Tears for Tarshiha

by Olfat Mahmoud

  Not long afterwards, Israeli tanks rumbled down the street, loudspeakers blaring: ‘We are the Israeli army. We are stronger than you. If you resist we will kill you.’

  I stood watching them go by, convinced I was in a long and hideous nightmare from which, at any moment, I would wake to find none of this was happening. The Israelis drove arrogantly in their tanks through the streets of Haret Hreik and Burj Barajneh for several hours, harassing anyone they could find, before finally driving off to the airport.

  Later that day we discovered what had happened to Dr Ali, Dr Sami and the other nurses and patients at Akka Hospital. The two nurses hiding in the villa with Dr Ali were Fariel Khalil—who was Palestinian but who grew up in a Lebanese village and therefore spoke with a Lebanese accent—and Antisar. Fariel’s accent saved her, but the Lebanese Forces’ militiamen could tell Antisar was Palestinian. They dragged her out of the villa and raped her. Then, as she lay screaming to be killed, they shot her. They tied Dr Sami, who’d remained inside the hospital building, and Dr Ali to jeeps, dragged them along the road in front of the hospital and finally shot them too. We heard from the foreign nurses at the hospital that militiamen went through the wards and found the young boy we’d treated for his chest wound. They pulled out his chest tube, threw him to the floor and kicked him like a football along the corridor, shouting repeatedly that all Palestinians should die. They kicked him to death.

  The disabled children whom Jean Calder was looking after described the horror they’d been through. They said a militiaman stood at each end of the corridor and pushed the wheelchair-bound children back and forth along it, saying to them, ‘You think we’re going to kill you, don’t you? No, no, we don’t want to kill you. You’re no threat to us. If all Palestinians were like you, it would be fine. You’re disabled; you’re nothing.’

  In spite of pleas from the foreign nurses, many babies were killed, as were bedridden patients. Neither were hospital cooks, cleaners and guards—mostly Egyptian—spared, and the hospital was looted and burned. All the while, the Israeli army stood by and did nothing.

  We heard that Lebanese militiamen had also killed nurses at Gaza Hospital. The foreign nurses and doctors working there testified that on the Saturday morning, as militiamen were marching them down the camp’s main street, they saw hundreds of mainly women and children under guard sitting by a large and recently dug pit. Soon after this, they heard repeated shooting for 10 minutes or more, accompanied by screams and cries.

  For two nights and days, the slaughter in Sabra and Shatila18 took place without anyone outside the immediate area knowing about it, so tight was the clamp-down by the Israelis. Even in suburbs right next door, people were going about their daily business, buying and selling produce in the market, unaware of the slaughter happening at their doorstep.

  For two days and nights after the massacre, I slept as if in a coma. I had nightmares filled with the people who’d been slaughtered; all the people I’d known and loved and who were no longer there. When I finally woke up, a black cloud of grief and despair had settled around me, shot through with flashes of terror that at any moment soldiers would come crashing through the door to kill me and my family. I couldn’t bear to listen to the news, and I would burst into tears without apparent reason. I just wanted to run way from everything, but my limbs felt too heavy to move. My whole body felt leaden. And my throat was constricted constantly. Nothing seemed to shift it.

  It took around six months for the black cloud to lift. But as my grief waned, it was replaced by a burning rage at what had happened. Even now, if I talk about these events, my fear and rage return and I know the nightmares will soon follow.

  No one knows exactly how many people died in Sabra and Shatila, but estimates run to about 2000, mostly old men, women and children, all unarmed and defenceless. Robert Fisk, the respected British journalist covering the Middle East at the time, described his entry into the camp around 10 a.m. on Saturday 18 September, which largely confirmed what we had heard.

