The next morning we went for interrogation with one of the Lebanese army soldiers guarding the hospital. I told these soldiers as well as the officers in the prison that I had informed the Italian peacekeepers where we were. At the security headquarters we were interviewed separately, but as I had written the report, my colleague was only briefly interrogated and then released. I was taken to a room and kept waiting for about four hours without food and drink.
Later that day three senior Lebanese army officers interrogated me. They began by shouting, ‘You are a Palestinian woman! Where did you get the courage to write this report against the Lebanese army? You Palestinians are nothing in Lebanon now. Do you think anyone will listen?’
Despite my terror, I tried to stay outwardly calm.
‘I am a nurse and I have to report to the director of the hospital about what happens during my shift. This murder happened on my shift and of course I reported it.’
I suggested they ask the Lebanese hospital administrator why he had sent the report to the PLO and to ask the PLO why it had sent the report to them. At that point one of the officers started to swear at me and demanded, ‘Why did you refuse to come here yesterday?’
‘I have learned from my father to be sure of my situation, especially with government officials and people in the army, and to be strong. I wanted to be sure the Italians knew where we were.’ I went on to tell him that, as a Palestinian in Lebanon, I was protected by the UN and, at this time, by the Italians in the camp.
One of the officers started to threaten me, saying he wanted to take revenge against all Palestinians and that he would kill us all. It was by now a familiar threat, but I still felt my knees go weak and my throat tighten in fear. I clasped my hands together tightly to stop them shaking. Another officer said menacingly, ‘Poor Palestinian, you have no power, you are still young, you should not be involved in any politics’.
I replied that I was not involved in any politics and I was only doing what I had been asked to do by the hospital’s Lebanese administrator. I was then given a strong but threatening lecture. ‘Take care, because now you are under our thumb. If we find out you are involved in politics, we will hang you where they buried all the people who were massacred in Sabra and Shatila.’ Then they let me go.
Outside, I trembled uncontrollably, quickly finding a place to sit, fearing I might fall. I remembered my Uncle Muhamad who had been taken by the Lebanese security in 1962, tortured and murdered. At the time he had been in charge of field services for UNRWA, but that did not protect him. He, like so many, had died struggling for justice for my people.
The period between mid-September and December 1982 was truly terrible for all the refugees in the camps. We were never safe, and young men were especially vulnerable. The Lebanese army, often accompanied by the Lebanese Christian Forces, entered the camps many times, taking any boys aged over 13. They would arrest them for no reason, order them to take off their shirts and then beat them where they stood. Many were taken away in trucks, never to be seen again.
Not long after the murder of Nawal’s brother was the feast of Eid al-Adha. This was the first Muslim feast day after Israel had invaded Lebanon. As was our custom, my parents and many elderly people left Burj Barajneh early in the morning to go to the nearby cemetery to remember the dead. Young people, who generally do not go on such visits, stayed behind. On the way back, these elderly camp residents were confronted by the Lebanese army and forbidden to re-enter the camp. The army began to search the camp, taking all the young men they could find.
As with everything done to us, most of these searches were carried out in a vicious manner. In a previous search a neighbour’s house had been ransacked and all her mattresses slashed. On this day, however, a young soldier went to the house of my Aunt Amina, my mother’s young sister. When my aunt saw that he was wearing a cross, she became very frightened, although she did not have teenage boys; and her children were only young. She opened the cupboard and started to take out all the sheets, having seen what had been done in our neighbour’s house.
‘No, no, don’t take anything out,’ the soldier remonstrated. ‘I am sorry to come into your house, but this is an order and I am in the army. Your baby is asleep, so let him sleep. Just let me stay for five minutes or so, otherwise if the officer sees me enter your house and come out quickly, I will be in trouble. So, let us sit here together.’
My aunt was amazed; she had been prepared for the worst. We knew that not all Lebanese soldiers and not all Christians hated the Palestinians. This young man showed respect for us as human beings. Before leaving, he apologised to my aunt and soon after, left the house.
That day, I was working at Gaza Hospital when I heard that the Lebanese army was in Burj camp. I was deeply concerned for my brothers Ihab, who we also call Abu Khalil, and Amer, who was just 15. I knew my parents were at the cemetery and my brothers were at home. Although more than 600 young people were taken that day, my brothers were lucky; the army missed them. Many women, mostly those who were in the women’s union and active in the community, were among those taken. During this period, thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese were arrested and held in shocking conditions in detention. Most were not charged, but beatings and torture were common. Included in this campaign of summary actions was my 25-year-old brother, Abu Khalil, who in early April 1983, was taken and held for six months during which he was tortured. On a daily basis, whenever I came home, I did not know if my father and my brothers would be there or if they had been taken prisoner. It was a very insecure time.
