Tears for Tarshiha Read online

  On 3 July, under considerable Arab and international pressure, Arafat signed a pledge to withdraw PLO fighters from Beirut. Incomprehensibly, the next day on Sharon’s orders all food, fuel, water and electricity supplies were cut to the city’s 600,000 civilians. It took nearly six weeks until August 18 for the final details of the Israeli and PLO withdrawals to be finalised, including details on how, in the PLO’s absence, US and UN forces would protect the Palestinian refugees. Throughout this time, the people of Beirut and the camps suffered extraordinary hardship and deprivation. For those Lebanese, I am sure they often looked to our camps as the source of their troubles rather than where it truly lay—at Sharon’s feet.

  After the invasion, Walid Jumblatt withdrew his Druze militia from the Lebanese National Movement, greatly diminishing its strength. Under pressure from the UN and US, a broadly representative Lebanese National Salvation Committee was formed, and on August 21, with Israeli tanks ringing the Lebanese Parliament buildings, Bashir Gemayel, head of the Christian Lebanese Forces and the only candidate standing, was elected President of Lebanon. The Israelis had refused to allow a UN protection force to be deployed. Instead a US-led Multinational Force (MNF) took up the role of protector as the PLO withdrew from Beirut on September 9. There was little protection for the Lebanese population in West Beirut and none, except the written word of the US and UN, for the 85,000 or so Palestinian refugees in Beirut or the other 350,000 or more in camps across Lebanon.

  For the three months that terror rained down on my family and friends in Beirut, I remained trapped in the Beqaa Valley, deeply concerned for their safety. We were not permitted by the Lebanese government to have phones in the camp—they were considered a sign of permanent settlement—so I had no idea if my family was still there, given the camps were being targeted in the air strikes. Nor did my family know whether I was still alive. It took about 10 days to get a message to my parents via the Red Cross and I had scant news of them.

  Eventually I received news that my family had fled to my uncle’s flat just outside the camp when the invasion started, but that as the war escalated and the flat also became unsafe, they had relocated, along with thousands of others, to the city’s business centre in the Hamra district. There they stayed for a night in one of the many disused hotels before my uncle was able to find them a flat. They were the lucky ones; many refugees had to make the bombed-out or empty hotels—tourists having fled Beirut during the war—their home. Many refugees from the south and the southern suburbs of Beirut also sought shelter in the hotels’ underground carparks—each family occupying a couple of car spaces, with blankets hung to create the illusion of walls and privacy.

  Desperate to be with my family, I kept myself busy as a way to stop worrying. There was plenty of work for us in the small PRCS hospital in Bar Elias, what with the fighting in the valley and air strikes on nearby towns such as Chtaura, where many civilians were wounded and killed. Working in the emergency room, I occasionally went with the ambulances to provide first aid to the wounded and bring them to the hospital, but unlike in Beirut, I felt safe, so in between emergencies, I had time for other activities.

  Accommodation was, of course, difficult to find so I found myself sharing a room in the hospital with a woman named Fatima Bernawie. In the 1960s, Fatima had been fighting the Israelis in occupied Palestine, and became the first Palestinian woman to be taken prisoner. On her release, she had been exiled by the Israeli government to Jordan and had then travelled to Lebanon. One of her roles in the Beqaa was to make social and morale-boosting visits to the fighters in the bases. She would take newspapers and talk with the young men. She was full of energy and determination, which along with her strength and resilience, I really admired. She became a strong influence on me. From time to time Fatima would invite me to visit the fighter bases with her.

  Of course, going to the military bases was dangerous—at any time we could have been killed. When on one occasion, Israeli planes started to bomb a base we were visiting, we hid with some of the fighters under trees a little distance from the base. As we lay on the ground, I remembered how the bombs from similar planes had destroyed huge buildings in Beirut and my mind filled with images of what could happen to us should a bomb hit where we lay. I saw us completely disappearing into the dust and my body in pieces. I looked around and saw boys lying flat in the fields nearby. There was dust and debris everywhere, but no one was hurt. We hid for more than 15 minutes, praying for protection as the bombing continued. When the attack was over I shared my thoughts with Fatima. She said, ‘Yes, it is true the trees will not protect you, but you will not be seen easily. Also, my dear, remember that if something happens, it will happen. Neither the trees nor the buildings will protect you.’

