“The isolationists entered the district and began firing bullets through the windows and doors into the shelters that were crowded with women, children and old men, since the young men had joined the Tel Zaatar fighters. Then they moved us to the entranceway of another building, without knowing we were Palestinians. A little later, the isolationists brought people who recognized their friends who were among us, so they took them and left. The only people who remained were me, my neighbor and another neighbor woman who was called Wadad Qusur. At this point, my fear grew more intense, so she began reassuring me and telling me that she had friends who would come and take her, and that she would take us with her. But bombs fell on us and we got separated. We walked until we met a Palestinian family carrying Lebanese identity cards, and we went with them in a car. The driver asked us if we were Muslims or Christians, saying, ‘If you’re Muslims, then you’ll have to get out at the Christian neighborhood of Sin el Fil.’ But I persuaded him to take us to the edge of the Muslim neighborhood of Furn el Chebbak.”
Title card:
Haya Feriha, age 20.
“In our free time, we would prepare the arsenals for the fighters’ weapons, and I took part in an assault operation along with the martyred Samira Badran on the front lines in Hazmiye. We returned safely after destroying an armored car, although one of our men was hit. We let them know that we wanted to be with the heavy artillery (the anti-tank guns) on Tella al-Mir, and they agreed, but when I let them know that I wanted to be trained in how to use it, the fighters laughed since they were sure that women couldn’t do jobs like that – they could only talk about it. But I was determined to prove to them I could. I really trained, and began by firing fifteen rockets at the opposing position, and I grew more devoted to the revolution. They showed they were prepared to train a squadron of female fighters.
“When the camp fell, we resisted to the last, and finally I destroyed my weapon, according to instructions, and went with my family to Dekwane . . .”
Title card:
Amina Fariha, age 35.
“When the water supply was cut off from the camp, around fifteen women went to the well, and only six of us came back. A cup of water was worth a cup of blood . . .”
Title card:
Shaykha Ahmad Shahrour, age 32, mother of two.
‘‘We were keeping ourselves hidden from one house to the next, until we reached the well. There were Phalangist men there, occupying the heights nearby that overlooked the well. They were shouting at us, ‘Two at a time,’ and that’s when the shooting began. Sometimes we would stay out all night long but come back with no water, and the children would start crying and yelling, because they needed a drop of water instead of milk.
‘‘My little boy, one year old, was sick, so I took him to a doctor with the Red Crescent, but he said, ‘We don’t have any medicine.’ My son’s temperature went up to 40 degrees Celsius, and he became paralyzed in one leg. My husband was hit in the stomach and his legs. Before, I would tell him, ‘Leave this place, and secure our future for us,’ but he would tell me, ‘I won’t leave Tel Zaatar as long as it has a single stone left.’ He kept his promise and stayed there until the last moment, and to this day, I don’t know if he is alive or dead.’’
Title card:
Affar Muhammad, age 32, mother of seven children, three of whom are still alive.
“I went to the Red Crescent hospital on the main street of the camp, to see the wounded. Before I could get there, a bomb fell on the door of the shelter while my children were there, including my oldest daughter Amal, age eleven. She was martyred along with six children her age. After that, my health declined, and I was six months pregnant. The children were hungry and some died from thirst. Mothers nursed their children on the water from boiled lentils, and fever spread among the children. Some of them died of it, and others became dehydrated. By the time I went into labor, the bombing had grown intense, and my daughter was born on the stairs. I couldn’t sleep for a single moment.”
Title card:
Khazna Muhammad Salih, age 29.
‘‘. . . On the day the camp fell, I gave away the weapon I was carrying after they assured us that there were guarantees from the Red Cross and Arab Security Forces. I headed toward Dekwane along with several other women. At a roadblock near Studio Fawzi, a gunman tried to rip my clothes off, but I gave him all the money I owned. At the Hotel School, I saw a woman who was with the isolationists: she was wearing black and beating a boy around fifteen years old on the head and face with a pistol. Then she took him to a trash yard and while cursing the Palestinians, she killed him. I found my mother and brothers in the school. My mother tried to get a car to get us out of there, and my brothers were shaking with fear and terror. She paid a sum of money to the driver and we got in the car. I saw the isolationists tie a rope around the neck of a young man. They hanged him and then drove a car over his dead body. His flesh stuck to the ground. They did all that in front of his injured wife and his small children, who couldn’t utter a word.
‘‘The car took us a little way, and then stopped. That’s when I saw them bringing out a young man whose name was Muhammad Karum. After they got tired of beating him, they tied his legs to two cars, and his body was torn in half. As for my husband, who left through the mountains, we still haven’t heard anything about him.’’
Title card:
Feryal Shahrur, age 18.
“We ate nothing but lentils and dates. They would brew the tea with dates because there was so little sugar, but the tea ended up having no taste. The men would fight all day on only a little food and drink, and they would smoke rolled-up sage leaves and the leaves that birds eat . . .”
Title card:
Huriya Mustafa, age 20.
“On the day the heavy fighting started, my mother went out to fetch water, and suddenly she came upon a dead body on the ground. She went up to it, in the middle of all the bombs and rockets, and found that it was her son. Yes – it was my brother.