The Multinational Force peacekeepers around our camp tried to stop the beatings and arrests. But I remember one incident when a young boy, not more than 12 or so, was arrested, just outside the hospital and in front of a number of us who were walking to work. A Lebanese army officer forcibly removed the boy’s shirt and started beating him with a belt. The Italians, who were on patrol nearby, were furious and intervened. While they stopped this particular beating, they were unable to stop all the arrests and killings. The 20,000 or so Palestinians, mostly those ethnically cleansed from East Beirut and squatting, unprotected, in buildings around the city, were particularly vulnerable during these months. And moving from Beirut to Damascus or to the south was dangerous, too, with the Christian Lebanese Forces militia sharing checkpoints with the Israelis. We did not have any camp leaders: anyone could come at will into the camp. There was no PLO, and no fighters. We were as totally unprotected as we had been before 1969.
It was in the middle of this crisis that I met another Australian, Helen McCue. She came to Gaza Hospital about 10 days after the Sabra massacre. I was busy in the emergency ward attending to the daily toll. A little boy had picked up a cluster bomb made in the shape of a toy and had taken it to his house in Shatila camp where he had dropped it, killing himself and seriously injuring his mother who was pregnant, and his two sisters. The unborn baby had died and both the mother and one of the boy’s sisters lost a leg as well. I was busy dealing with the boy’s family when a nurse came to tell me there was a foreigner waiting for me outside. Helen introduced herself and told me she was a volunteer nurse teacher who had come at the suggestion of Dr Said Dyjani, head of the PRCS School of Nursing in Damascus, to help rebuild the nursing team in the wake of the massacre. He had also suggested she contact me as he knew my English was good, and that she also contact Umm Walid, the head of the PRCS in Lebanon at that time.
When we met Umm Walid, she agreed the PRCS school should be reopened as soon as possible and also agreed with Dr Dyjani that we needed to train nurses. A number of PRCS staff, among them nurses, had been wounded and killed during the Israeli invasion so there was an urgent need for replacements. She suggested that with the school of nursing at Akka Hospital still in ruins, we start with a nurse in-service training program at Gaza Hospital. She also suggested I work with Helen and help her with the translation for this program. Over the next six months, working together
day and night, Helen and I became close friends. During the morning we were involved in the nurse in-service training, and in the afternoons and evenings we worked on the hospital wards. At that time there were still many people in the hospital recovering from shocking wounds suffered in the Sabra and Shatila massacre. There were also many false alerts that Christian Lebanese Forces were entering the camps slaughtering people again. These rumours would send people fleeing to the hospital for safety, terrified of another massacre.
On one occasion, I had to go to the south of Lebanon to visit relatives in Rashidyyeh camp, and I took Helen along. The trip was quite stressful, as there were many Israeli checkpoints, but fortunately, we had no trouble. On our return trip, we stopped in Sidon and went together to what remained of the Ain al Helwah refugee camp, which had previously housed more than 30,000 people. It had been literally flattened during the war and was now just a huge dusty field. Where had all the camp residents gone? We found a few women and children huddling together in an open shelter that had only three walls and a battered tin roof full of bullet holes. As they told us their story of loss and disaster, we both stood there, numb and speechless. I muttered what words of comfort I could find. Then Helen and I walked away, tears pouring down our cheeks. But my grief soon turned to anger, and outside the hearing of these poor women, I exploded in a rage at this devastation before us.
In December, I began to prepare my papers to take up a scholarship in England funded by UNIPAL, a British charity that organised educational exchanges. This was a long and complicated process since, as a Palestinian refugee, I had no citizenship or nationality, so therefore, no passport. We did have a UN refugee identity document, but that was only valid for travel inside Lebanon, and even that was restricted. So, getting my visa took many months and much support from Mrs Moore, my teacher at the PRCS School of Nursing.
Meanwhile, Helen and I continued working together until March 1983, when the Lebanese government started to deport all foreigners working with the Palestinians. Not wanting to be deported, Helen decided to return to Australia, but promised it would not be the last time we saw each other. I remember her words very clearly: ‘I am working alone now but I want to go back to Australia and get more people involved, and then Olfat, dear, we can support your people more effectively.’
That same month, I left for my eight-month training program in London.
11
A TASTE OF FREEDOM
L anding at Heathrow Airport was like arriving on another planet. As I emerged from customs, a sea of humanity greeted me. The differences were instantly obvious—everyone spoke English for a start. But it was more than that—shops were overflowing with goods, the place was clean, the walls had no bullet holes and there were no soldiers. But there was also no Mrs Moore.
In retrospect, it was not surprising. My original flight was overbooked so I had been bumped to a flight the following day. Because of my inexperience in such matters, I had somehow assumed Mrs Moore would realise what had happened and still be there. A few phone calls later and I realised not only was Mrs Moore not coming, she had left London for a few days—expecting me on the same flight the following week. I was on my own. It was late, and I began to grow anxious about what to do next. However, in true Arabic style a young Lebanese student I had met on the plane offered me a place for the night at her sister’s house.
As we drove from the airport in their car, a wave of new images kept me alert and fascinated. The road was smooth, not filled with the huge potholes and bomb craters I was used to swerving around. The traffic lights worked, and all the drivers obeyed them. The buildings were tall, ordered and intact, and there was an extraordinary sense of social order. But most striking of all was the fact that there were no checkpoints, no menacing soldiers, no militia. For the first time in my adult life I experienced a sense of safety and order.