  They were everywhere, in the road, in the lane-ways, in backyards and broken rooms, beneath crumpled masonry and across the top of garbage tips. The murderers—the Christian militiamen whom Israel had let into the camps—had only just left. In some cases, the blood was still wet on the ground. When we had seen a hundred bodies we stopped counting. Down every alleyway, there were corpses—women, young men, babies and grandparents—lying together in terrible profusion where they had been knifed or machine-gunned to death. Each corridor through the rubble produced more bodies. Perhaps a thousand people were butchered; probably half that number again. Even while we were there, we could see the Israelis watching us. From the top of the tower block to the west—the second building on the Avenue Camille Chamoun—we could see them staring at us through field glasses, scanning back and forth across the streets of corpses. This was a mass killing ... It was a war crime.19

  In the wake of global condemnation, the Israeli Government immediately set up a commission of inquiry into the massacre. Four months later, the Kahan Commission Report20 was made public and confirmed what we knew—that Christian Lebanese Forces militiamen, with the Israeli army’s connivance, had systematically tortured, raped and slaughtered innocent refugee women, children and old men between 6 p.m. on 16 September and the morning of 18 September. The report detailed how corpses were buried in mass graves dug by Israeli bulldozers. Those same bulldozers flattened houses, burying any further evidence.

  The inquiry found Israeli officials, especially Defence Minister Ariel Sharon, and his Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Rafael Eitan, were independently responsible for the massacre because they should have known what would occur. It found Kata’eb leaders, the dominant Christian militia in the Lebanese Forces, had repeatedly made clear what they intended to do with Palestinians they found, and some Israeli leaders had said candidly they hoped to ‘purify’ Lebanon of Palestinians. In its chilling account of the events, the commission’s report left no doubt that Sharon and the most senior Israeli military personnel to the Lebanese Forces were partners in this war crime.

  In one instance, the report says, Israeli officers sharing a command post with Lebanese Forces reported a conversation on the evening of September 16, in which a Lebanese officer inside the camp said he was holding more than 45 women, children and old men. When he asked his senior Lebanese officer what he should do with them, the reply was, ‘Do the will of God’. By 8 o’clock, only two hours after the militiamen had entered the camp, according to the Kahan Commission Report, more than 300 people had already been killed—all civilians. The Israeli officers, having been in the command post with the militia leaders, were fully aware of these facts.

  The commission’s report also described how an Israeli battalion commander on the Friday night, realising Palestinians were being massacred, told his men, ‘We know. It’s not to our liking, but don’t interfere.’ In its recommendations, the commission found Sharon ‘bears personal responsibility’ for the massacre and recommended Israel’s Prime Minister of the day remove him from office.21 Sharon and several high-ranking military officials resigned, but Sharon’s disgrace was short-lived—by 2001 all was forgotten, and he was elected Prime Minister of Israel. He never faced trial in a national or international war crimes’ court for his part in this massacre. In fact, no one has ever faced trial. Like so many times in our history before, the world professed its shock at what had been done to Palestinian refugees—and then did nothing.

  10

  NAWAL’S BROTHER

  As we are always forced to do, I pushed my grief aside and went back to work straight away. Akka Hospital was in ruins, and there were no longer any patients there. So, I transferred to Gaza Hospital, taking on the role of night supervisor. To get to work, I had to walk through Sabra and Shatila camps, past the alleyways and homes that had witnessed such sadness, misery and horror just days before. Yet it seemed already the outside world had moved on.

/>   On September 22, 1982, only four days after the Sabra and Shatila massacre, their work done and now under pressure from the US, the Israeli army withdrew to the airport perimeter. The next day, just seven days after Bashir Gemayel had been assassinated, his brother Amin was elected President. On September 29, 19 days after it had left the Palestinians unprotected, the US-led Multinational Force returned to Beirut.