“On the day the camp fell, we came out by way of Dekwane. One of them came up to me and took one of my brothers. He hit him with the weapon in his hand until blood poured over his face. Then he emptied the bullets from his machinegun into his head. My brother turned toward us as if to say goodbye and fell to the ground a lifeless corpse. They took my third brother but my mother intervened to rescue him. She told them that two were enough, and to leave him to me because he was the youngest, but they paid no attention to her and shot him.
“They tried to take me with them but I refused. I didn’t budge an inch because I preferred to die. My mother intervened, pleading for help and crying. But they drove her off and opened fire on her, shooting her dead. I seized the opportunity: I picked up my youngest brothers and ran to escape.”
Title card:
Fatima al-Musa, age 45, mother of eight.
“I lost three of my sons, bearing in mind that my husband abandoned me, and didn’t help me with anything.”
Title card:
Fatima Badran, age 36, mother of nine sons.
“I went out while going to get water, and two days later my husband and sixteen-year-old son were martyred. My daughter Samira took care of me. She helped evacuate the wounded under heavy fire. She was hit in the neck and martyred instantly.
“When the camp fell to the enemy, I went out with my mother and father, and the rest of my children. They took my father and killed him. I turned to see him and saw him with blood gushing out of his body and his mouth as he shook on the ground. Just like the eight young men who were with us – they killed them all. I saw a boy with his mother: the gunmen took him and he was standing up against the wall, where the gunmen fired bullets into him from head to toe and he screamed, and his poor mother screamed, too, but they hit her with their rifle butts and they pushed us toward the Hotel School (Ecole Hotelière).
“We looked for a car that would take us to the Museum. The driver wanted 300 lira per passenger. We were shaking with fear: we didn�
�t have that much on us, so we waited for another car. That driver asked for 100 lira per passenger, so we got in and he took us as far as the Museum. They stood us up there against the wall and ordered us to cheer for Pierre Gemayel. They took four girls: they grabbed them by the arms and legs and threw them in the car, then they took my female cousin to a nearby room. She was pregnant and they forced her to take off her clothes and they tried to cut her stomach open . . .”
Title card:
Fawzi Shahrour, age 30.
“. . . I saw them rip open the stomach of a woman nine months pregnant, and in front of our eyes, the baby came out of her belly. The woman died instantly. Everyone was terrified, and no one could turn around to look . . .”
Title card:
Zaynab Umm Ali, age 40, mother of ten [continued].
‘‘. . . After he threatened me, he took my two daughters from me. He did that in order to rape them. I offered him all the money I had. I ran to his superior officer and kissed his feet, telling him, ‘Take anything but our honor’ – even after he had completely stripped my daughters before my eyes. I asked him, ‘Why are you doing this? You have no conscience if you’re going to machinegun the ten of us.’ One of them came and told him, ‘Let her go.’ Then they brought trucks. My children and I got in a truck. As we passed, they threw filthy water on us and slapped us with their shoes. We were driving over the corpses of young men and women. They gunned down eighteen young men at the Museum, sparing only women and children. They would ask women: how do you want your husband to die, by machinegun or a slit to the throat? A woman from al-Duqi was pulling her children along, but they stopped her and told her, ‘Bring your son here.’ She didn’t obey and started crying, so one of them beat her with the butt of his Kalashnikov and killed her son. They pulled out Abu Yasin and killed him right there in front of people. They ran the car over him and crushed him. They brought Suleiman, the military official for the Nationalist Front, and tied his legs to the truck and beat him.”
Title card:
A woman who was afraid to have her name used.
‘‘My husband and I and our family were sitting at home when we heard the sound of planes. So we and the neighbors who lived around us hurried to the shelter. A little later I saw my husband with three young men: they were saying, ‘Don’t be afraid, that’s not an Israeli plane circling overhead.’ So we weren’t afraid, because we knew it was a Syrian plane. We looked up at it and oh, the terror that was in store for us! It began bombing Tella al-Mir, and that’s when the slaughter began.’’
Title card:
Affaf Muhammad, age 32, mother of seven children, three still alive [continued].
‘‘. . . I carried my little daughter, who was no more than two weeks old, and my daughters Sonya and Abeer, who was only two. The rest of them held on to the hem of my dress. On the street, my children ended up without shoes. They walked over the rubble and glass, and blood ran from their feet until we reached the Hotel School. We stayed there from 4 am until 2 pm. My children were hungry and I’ll never forget the sound of Abeer’s voice as she says to me: ‘Mama, I want zaatar bread in a dish.’ ’’
Title card:
Fatima Mahmud, age 45.
“. . . They took the young men and lined them up in a single row with their faces to the wall, and began beating them on the back with wooden mallets until they fell down unconscious. They ordered some of them to kneel, and others to stand with their backs to the wall. They opened fire on the ones who were kneeling. Then they lit fires and heated iron bars in them until they were red-hot. Then they placed them in the shape of a cross on the stomachs of those who were standing. After that, they tied them up with ropes to cars and began dragging them around the streets. The women of that neighborhood were trilling the zaghareet at them and singing . . .”