  Her words held true for me when on another day, without warning, Israeli planes bombed the centre of the little town of Chtaura. I was with a group that had gone for a day out. We had just bought ice-cream at one of the shops and were in the street when the bombing started, so we rushed for shelter. When the bombing was over we saw that the ice-cream shop had been hit, and everyone inside was killed. I remembered Fatima’s words and accepted what fate would offer. My time was not yet up.

  They say that love is found in the strangest places. It is a truism for which I can vouch. Just as it seemed that the world around me was in flames, I met up again with my school friend, Mahmoud. He had received a PLO scholarship to Russia to study cinema photography and like many of the overseas students, had come back as a volunteer during the 1982 Israeli invasion, and was stationed in the Beqaa Valley. He, along with other young students who had lived in our camp, came and visited me in the hospital and all of us, as a large group, would sit together and talk.

  I was 22 years old. Mahmoud and I had been friends for four years and had shared many experiences. He was tall, handsome and had a wicked sense of fun that shone out of his mischievous eyes; I loved the way that in spite of our terrible situation, he would always find something to joke about. I, on the other hand, was quiet and serious, but he could make me laugh—a trait that I never got sick of. Picking up where we had left off in our teenage years, we instantly reconnected, talking of our experiences in the war, and Mahmoud helping to calm me over my concerns for my family. Of course, we never met alone, but that did not stop the inevitable happening—we fell in love.

  After several weeks, Mahmoud suggested we marry and I go back to Russia with him. I was very much in love but thought carefully about our situation. I wanted to marry him, yet at the same time I foresaw many difficulties with his proposal generally and was very torn. I wanted to return to my family in Beirut and continue my nursing. As well, I had been offered a scholarship to London from the UK Palestinian educational support group, UNIPAL. Even though I would be with Mahmoud, going to Russia would entail learning a new language and starting my career from scratch. I simply was just not yet ready to be away for many years from all the people I loved. We discussed all these things at length, so as a compromise he suggested we get engaged. But I did not want to be engaged either, as I knew we would be apart for a long time; and neither of us knew what the future held. I knew only that if we made a promise to each other and he broke it, I would never forgive him. We agreed to leave things as they were, to leave our fate to the future.

  By early September the siege of the Lebanese capital had been lifted, our fighters had left Lebanon and the Israelis had withdrawn to the edge of the city. But the main Beirut/Damascus highway was still controlled by Israel and the Christian Lebanese Forces, so getting through was difficult. My desire to return to my family became overwhelming, but without an identity card I couldn’t travel. During the war, with government not functioning, local mukhtars, village leaders, had been given the authority to issue identity papers. The grandfather of a Lebanese nursing friend was a mukhtar, so I asked him to help me with a new, but false, Lebanese identity card using my friend’s details but with my photo. Because of my friendship
with his granddaughter, he agreed. He trusted me to not use it for other things and to destroy the card once I got home to the camp.

  I spent one night learning all about her cousins, her aunts and uncles and all her family, in case anyone at the Lebanese-controlled checkpoints knew her or members of her extended family. I then found a taxi driver willing to take me to Beirut. He told me it would be best to leave very early in the morning since there were fewer checkpoints then. My friends at the hospital suggested I should go to the hairdresser, have my hair done really nicely, put on lots of make-up and wear jeans and a blouse without sleeves. We all knew if I dressed in black or was covered in any way, as was generally expected of Muslim women, I was more likely to be stopped and questioned. I promised my friends I would contact them to let them know when I arrived safely. They’d become like family to me, so I found it hard to leave. Of course, they were also very anxious about the trip, but they also knew how long I’d wanted to return to my parents. Mahmoud was very much opposed to me leaving at that time because he felt that it was too dangerous. But I was determined; I knew he would try to stop me, so I left without saying goodbye.

