Tears for Tarshiha

by Olfat Mahmoud

  ‘What can I do. Somehow, we all have to cope with this horror. This boy is someone’s son, and I have to look after him now,’ I replied.

  During that period, several nurses and I formed a non-formal nurse’s association. This meant I was active in organising a number of social events, including one for International Nurses’ Day on May 12. We also had a role in liaising between the student nurses and the Board of the School of Nursing. For instance, if there was a problem with any of the students, we would set up a meeting between the School Board, our association and the student, effectively advocating for the students, taking their concerns to the Board.

  Once we organised a trip to the south of Lebanon to visit fighters at Arnoun near the border with Israel. It was a deserted and barren area even though we had passed fields of orchards on our way. When we told the fighters we were student nurses they suggested that in times of conflict the PRCS should work more in these forward areas to provide immediate medical support to the wounded. We really felt for these young men: it was very cold and they were living in tents in a difficult and dangerous situation. We stayed on over lunch and tea to give them a bit of moral support. I couldn’t help feeling proud of these men and women who were prepared to give their lives so that we could return home. It is not easy to leave your family and come and live under such conditions knowing a major conflict can start any time. We were all playing a waiting game.

  Our waiting ended on June 3, 1982 when there was an assassination attempt on Shlomo Argov, the Israeli ambassador to Britain,16 by the radical Palestinian—but anti-PLO—terrorist group, Abu Nidal. Using this as a pretext, even though the ceasefire still held and was monitored by the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), on June 6, Israel invaded Lebanon for the second time in four years. In the Beqaa Valley, the Israeli air strikes destroyed many of the Syrian SAM-6 bases and, with its vastly superior military force, overran what little opposition there was in the south. The war everyone had been expecting and fearing had begun.

  I was in my last year of nurses training when the invasion started and was preparing to take my final exams. Mindful of the requests made to us by our young fighters in the south, I and a number of other student nurses went to the PRCS and suggested we work as first-aid workers and nurses in the ambulances.

  On June 9, my friend Nadia and I were sent with an ambulance and its driver to collect a fighter with a serious head injury in the Damour area, just south of the beachside tourist town of Khaldeh, about 20 minutes from our hospital. The road was empty of any civilian traffic, but there was no fighting. Having experienced years of civil war in Lebanon, we were used to a heavy military presence and we could feel the tension in our fighters as we passed through the numerous checkpoints. We came to a PRCS first-aid post and our fighters told us to advance with care. Everyone was on high alert and our pulses, too, were racing.

  As we advanced further, we were exhorted again to be especially careful as everyone we passed was expecting aerial bombing in Khaldeh at any time. When we heard this, Nadia and I looked at each other and in unison said our Islamic prayer of protection. After going through Khaldeh, we continued on to Damour where we picked up an injured solider who was bleeding profusely, the bandage around his head soaked through with blood. His breathing was laboured, and he was unconscious; we knew we had to get him back to the hospital as quickly as possible. We redressed his wound and positioned him so as to assist his breathing. There was no oxygen or other resuscitation equipment in the ambulance; we did our best to make him comfortable and began the journey back to Beirut.

  Then, as expected, the Israeli planes started to bomb. We tried to enter Damour but realised to our horror the Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles had advanced there already. We were trapped. We could not go back to Khaldeh or forward. Frantically, we discussed with the ambulance driver all the possible routes we could use to escape being killed or worse, taken prisoner. We looked for the small road we knew would take us off the seaboard highway, away from the fighting on the narrow coastal strip, to the mountainous area of Lebanon controlled by the Druze. But we were not sure how far the Israeli army had advanced into the mountains either, so were relieved when we came across the Druze military checkpoints and knew for the moment we were safe. However, our patient slipped into a deeper coma and was struggling for his life.

  Anxious to be well away from the army advancing up the coast, we drove rapidly through the narrow and dangerous mountain roads until eventually we reached the main road that led up through the Shouf mountains towards the scenic town of Aley, overlooking Beirut. The journey took hours, along a potholed, mostly gravel road that cut a wide semi-circle high through the mountains back towards Beirut. It was summer, and although it was cooler up there than on the coast, we were hot, thirsty and exhausted. We could do nothing for our patient. I sat in the back with him as he fought for his life.