The next day, I remembered I had been given the phone number of a friend of a British nurse I had worked with in Lebanon. I called, and to my delight, my friend answered the phone—it turned out all the foreign staff had been evicted from Lebanon, which was why my plane was overbooked.
‘So, you are the reason I have this problem now!’ I said, laughing.
Luckily, I was able to stay with her and her friends until my course at Cambridge started; and was delighted to find she lived in a building with a group of students from Palestine. These were the first Palestinians I’d ever met who had actually been living in my homeland. In Lebanon, we were isolated from our people in Palestine—we knew, of course, about the political events taking place there, but had no idea what life was actually like. Nor did they know what life was like in the camps in Lebanon. It was exhilarating to meet my own people who were living in that almost mythical land we, in the camps, had only ever dreamed of. We talked and talked. They told me about life in Palestine and how hard it was, that the occupying Israeli army controlled every aspect of their lives. Even for them as students in London, it was risky to speak too freely. I later learned that when they graduated and returned to occupied Palestine, many were detained and interrogated, and some were imprisoned.
That first week also brought another revelation when the parents of one of the students visited, bringing olives and labneh from my homeland. I could smell my land in these good people and the food they carried. This was the first time I had eaten food from the soil of Palestine, and even now I can taste it and remember well the sense of longing it evoked in me.
My changed circumstances really became apparent on my second night when we went to the movies. As everyone was preparing to leave, I began searching for my refugee identity papers, and was astonished when they told me I wouldn’t need them. It had become second nature to me to carry my identity card to get through military checkpoints. In London, I understood for the first time what freedom meant; I was being treated as a human being, able to go anywhere I wanted, unheeded. It was such an exhilarating feeling—yet all I was really experiencing was a normal life. After this wonderful introduction to London, I spent a month in Cambridge getting used to the language and doing some voluntary work in a hospital for two hours a day. From Cambridge, I went to a nursing school in Epping, north-east of London, and then on to observe clinical teaching in the local hospital.
My first few months in England were filled with new experiences. I was constantly comparing things in London with things in Lebanon. In London, with all the freedom and all the civil rights people took for granted, I began to understand our predicament more fully and feel more acutely my own, and my people’s, lack of rights. My stay in England was a glorious experience, but my work in English hospitals really highlighted the deprivation we suffered. To come from Gaza Hospital in the camp where everything was old and damaged by the war, to hospitals with excellent facilities was a real shock. One of the things that particularly struck me in the hospital was a special type of chair they used to carry patients to the bathroom and to lift them into and out of the bath or shower recess. After the war, there were many severely disabled people in Gaza Hospital and we had to struggle to carry and lift patients by hand—a very painful experience for the patients and a great strain on the nurses. Working in these English hospitals, with all their wonderful facilities, was for me like stepping into a futuristic world. Yet in reality, the equipment was just standard fare—it was just in Lebanon we were used to working with no resources.
There were so many positive things to learn. I liked the idea of having social workers in hospital to deal with patients’ social and psychological problems. But some of these ‘problems’ were difficult for me to relate to. I remember one patient who was deeply concerned about her four cats being left alone at home. The social worker was brought in and arranged for someone to go to this woman’s house, pick up the cats and take them to a cattery. We love animals, too, but this simple act on the social worker’s part astounded me. I remember thinking, ‘Oh my God, people care so much about cats and dogs while w
e live in miserable camps where people can slaughter and kill us, where no one values human life. In England the cats and dogs are cared for more than Palestinian refugees in camps in Lebanon.’
To come from my camp home—where nine children had lived in a single tiny room, where we had a minute kitchen, leaking waste water and, of course, no garden—to the nurses’ home in Epping where I was now staying, with its many rooms and toilets and nice garden, initially overwhelmed me. I raged, inwardly, especially lying in bed at night, asking myself why we had to live as we did in Lebanon, exiled from our ancestral home. My parents had come from a financially secure background; they’d been affluent and had owned land and houses. Now we lived in dreadful poverty, in a miserable camp, in daily fear of our lives; a situation not of our making. Indeed, while I was in England, it often crossed my mind that the British were responsible for our situation in the first place. But what kept me going through my first week or so at the nursing school was the clear objective I had: I was in the UK to learn as much as possible and to take that knowledge back to my people.
Although the teachers were a great help and I coped reasonably well with my work, I found the loneliness of my off-duty hours particularly difficult to bear. There were five rooms in my corridor in the nurses’ home and a shared bathroom, toilet and kitchen. Occasionally, I would see other students, who would smile, but do nothing more; there were no offers to share a cup of tea or a chat. After finishing tuition in the afternoon, I’d be in my room until eight o’clock the next morning, alone with my books and the silence. Coming from a culture where everyone talks to one other, where we are hospitable and share everything, I thought I was going to die from all that loneliness and silence.
Tears for Tarshiha Page 11