Title card:
Jamila Qa’ur, age 32, mother of four girls.
‘‘. . . We got to the modern school and they started searching us. There was a Syrian officer with them. They found 75 lira on me and took it. Then the truck came. My children got in, followed by my mother and father, and finally me. I asked them about my daughters and they said that two of them got lost in the crowds of women and children. I began looking madly for them in the truck as I screamed in terror. After a few moments, I found them under people’s feet. The first had died and her body was blue, and the second was nearly dead. I started giving her first aid so I could save her life.
‘‘They made us get out of the truck on the highway. I wanted to get my daughter’s body out of the truck, but the gunmen refused and threatened to kill me. They wrapped her in the Lebanese cedar-tree flag and said, ‘Come on, take your daughter, give her to Yasser Arafat.’ Then they started shooting at us, even though we were standing next to the Syrians and Libyans in the Arab Security Forces, who didn’t lift a finger. In fact, we asked these troops for a little water for the children, but they refused, saying: ‘Now you’re making problems for us. Go get a drink somewhere else.’ So we kept clear of them until cars belonging to the resistance arrived. We got in, screaming, crying, and calling out, ‘Those poor Tel Zaatar boys!’ ’’
Title card:
Fawzia Mustafa Husayn, age 16.
‘‘A child was screaming and crying from hunger, so they asked his mother to quiet him down, but he didn’t quiet down. The Phalangist told her, ‘I’ll make him be quiet. Give him to me.’ He took him from her and threw him far away. He fell to the ground dead. Then he told her: ‘Now he’s quiet.’ ’’
Title card:
Affaf Muhammad, age 32, mother of seven children, three still alive [continued].
“. . . They brought tall, big trucks to transport families, so the women hurried with their children. Because there were so many people running to the cars, the bigger ones were stampeding over the smaller ones. When I had finished lifting my children onto the truck, I tried to get on, too, but the driver started off. I waved at him to stop and let me on, but he refused, and told me to get on another one. In fact, that’s what I did. I got to the Museum ahead of the truck that had my children. I waited there until the truck came, and they all got off, except for my children. In the end, my twelve-year-old brother got out and my five-year-old son Feisal, and my four-year-old daughter Norma. I asked about the rest of them and my brother said the people on it were stepping on them, which led to the martyrdom of three-year-old Suham and two-year-old Abeer. As for Sonya, who was nine, she got lost, and to this day, I still don’t know where she is, alive or dead. My husband was lost the same way.”
Title card:
Maryam Yaqub, age 45.
‘‘. . . The day we left the camp, my two children were with me. I told them, ‘Walk in front of us.’ I saw a girl who had been killed, and then I saw my son, killed, along with several young men. I cried and my husband, who is an old man, told me, ‘You’re crying now for our son, and soon enough you’ll be crying for me.’
‘‘At the Hotel School, they searched us, looking for cash and gold. Then the trucks came to take us and the isolationists got into the back of the truck to see if there were any men among the women and children. They took my husband out of the truck, took the money he had on him, and killed him. At another checkpoint, they took the children out of the truck, including my son Muhammad. When I saw the isolationist boarding the truck from the other side, I hid my son underneath me. I sat on him until the truck started moving . . .’’
Title card:
Randa Ibrahim al-Duqi, age 14.
“. . . The cats in Tel Zaatar were very fat because they would eat dead bodies. They were dangerous because they would attack people, once they had gotten used to eating them. Our fighters used to shoot at them . . .”
Title card:
Umm Nabil, age 45, mother of ten sons.
‘‘. . . I was making dough for bread for the fighters, along with a number of other women from the camp, when I found out that my son Kayid had been martyred. He was twenty-two. So I finished my dough and
went to the place where they put his body. I kissed him and left him there, and went back. I didn’t tell his brothers so as not to break their spirits.
‘‘A week later, I learned that my son Faris, who was twenty-five, had been martyred, and I was able to endure it. No mother’s heart has endured more than that, but I willed myself to be strong because I was a source of strength for mothers whose children were martyrs. My son Nabil left the camp through Mount Lebanon, and to this day I don’t know what’s become of him. They assaulted the camp while I was there with my fourteen-year-old son Khalid. They lined up the men, took the girls, and performed intrusive, embarrassing searches on the women. My turn came and they asked me where I got a son like that from, since he had blond hair and green eyes, while I have dark skin. They said, ‘It’s a disgrace for a boy like that to be with the Palestinians.’ I answered back at them in a voice filled with defiance: ‘This boy is Palestinian – he’s my son, a son of Palestine.’ As soon as I finished speaking, they shot him. I showed no emotion, but stood fixed in place. They ordered me to walk over him, but I refused. I told them, ‘I know this is the end, and this is my fate, but we will never kneel, as long as we still have a single nursing baby.’ ’’
Title card:
Maryam Yaqub, age 45 [continued].
“. . . We stopped at another roadblock and they took us out of the truck to search us. I had a little sugar and salt in a teapot, and a lot of photos of my children and the deeds to our land in Palestine inside a box . . .”
Title card:
Tharya Qasim, age 48, mother of five.
Beirut, Beirut Page 17