  We passed easily through many Druze military checkpoints and, as they were supporting the Lebanese National Movement (LNM) and the Palestinians, they barely looked at our papers. We could see that they, too, were on high alert and very tense. When we reached Aley it was quiet and peaceful—as if the calm before a storm. We drove straight to the local hospital, but by then our patient had died. I was filled with a despair and deep, deep sadness. Countless memories of other losses flashed through my mind—another one of our people gone, another funeral, another loved father or brother or uncle lost. More families to grieve and mourn. I said a prayer for him, covered him respectfully and, helped by the nurses in the hospital, took his body to the morgue. We left the hospital and searched for the PLO’s Al-Fatah office in the town. When we found it a young man opened the door.

  ‘Who are you? What do you want?’ he asked.

  ‘We’re from the PRCS in Beirut,’ I replied.

  I explained what had happened and that we needed to radio the PRCS in Beirut. I asked to see the base leader, only to be told he had already left. Looking at the young soldiers before me, my heart sank—I feared for them as much as for ourselves. We had heard the Israeli army had already entered the Beqaa Valley and we were fairly certain they would advance on Aley from there. In spite of their tension and anxiety, these young Palestinian soldiers were hospitable. We could not contact Beirut, but they insisted on preparing food for us—fried potato chips, labneh and bread—which we washed down with sweet black tea. Afterwards, realising that it would be impossible to travel through the night, we lay down on the floor to rest, sleeping only fitfully for a few hours—we were terrified that after all our effort getting this far, we might be trapped there.

  In the morning we tried to leave the town. We knew the area was generally friendly; the Druze militia controlled the mountains through the Shouf, and the Syrian army was in the Beqaa Valley and controlled the highway from the mountains to Beirut. We knew also that both the Lebanese leftist forces and the PLO were in bases in these areas as well. With the driver and the two of us crammed into the front of the ambulance, we headed out of town to the main highway that led down the mountain towards Beirut. Just outside Aley, we stopped at a Syrian military checkpoint and a young officer told us we could not go on as Israeli planes were bombing the road ahead.

  ‘If you go that way you will surely be killed. The Israelis are landing soldiers from helicopters and killing many people,’ he said. We were in a Palestinian ambulance clearly marked with the internationally recognised Red Crescent (the Arab equivalent of the Red Cross) and knew from experience that nurses and ambulance drivers were no safer than anyone else. In times of war, we were supposed to be protected under the UN Geneva Convention, but we were not. We discussed turning back and taking the main highway to Chtaura in the Beqaa Valley. But the officer interrupted, ‘The road to Chtaura is also being bombed by Israeli planes and is much too dangerous for you. Go back to Aley and see if you can leave by another route.’

  With the Israelis advancing from the coast, up through the m
ountains to Aley and bombing the main road to Damascus, we were encircled. The driver turned the ambulance around and we headed back to Aley. The PRCS hospital in Beirut seemed an eternity away. But as we were driving and discussing our dilemma, the Israeli forces began attacking Aley; we could see dust and smoke rising as gunfire from helicopters circling above hit the far side of the town. We could also hear the thud of heavy tank shells. We drove on undeterred, and once in the town, we raced to the local hospital knowing an ambulance would be needed. The doctors immediately directed us to Kabrishmoun, a square in the town centre, to pick up casualties. When we arrived, Nadia, the driver and I jumped out, then stopped in our tracks. In front of us was a scene of hellish carnage. I felt as if I were walking through the set of a horror movie. It was unreal. There was an eerie silence. Smoke was rising from burnt-out tanks and there were bodies, contorted and mangled, amid smouldering wreckage. The entire square was filled with a mass of dead and dying humanity. I was sickened by the scene; yet frozen with fear.

