Um Nabail Story
 

Its long story but please read it all

The following testimony of a Sabra and Shatila massacre’s
survivor was included in a 15-part series on the 1982 massacre in the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. The series aired on Zen Television and Lebanon’s Future Television.The following account appeared in episodes 8 and 15. Written and translated by Samia Tabari. Interview conducted by Saliha Benzeghiba.

SURVIVOR: Um Nabil Hashem

Her name is Um Nabil Hashem. She is a soft-spoken woman in her fifties. At the time of the massacre, Um Nabil lived in Hayy ‘Irsal, Shatila camp. She now lives close to Sabra, in a gathering for displaced persons. We met her in December 2001 at one of the NGO centers in Shatila camp. Um Nabil narrated her story while maintaining brief eye contact with us as if to avoid becoming very emotional. She lost her husband in the massacre and has remained a widow ever since. The following is her story, as she told it to us.

On Thursday September 16, 1982, heavy shelling began. The bombing drew closer to Um Nabil’s area. A shell hit the roof of her house; another fell on the balcony. She became scared and didn’t know where to go. She had three children. One was 2 years old, the second was one year old, and the baby was only a month and half old.

“…I told Abu Nabil [her husband] to please do something. We’re going to die, do something. He said that the car is blocked by the destruction of the neighbor’s house and that we can’t get it out. I started crying…I hugged my children and sat in the corner.”

Abu Nabil miraculously managed to get the car out. They escaped from the camp to her aunt’s house in Tariq el-Jdideh.

“…I hadn't taken any diapers, milk bottles, or milk... [I took] nothing... for we didn’t know how we managed to escape…”

They arrived at her aunt’s place and then Abu Nabil decided to go back home and get stuff for the children. She begged him not to go. But all the stores were closed and he insisted that it was the only way to get what the children needed. He reassured her that he would quickly return. He left. She waited and waited. She stood at the door and waited. When he didn’t show up, she feared that he might have been injured on the way. At the time, nobody knew there was a massacre.

She added, “I didn’t know [of the massacre], I waited thinking that he had taken shelter somewhere or maybe he had been injured.”

On Sunday, September 19, sensing that things had calmed down, Um Nabil left her children at her aunt’s place and went out looking for her husband:

“I went out running and wandered the streets like an idiot for I didn’t know anything [of what has been happening]. I saw [dead] people tied up with electrical wires and hit in the face with an ax or something, and there were people removing the booby-traps from under the dead people's heads…”

She saw all this on Sabra road, from Al-Doukhi area onwards. She also saw that many houses had been bulldozed and that there was leftover food on the ground- food that the killers had been consuming.

Um Nabil arrived to what was left of her home. Only one side of the house was still standing. The walls had been bulldozed away and the roof had come down. She recognized her house from the remains of the curtains. She couldn’t find her husband. They used to have a horse on which they lugged and sold gasoline. The horse was killed and there was no trace of the car. She looked through the debris of her house, but still there was no trace of her husband. She went to Akka hospital to look for him. She encountered a couple of old people there who told her that there was no else at the hospital. She noticed smoke coming out of the mattresses.* She finally headed back to her aunt’s place. On her way back, she noticed considerable armed forces by the Kuwaiti embassy. She couldn’t tell who they were. She picked up some diapers, milk bottles, and milk and continued her way to Tariq el-Jdideh.

The following day, Monday September 20, Um Nabil returned to the remains of her house.

She was desperate: “When I arrived home, I started crying and crying.” A woman approached her and asked, “Why are you crying, it’s been two days that we see you come here and cry.” Um Nabil explained that she couldn’t find her husband. The woman told her that there was a man lying beneath the debris behind the staircase.

Um Nabil: “I went and saw him planted in the debris, his head and legs were not visible, his clothes were completely torn, only a piece of his pants was still on his calve. He had been wearing a striped white and blue swimsuit; that’s what caught my attention [reconfirmation that it’s him]. I couldn’t pick him up as I had seen [earlier] that the bodies had been booby-trapped. He [husband] had once told me that whoever survives the other should take care of the children. I couldn’t touch him and I kept on crying…”

She went to seek the help of the ICRC. They told her that they would need a bulldozer and so could not act immediately. By Wednesday, Um Nabil could no longer wait. She went back to them and begged: “for God’s sake, the stress is turning into a poison and I am breast-feeding my child. The Israelis had taken all my brothers in Ein El-Helweh [camp in south Lebanon] and bulldozed our house there. I have no one to help me, no one to look after us…” They finally went with her. As they were digging out her husband from the debris, she saw his hand fall off. The next day, they took her husband to the mass grave.

“Some people told me that they had seen his head hanging on a pole, but I don’t think so, for when I returned the following day they took him and buried him in the mass grave. And when I went back [to the house] I saw a piece of his head, where he had been, being eaten by worms**…”