel.

It argues that some of the aid should be given to anti-missile defense systems for El Al airliners. (Alleged) Al-Qaeda members tried to destroy an Israeli civilian aircraft with missiles at Mombasa last year, but narrowly missed it.

The Israeli delegation to Washington is led by Dov Weissglass, from the private office of the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, who was found "personally responsible" for the Sabra and Chatila massacre by the Israeli Kahan commission of inquiry in 1983.

The U.S. response is likely to be made public within a month – before the expected invasion of Iraq. The State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher, has refused to talk about the negotiations, save for a passing remark that "we always try to help our friends and allies to the best of our ability".

The Bush administration has never referred to the Sabra and Chatila massacre, nor to Mr. Sharon's role in the killings.

The night before he sent his troops, preceded by pro-Israel Phalangist militiamen, into the camps to confront "terrorists", Mr. Sharon wrongly claimed that Palestinians had murdered Lebanon's President-elect Bashir Germayel, who was also leader of the Phalange militia.

Israeli officials accompanying the delegation said they believed the U.S. would respond favorably to their loan request when their country was facing a global recession as well as "terrorism''.