  We learned later that all the young men in this square were Palestinian volunteers from Jordan. An officer had been with them doing military exercises when the Israeli army attacked, bombing and killing all of them.

  We were brought back to our senses by Palestinian fighters calling to us from the other side of the square.

  ‘Leave the area immediately!’ they yelled. ‘The Israelis are nearby. You are in great danger. Look, on the hill behind you.’

  We turned and clearly saw on a nearby hill several Israeli tanks, their guns pointed at the square. My heart, already racing, beat even faster. My throat tightened and, my mouth was suddenly dry—I couldn’t swallow. My knees weakened as I struggled to control my rising terror. I was dressed in my white nurse’s uniform and the ambulance was clearly marked as well. But I had no refugee identity card. When we left the hospital in Beirut, we were on duty and, of course, we had left our bags with our refugee papers at the hospital.

  I turned to Nadia. ‘What if we are caught and taken prisoner? Will they believe we are nurses?’ I asked, pleading.

  Then over the loudspeakers we heard the Israelis say in Arabic, ‘Leave this area immediately. Do not fight us. Let us advance peacefully. We will kill you if you fight back.’

  Suddenly, as if waking from a nightmare, I realised we had to do something. With our uniforms and ambulance, we were clearly medical workers, and we wanted to check if any of these poor men lying there were alive. At that point I heard a groan of pain. A short distance from the ambulance a Palestinian officer lay sprawled across several dead bodies. I could see that his arm was lying at an odd angle—it had been almost severed near the elbow. He had many other wounds on his legs and abdomen, and blood soaked his uniform, but he was alive.

  Nadia and I ran towards the man as the driver started the engine. Just as we were about to lift him into the ambulance, at that moment, the Israelis started to shoot at us. We threw the soldier and ourselves into the back of the ambulance and the driver accelerated away. As bullets sprayed the bodies nearby we flung ourselves over the wounded man. The ambulance raced from the square, its doors flapping wildly. Nadia and I hung on desperately. Then the ambulance swerved violently. Nadia lost her grip and slipped out of the back.

  I shouted at the driver. ‘Stop! Stop now! Nadia has fallen out! We must get her!’

  Even though I was yelling at the top of my voice, the driver couldn’t hear with so much shooting and chaos all around. The road was now jammed with civilian cars. Horns were tooting wildly. Fighting back tears and terror, I prayed for Nadia’s protection. Was she hurt? What would happen to her? How could I find her in this crowd? Would she be able to find her way back to the hospital?

  There was more pandemonium when we arrived at the hospital. All my nursing experience in the hospitals in Beirut had not prepared me for the devastation of this full-scale attack. Within less than an hour the corridors and rooms were filled with wounded civilians. People were screaming and crying. There were women, children and old people on the floors, with limbs shattered and blood pouring through gaping abdominal wounds. Relatives of the wounded held them, their clothes soaked in blood too, crying and begging for help. Nurses and doctors were rushing from one person to the next, slipping in the pools of blood on the floor, trying to treat as many as they could. It was a truly horrific sight. The hospital was only a very small civilian Lebanese hospital with few beds and fewer facilities.

  All I could think was, ‘My God, if all of these people are wounded in just one hour of bombing, what will happen next?’

  Then the bombing started again, and more and more wounded civilians poured into the hospital. I left the wounded Palestinian officer in the emergency room to be attended to by the doctors. As I left him, telling him the doctors would treat his arm, he whispered, ‘Please contact my family in Jordan. Tell them what has happened. Tell them I love them all.’ I reassured him I would, adding that he would soon be able to talk to them himself.

  I went to help the nurses who were giving whatever first aid they could to the endless stream of people who kept staggering in through the hospital doors. Completely overwhelmed, the two doctors were glad of all the help they could get. Then as if by a miracle, Nadia appeared. We fell into each other’s arms and hugged, both crying with relief and grief. She told us that when she had fallen out a passing motorist had picked her up and brought her to the hospital. I felt as if God had answered my prayers.

