Back to PLO Bulletin 1-15 September 1979

"EVERYWHERE I GO, I FIND WAR"

Na'imeh Bazzi, 10, was displaced with her family twice. The first time from Bint Jbail to Tyre and the second time from Tyre to Sidon. We had met with her in al-Islah school in Sidon. She is "living" there with her family, but she is not able to pursue her studies:

"In Bint Jbail I was studying in the third elementary class in the state school there. We were happy there. I had my friends whom I used to play and study with. Then the Phalangists massacred the people in the village. Haddad entered Bint Jbail. He receives arms from Israel. Israel takes arms from America. They both fight us. We ran away to Tyre and I entered a school there. But the shelling kept getting nearer and nearer, so we have stopped going to school since April."

- "Are you happy here"?

Salma Asha'ar with one of her children

- "No. Everywhere I go I find war. And here I cannot see my friends. Yes, I play. But I was happier in Tyre although I was not able to celebrate the feast because of the shelling. How I would love to go back to Tyre, but not before the shelling stops."

She put her small hand on mine and said: "Please, if you see anyone from America tell him not to give Israel arms so that we may go back to our homes."

"SHELLS AND BOMBSWERE EXPLODING EVERYWHERE"

Salma Asha'ar a 50-years old Lebanese woman from Tyre told about the terror she and her family had experienced during the Israeli shelling of Tyre August 24-27:

"I have fourteen children and grandchildren. The youngest of my sons is seven years old. On Sunday (August 26) we left Tyre because shells and bombs were exploding everywhere. My husband used to be a porter. But since the continuous shelling of Tyre began, no one has been able to work. On the feast day (the Islamic Al-Fitr feast), they pounded us with hundreds of shells. We were not able to visit the cemetery because Israel was even shelling the dead. Imagine: 550 shells on Tyre in one day. It's unfair. There was shelling on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Don't our children have the right to celebrate the feast?

"On Sunday, we left Tyre. I tried to go back to bring some clothes, but this was impossible. I saw the house of our neighbour, Mustapha Baydoun, collapsing. We dug him out from under the rubble. Mahmoud Al-Bitar was killed when an Israeli missile hit his house. His corpse remained under the rubble until one of our neighbours, by accident, discovered his leg extending from under the stones of his house. There are still many, people under the rubble of destroyed houses. You see, they were shelling us from air, sea and by airplanes, gunboats and cannons...

"We demand that the Arab countries fight, to stop Israel from shelling us. America? No, I wouldn't ask anything from it. It is the one backing Israel... The whole world has sold the South to Israel."