  With one of my friends, I caught a taxi first to Baalbek in order to catch my taxi to Beirut. Hurriedly saying goodbye, I hopped in the taxi hoping my make-up and sleeveless T-shirt, would camouflage me from harm. It was early in the morning and, though it was hot in the valley, up in the mountains the air was clear and cool. From the mountain roads the valley looked exquisitely beautiful. We passed with ease through the Syrian checkpoints to Bhamdoun and then, instead of continuing down the highway to Aley, where the roads remained closed to all civilian traffic, we turned right towards East Beirut.

  Driving through the mountain suburbs of East Beirut, the taxi driver warned me when we neared a checkpoint. There were more than 15 in all. Fortunately, he was well known and chatted easily with the soldiers as we passed through the joint Israeli-Christian Lebanese Forces checkpoints. At each stop, I struggled to keep my hands from shaking, endeavouring to fix a smile on my face, terrified that any physical manifestation of my fear would reveal my deception—if I was caught, I would in all likelihood be raped, killed and ‘disappeared’, as so many others had been. Just passing Israeli tanks and the Lebanese militia scared me nearly to death. To calm myself throughout the journey, I recited an Islamic prayer of protection, asking God to place a block between myself and the dangers I might face. For one hour and 15 unrelenting minutes we wound our way back to Beirut—the longest 75 minutes I have yet to endure. But God was protecting me, and no one checked my papers. They just waved us through.

  When we finally arrived in West Beirut and I realised I had survived and was now safe, I wanted to shout and jump with joy. But there was little time to indulge my relief. I tore up the identity card as promised, took out my mirror and removed all my make-up as a mark of respect for people who had lost relatives, then put my hair up, pulled on my long-sleeved shirt and set out to find my family.

  During the siege, the PRCS had been forced to evacuate the camp hospitals of Gaza and Akka, moving everything to temporary hospitals in Hamra. One of them was in a church and I knew my younger sister, Mervat, was working there. In the city streets, everything was quiet; very few people were around. It was only now I could see the devastation the war had wrought. Many of the buildings had been badly damaged: some had their fronts sheared off, leaving the shattered insides exposed, as if in a macabre theatre set, most had been burnt out. All were pocked with bullet holes; no building was untouched. Whole buildings had collapsed. Huge slabs of concrete hung precariously and dangerously. Rubbish had not been collected. There was human waste everywhere. Burnt-out or bullet-riddled cars lay by the roadside. Here and there people had returned to live in these ruins and had put up blankets and makeshift covers to protect themselves from the elements. The few people I saw looked drained and haggard. Everything was black and sad.

  Finally, I found where my sister was working. The minute we saw each other we burst into tears—we were so relieved to see each other alive. But I was desperate to see my parents. She told me that when I went missing, my father searched everywhere for information about me. He and all the family were sick with fear for my safety. Mervat said that he ‘when no one could find you, he kept on saying that he felt as if all the sugar had left his body’. And indeed, my father’s diabetes started at this time. Mervat told me when the fighting had stopped, and the Israelis had withdrawn to the edge of the city, people had returned to their homes in the camps. I left Mervat and made my way to Burj Barajneh, seeing the camp through the blur of my tears.

  The destruction here was on a scale I could not have imagined. Many homes had been completely destroyed—bombed into oblivion. Those that were still standing were by any measure uninhabitable. There were huge gaping holes where rooms had once been. I could look into the middle of many houses because whole walls had been blown away. Pitiful attempts by returning residents at privacy and warmth failed as worn, bullet-riddled blankets flapped in the wind and people’s pinched faces showed the strain of struggling to survive. There was evidence of tank fire, strafing and shooting everywhere. The water pipes had been ripped open, narrow lanes were soggy and slippery underfoot and electricity wires were cut and hanging dangerously low. Rubble made walking through the camp difficult. I held my breath as I neared my parents’ house, not knowing what emotion to feel when I saw it still standing. It was badly damaged. The second floor, new and so proudly built, had bullet holes in the walls and doors. Yet there was my family—alive and safe. I was so overjoyed to see my parents, brothers and sisters, but inside, I was crying, for all my people and all the suffering they had endured.