  The attack intensified. We all knew the Israeli forces would enter the town centre any time now. One of the Lebanese doctors advised us to leave immediately as he knew we were Palestinians and the hospital staff would not be able to protect or hide us. We all understood that we would be taken prisoner or even killed if we were found by the invading soldiers. Even the hospital was not safe. We later learned this clearly marked Lebanese civilian hospital, called Al Iman Hospital, was also bombed that day by the Israelis. Even more people died.

  Before leaving, I went to check on the wounded officer we had brought in from the square. I searched the hospital and finally found him on the floor of a room filled with a growing number of dead. Knowing his family would want him back with them in Jordan, we put his body in the ambulance along with that of the man we had collected from Damour. The Palestinian Red Crescent emblem on the ambulance would make us a target, however, so we covered it with mud. Then we set off again thinking we could travel over the mountains to the Beqaa Valley, knowing it was no longer possible to go to Beirut as Israeli forces now controlled the Beirut/Damascus highway. Many civilians desperately trying to flee the fighting were being killed on the road, with cars being hit by tank shells and strafed by planes. This meant we could not reach the Beqaa Valley via the main highway either.

  Around 5 p.m. we found our way to one of the Lebanese Army military bases in the Aley area, telling the soldiers we were Palestinian medical workers and needed to leave the area immediately. They advised us to drive through the mountains to the Beqaa Valley via a longer, but safer military road, warning that if we strayed from the road, we would end up in an Israeli-controlled area.

  Our anxiety ratcheted up, as none of us knew the area. Seeing this, they offered to send a fighter with us who knew the route well. With our welcome escort, we left, although by now it was dark but still very hot, and we were exhausted. The bodies of the two men, though wrapped and protected, were starting to decompose in the back of the ambulance, with the accompanying overpowering smell that was making us feel very nauseous. I prayed we would manage to get to the Palestinian hospital at Bar Elias in the Beqaa Valley unscathed. Although I was exhausted, the terror of being caught and taken prisoner kept me alert. My eyes stayed glued to the dark road ahead as my stomach churned, my throat tightened, and I fought to keep my fear from overwhelming me.

  It was a long and tortuous route through the mountains. Thank God, it was summer: in winter it would have been covered with snow and we would never
have been able to escape via that route.

  With enormous relief we finally arrived in an area controlled by the Syrian army. This was where our guide had to leave us and return to his unit. He told us to just keep going—it was 2 a.m. on June 11 and just 36 hours after we’d left Beirut. We were safe. We had survived.

  8

  BACK TO BEIRUT

  I was in the Beqaa Valley and was safe, but my joy was short-lived as the staff at the hospital updated us on the Israeli invasion, coordinated by Israeli Defence Minister, Ariel Sharon. Within hours of our escape from Damour, it had fallen. A vicious and sustained ground attack and aerial bombing campaign on Lebanon’s southern cities of Sidon, Tyre and Nabatiyeh had left the cities in ruins, thousands of Lebanese civilians dead or wounded, and hundreds of thousands left homeless. Worse things happened in the nearby Palestinian refugee camps of Ain al-Helwah, al-Bas, Burj al-Shemali and Rachidiyeh. More than 10,000 Palestinians lost their lives and more than 6000 Palestinians and Lebanese were taken prisoner in this initial three-day assault in southern Lebanon. Many of the prisoners were severely beaten, some to death, and the survivors were denied food and water for days. All refugee camps in the south were severely damaged and Ain al-Helwah was destroyed, bombed and then bulldozed so that nothing remained. Hundreds of thousands of miserable Palestinian camp homes were flattened.

  By the Friday, June 11, Beirut was under siege from the Israeli attackers. International concern at the overwhelming force of the Israeli occupation mounted and, diplomatic efforts were being focused on achieving a ceasefire between Israel and the PLO and leftist forces. The first of many of these was agreed on the next day, June 12, but the bombings, fighting and siege of Beirut continued. In Tel Aviv on June 26 the Israeli people vented their outrage with 10,000 protesters demanding an immediate withdrawal of the Israeli army from Lebanon.