Muhammed abu Sayd lights a cigarette and takes a long drag off of it. His lightly wrinkled face and bald head give testament to long years lived – he came to Lebanon from Palestine at the age of 4 months, but still his heart yearns to return. Everyone I meet in Bourj al-Barajneh shares this wish.
We sit in the courtyard/dining room/living room of his home on plastic patio chairs around a plastic patio table. We are served strong Arabic coffee and breakfast and have a polite political conversation, asking questions about Palestinian civil rights and the infrastructure conditions at the camp.
After an hour abu Sayd lowers his voice and asks us what we think. My co-explorer, Noha, is speechless so I make an attempt to fill the void.
“I think I am ignorant – I have heard a lot, I have been taught a lot, but seeing these conditions with my own eyes has changed my perspective,” I say.
“In America, on Fox News and CNN they think the land is not ours and that we are all terrorists,” saays abu Sayd.
“Not everyone believes what they’re told,” I say.
Abu Sayd puts out his cigarette and looks at me with a smile, eyes narrowing. The heat of the day is descending upon us like a wet blanket – I see beads of sweat collecting in the wrinkles of his face.
“In 1982, when the Israelis came, I fought them,” says abu Sayd.
He then lays a whole story of horror out on the table before us, a banquet of the ugly truth right where we had just shared breakfast and coffee. He took up arms to resist the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, a campaign that was largely directed at Palestinian militants and civilians living in the camps in Lebanon.
Abu Sayd was wounded in action and taken prisoner by the Israelis. He was taken to a hospital for treatment but his wounds were not closed. He points to scars on his arm, on his face, and a dent in his balding head.
“Here is where they shot me,” says Abu Sayd.
As a wounded prisoner, before being taken to the hospital, he was kicked and beaten by the soldiers. He describes arguments between the soldiers, debating whether they were doing the right thing. One of the soldiers trying to defend him from the savagery gave him a cigarette after his beatings.
In the hospital bed he was drugged and questioned repeatedly about militant activity in Lebanon and the Palestinian resistance against Israell. His wounds were left open and Israel intelligence men prodded them, twisting muscle and sinew with scissors and other instruments in an attempt to produce the right amount of pain to make him talk. He points again to the large scar running up around his bicep into his arm pit. They tried psychological measures, too, threatening to abduct his wife, his sister and his children and rape them in front of him.
After three days of interrogation, the Israelis took all of his statements and destroyed them, accusing him of lying. Blind in one eye, writing in pain, he said he would tell the Israelis anything they want.
Abu Sayd had no information to give the Israelis.
They then gave him an injection, meant to be lethal, and threw him outside to the dogs.
“I got lucky,” says abu Sayd. “They traded me for dead bodies, it was arranged by the Red Cross.”
I ask him if he hates Israel, if he hates Jews.
“I don’t hate Jews, I hate the Israelis,” says abu Sayd. “We lived in harmony and peace with Arab Jews for many years. They were our friends and our neighbors, but these Europeans and Russians came and stole our land from us and killed our people. With Jewish Palestinians, we are like cousins.”
“Anyone is obliged to carry a rifle and go get his land back. No matter what age.”
That seems to be the prevailing opinion among the residents of the camp. It is a kind of purgatory where these people wait amidst their suffering, frozen in time for 62 years pining for their land and their rights to be restored, enduring tragedy after tragedy.
Deeper into the camps, we meet Amina Hassan Banat, a careworn woman in a small but beautiful home. She has a heart condition so we do not stay long, she shows us her medications, Plavix, Lopressor – costing her over $100 a month after assistance. She receives some assistance from the Martyrs Association and other Palestinian organizations.
After prayer she invites us in to sit on comfortable couches. In her hands is a picture of 4 young men, her sons. Her living room is covered with pictures of her sons.
One morning in 1982 her family finished eating breakfast when there was a knock on the door. After being forced to leave Palestine they settled in the Sabra and Chatila refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon. It is there, on the morning of Sept. 17, that the soldiers came for them.
Mrs. Banat tells her story through a torrent of tears and sobs. The soldiers, who spoke Arabic with a Lebanese accent, entered the house and asked what their nationality and religion were. Upon being told they were Palestinian Muslims, the soldiers collected the 4 boys and their father outside onto a truck. It was the last time Mrs. Banat saw her children.
Over the years stories came from freed prisoners about her children, but none confirmed their survival. She still lives in hope that they are alive somewhere. Mrs. Banat keeps a picture of them in every room in her house, so she is always by their side.
Noha and I try to ask her about electricity, about Palestinian rights.
“My mind is not with politics at all – it is with my chidren!” exclaims Mrs. Banat.
It has been 28 years since she has seen her children.
The eldest one, Aziz bin Faisal Dirawi was 31 years old
Ibrahim bin Faisal Dirawi was 25.
Mansour bin Faisal Dirawi was 22.
Ahmed bin Faisal Dirawi was 13 when he disappeared.
They shot her husband in the head.
We leave Mrs. Banat to her tears, and her pictures on every wall of every room of her house. We walk out past murals of al-Awqsa mosque and anti-Israeli graffiti. Faded pictures of Former PLO Chairman Arafat smile at us from almost every building. Here in Bourj al Barajneh, the smiles are fading…
…and after 62 years, time is running out for those who remember when there actually was a Palestine.
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