  Despite the city and the camp being in ruins, life continued as it always does. I returned to work and buried myself in helping patients. It was the beginning of autumn when I returned to work at Akka Hospital. Rain was falling softly, and the day was warm and humid. The hospital, in a Lebanese area adjacent to the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, was around 20 minutes walk from Burj Barajneh, along the airport road, under Ghobeiry Bridge and then left towards the Kuwait Embassy. It was a small hospital with a general medical ward, a paediatric ward and a rehabilitation centre for disabled people where an Australian woman, Jean Calder, worked. As I approached the hospital I could see it was extensively damaged. Even though the building had been clearly marked with large red crosses and red crescents, the Israelis had still bombed it.

  The nursing school and all the administration buildings had been ransacked, as had the operating theatres, nursery and rehabilitation centre. Because of the damage, we had only a few patients and minimal equipment to deal with them. The hospital kitchen had also been destroyed, forcing us to buy food for the patients. There were six Palestinian nurses and three doctors in the hospital, as well as a laboratory technician, a pharmacist and cleaners, guards and cooks, (mostly Egyptian) and some administration staff. Several foreigners, mostly European nurses, were living there too.

  After the PLO and Syrian army left Beirut, the Israeli army stayed near the airport, leaving the city in the control of the Lebanese army. Camp residents were busy trying to repair their houses. When the UN Multinational Force withdrew on 10 September, 12 days before its scheduled departure, the Lebanese army moved into West Beirut. The Palestinians, aware the right-wing Christian Lebanese Forces had been incorporated into the Lebanese army and that there were no armed PLO soldiers in the camps to protect them, became extremely anxious. In the agreement under which the PLO left Lebanon, Palestinians in the camps had been assured of protection by the US and the UN. But we all wondered if their assurances would be enough.

  9

  THE MASSACRE

  On the evening of Monday, 13 September 1982, I went with two other nurses to buy food for patients. When we reached a Lebanese army checkpoint on the road from the hospital to the Ghobeiry area, soldiers stopped us and an officer asked us where we were going.
/>   ‘To the bakery and the restaurant,’ I replied.

  ‘Why are you walking alone?’

  ‘You know we can walk alone. Should we be afraid? What’s wrong? Is there a problem?’

  To our amazement, the officer said, ‘Aren’t you afraid of the Palestinians in the camp?’

  ‘Why should I be afraid of my own people?’ I asked, astonished.

  The officer looked surprised. He would not believe we were Palestinians until we showed him our refugee papers.

  ‘I imagined Palestinians differently,’ he said.

  The following night, we were cleaning and tidying up in the emergency area when one of the doctors walked in grim-faced to tell us Bashir Gemayel—just days before his inauguration as president—had been killed in a bomb blast.

  The next morning, I again walked out to buy food, and came across the army officer from the previous day at the checkpoint.

  ‘Are you happy now?’ he asked.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ I exclaimed. ‘One day you ask me if I am afraid, and the next you ask me if I am happy. Why are you asking me these questions?’

  ‘Don’t tell me Bashir Gemayel’s death means nothing to you,’ he said.

  I remained studiously polite. ‘I have respect for the dead and I pray for them,’ I said.

  His tone changed. ‘You Palestinians are the cause of everything bad that happens in Lebanon.’

  I’d become used to this kind of accusation from certain Lebanese people. Even so, the way he spat the words out angered and distressed me.

  ‘No, it’s not because of us,’ I said. ‘You should read your history. There were many problems in Lebanon long before we were forced to flee Palestine in 1948. The problems in Lebanon are between the Maronites, the Christians and the Muslims, not between the Lebanese and the Palestinians.’