IN THE SHADOWS OF WAR - THE RETURN FROM SYRIA

THE RETURN FROM SYRIA 

 PALESTINIAN WOMEN TELL THEIR STORIES

Tyre seen from Rashidieh seaside

This is my second blog article in a mini series I have called “In the shadows of war”, mainly about Palestinians in Lebanon. Today I will share some stories from meetings with Palestinian women during my visits to Rashidieh and El Buss refugee camps, including the stories about Salma and “Sarah” and their return from Syria to Lebanon, just after the outbreak of the Syrian civil war. (For the records; I find the expression “civil war” rather imprecise or misleading due to the deep involvement in the war from numerous countries in the Middle East as well as the US, Russia, EU countries and China.). 

More than anywhere else outside the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinians in Lebanon have been facing war and armed conflicts repeatedly since the first Israel – Arab war in 1947 -49.  From 2011, when the so-called “Arab-spring” had spread to Syria, starting an uprising that soon escalated to the worst armed conflict in the Middle East since the Iraq – Iranian war in the eighties. And once again thousands of Palestinian families, who had been refugees for four generations, were forced to leave their homes and flee for their lives, some for the second or third time, as soldiers, arms and bombs were reaching their neighbourhoods. 

IN THE SHADOWS OF WAR

IN THE SHADOWS OF WAR

Beirut, Lebanon and the Palestinians

The modern, Beirut Down Town and the marina with million dollar luxury yachts.

From the back seat of the taxi on the way from Rafic Hariri airport a little south of Beirut, I see the evening sun pushing its last rays through the clouds as it sinks into the Mediterranean. Thoughts and emotions mingle with unclear expectations of meeting with a city and a country, which at the first time I came here, more than 36 years ago, lay in ruins while the civil war were still raging. At that time I came to Beirut crossing the sea from Limassol in Cyprus with the cargo boat "Lucky Hope", which by no means lived up to its name, but struggled with engine trouble during much of the crossing and left us drifting in the wind for a couple of days before the ship-engineer finally brought the engine back to life. 

Arriving in Beirut, we were met by a  city and a country at war. The ports were besieged and controlled by the Falangists (strongly right-wing, Christian Maronites). The Falangists and other militia groups had divided the city between them and there were checkpoints, and barricades everywhere and the beautiful Beirut harbour promenade street were virtually abandoned and surrounded by bombed-out buildings. 

I came to the city at the beginning of November, a month and a half after the massacres in the refugee camps Sabra and Shatila where more than 2,000 (the numbers still vary depending on sources) people were massacred by the Falangists, with Israeli support. I visited the camps where traces of fighting were still visible. A week later, after driving trough the Bekaa valley at night, with Israeli and Druze grenades passing over our heads, I met survivors from the massacres, who had fled to Syria and the Yarmouk camp outside Damascus. The stories about the carnage and meeting with people who had lost their whole family were heartbreaking.

Refugee camp in Damascus for Palestinians who had fled from Sabra and Shatila i 1982