  The Israelis remained in East Beirut and in the mountains with their allies, the Lebanese Forces, and occupied all of south Lebanon. The Syrians were in the Beqaa Valley. There were no armed Palestinians in Beirut; and the Lebanese army, now with many Christian Lebanese Forces militia in its ranks, had control of West Beirut. During this period there were mass arrests and detentions as the army set up checkpoints, searched homes and sent thousands of Palestinian and Lebanese radicals for interrogation in East Beirut. Leftist and communist party offices were raided and censorship regulations banning criticism of the army and government were reinstated. Shanty towns on the edge of Shatila and in the West Beirut beachfront area of Ouzie, were ruthlessly dismantled, once again displacing Shi’a Lebanese. By December 1982, more than 2000 people had been registered as missing, and of these, only 600 were Palestinian; the rest were Lebanese. The excesses of the army were greatly resented, so inevitably opposition movements grew. But with the PLO gone, the unprotected Palestinian refugees were an easy target; and life became a matter of survival.

  One day I was walking through the camp on my way to Gaza Hospital when I saw a young Lebanese army officer, in a gesture of affection, put his hand on a small boy’s head. Immediately, the boy started screaming and ran to the Italian peacekeepers, asking them to save him. I was really frightened that something had happened to the boy and walked over to investigate. The Lebanese officer turned to me and said, ‘Please tell him that I don’t want to hit him, I just want to play with him’. With tears running down his face, the soldier told me how sad he was that this small child had run away in fear. I remember that day well; it reminded me that all good people suffered in Lebanon.

  That same night, a number of armed soldiers in Lebanese army uniform brought a wounded man into the hospital emergency room where I was working. Two Lebanese soldiers were on guard outside the hospital. Although there were UN peacekeepers in the camp, and they would visit the hospital occasionally, we had lost confidence in their ability to protect us. We felt they would not be able to stop the Christian Lebanese Forces if they wanted to massacre us again. The man these soldiers brought in was big. He’d been hit by bullets and was in a critical condition. We started to treat him immediately and called for the surgeon, Dr Fayez. While I worked, I noticed the armed soldiers were still in the emergency room. As arms were forbidden in the hospital, I politely asked them to leave.

  In reply, one pointed his gun at me.

  ‘If you don’t shut your mouth, I’ll close it for you,’ he snapped roughly.

  Under Dr Fayez’s orders, we prepared to take the wounded man downstairs to the X-ray Department—as there was no electricity for the lifts to operate—but even with the help of the X-ray technician, he was too heavy for us. When I asked two of the soldiers if they would carry him, one of them replied, ‘What, stupid woman! Do you want us to help you carry this (a string of oaths) kelp (dog) Palestinian.’

  That’s when I realised the patient was Palestinian. So now I wondered if these soldiers were regular Lebanese army officers or Lebanese Forces militiamen, many of whom were now in the army.

  Struggling under the weight of the patient, we arrived at the X-ray Department, followed by the two soldiers. We placed the man on the X-ray table and the technician prepared the patient for his investigations. The technician and I then went behind the protection screen while the X-ray was taken. When he finished, I went to prepare the patient for return to the emergency department. At this point, one of the soldiers blocked my way while the other roughly pulled the patient’s infusion line out and grabbed his head. Then, to my horror, he started to smash the patient’s head viciously on the steel table. I yelled at him to stop and somehow pushed past his companion, grabbing his arm in an effort to stop him. The other soldier started hitting me in my back with his gun, shouting and swearing at me.

  ‘Go away! Do you want to save his life? You should all be dead!’

  He let the wounded man’s head fall on the hard table. Blood was pouring from the patient’s head and dripping on to the floor. With a last, desperate, gasp for air the man died. I stood staring at him. The X-ray technician was also rooted to the spot, staring. I did not believe what I’d seen. Yet all my instincts warned me the soldiers would likely turn on both of us, next.

  Finding my courage—from where, I don’t know—I turned to leave the room to fetch sheets to cover this poor man. The soldier who had been hitting me shouted, ‘Where do you think you’re going?’

  As calmly as I could, I said, ‘To get sheets to cover him. That is our culture.’

  I went upstairs, the soldier following me, and found Dr Fayez in the emergency room. When he saw me, he knew immediately that something was seriously wrong.

  ‘Olfat, what’s the matter, you are so pale. What has happened?’ I burst into tears.

  ‘They killed him! They smashed his head on the X-ray table and they killed him!’

  I was shaking with fear, while Dr Fayez had gone pale; I could see his hands were shaking too. I remembered the patients and nurses and doctors who had been murdered at Akka Hospital just a few weeks earlier. Would this murder signal more such barbarous acts were to follow? Frozen inside and not really thinking, I took the sheets.

  Then the soldier, who had not left my side, said to Dr Fayez, ‘Shall I tell you how we killed him? Do you want me to tell you how I killed him?’ And he put his gun in my face. I was crying, terrified and horrified. Beyond thinking, now. Then he asked me, very roughly, ‘Are you sure he is dead?’

  ‘Yes, I am sure he is dead.’

  After that, at gunpoint, Dr Fayez and I were marched downstairs to certify the man was dead. Together with another nurse, we wrapped the dead man in the sheet and took him to the morgue, followed by the soldiers who did not let us out of their sight. When we returned to the emergency room, they were joking, looking at us and making fun of our accents, using very rude and crude language.

  Unable to help myself, I looked at them and said, ‘If you wanted to kill this man, why did you bring him to the hospital, for God’s sake?’

  But then it occurred to me: they must have shot him inside the camp, and if the Italian peacekeepers had found the body these men would have been in trouble. They could kill with impunity in the hospital—after all, there were only Palestinians in the hospital and they would not dare to report them to the local authorities and would not be believed if they did. Any moment, though, I thought they would kill us, too, just to ensure there were no witnesses.

  When I could, I unobtrusively asked one of the nurses to round up all the young male patients who could walk and take them to the fifth floor of the hospital—at that time, a storage area. I told her to get them to hide behind the stored beds and tables. After that, we had to tell the other staff what was happening. Like us, they were terrified that they, too, might be slaughtered. We could only pray for the patients we couldn’t move to safety.

  The two soldiers stayed in the hospital, taunting and threatening all the staff until 4 a.m. But before they left, one went to get something from their jeep, cutting his hand in the process. It was only a small cut, but he demanded that we put a dressing on it. We had no choice, being threatened at gunpoint. One of the other nurses and I went to the emergency room to get the necessary materials ready. When the soldier sat down, I noticed his army identity card in his back pocket. I desperately wanted to know his name so I could report him. While the other nurse was fitting his dressing, I stood behind him and gently eased his identity card from his pocket. After reading his details, I sli
pped the card on to the seat so that when he stood up he would think it had simply fallen out of his pocket.

  The next morning one of the hospital cleaners, Nawal, who lived in the camp, arrived for work. She noticed we were all tired but rather than tell her what happened I responded in kind, ‘You too look very tired, Nawal’. She told me she had not slept because the Lebanese militia had been chasing her brother through the camp and she did not know what had happened to him. It struck me then that the man who had been killed was probably her brother. I was able to call the hospital administrator who, without telling her about her brother’s death suggested she go home and rest. Soon after, her relatives broke the news to her. I found it difficult to work that day. I cried for Nawal and her brother and I was deeply depressed and fearful at our weakened and vulnerable situation.

  After I had given my verbal report on this murder to the Lebanese director of the hospital, he asked me to make a written report. This report was sent to the PRCS headquarters and I learned later it had been sent to the PLO leaders, who in turn sent it to the Lebanese government. Then without warning about 10 days later, as I did not know then what had happened to the report, two Lebanese army officers came to the hospital to interrogate me and the other nurse who had been on duty with me that night.

  They returned again the next day and ordered us to go with them to East Beirut, where the government prison was and where many Palestinians, even women, had been taken. Many of our people had disappeared when they had gone there so we were fearful that would happen to us, too. As they did not have a written warrant, we refused to go with them. Instead we went to the Italian peacekeepers in the camp and told them we had been summoned for interrogation by the Lebanese army over this matter. They took our names and our parents’ names and addresses, promising to check the hospital the following afternoon to make sure we had returned.