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Battle in Amman. The bloodletting began two weeks ago when Hussein gave his troops permission to tackle the guerrillas once and for all. The King was in a predicament that had been aggravated for years by the same Arab leaders who last week were castigating him for brutality. It was to Jordan that the bulk of the Palestinians fled after Israel was created in 1948, and it was in Jordan's sprawling refugee camps that the guerrilla movement flourished—and began undermining the government. Other Arabs, to keep on the good side of the fedayeen, supported them and ignored Hussein's problem. Nevertheless, having decided on a showdown, Hussein was badly advised by army leaders under Field Marshal Habes Majali. They assured the King that the fighting would be wrapped up in 24 hours at the most. How wrong they were quickly became evident in Amman (once named Philadelphia, or City of Brotherly Love, by conquering Greeks).
With advance warning that the army was about to move against them, the guerrillas fortified their strongholds round the refugee camps. Countless snipers took up positions on rooftops and at windows throughout the city. Once Hussein's armored units had battled their way into the capital, the fighting turned into a street-by-street encounter. Caught in the middle of the battle, Amman's 600,000 residents endured a week of agony. Most took refuge in their cellars, but many were buried alive when artillery began to pound the city. Quickly, electricity failed and the water supply was cut off. Though city dwellers were running out of food, Majali threatened that anyone found out of doors would be shot on sight. The few who ventured out found the streets cluttered with wrecked vehicles and littered with land mines.
Grimly the army's Bedouin soldiers stalked the streets, seeking guerrillas and occasionally looting shops. Many had their faces blackened, a traditional means of preventing identification and forestalling later feuds with the families of their victims. Amman became a city of sordid sounds—the crumbling of limestone buildings under the artillery barrage, the snap of rifle fire and the whoosh of shells, the cries of the wounded, and the wailing of women who had seen their families slain. In two of the biggest camps for Palestinian refugees, guerrillas insisted that at least 7,000 people had been killed by army shelling.
Hussein's soldiers had been instructed to search for the 54 Western hostages held by the fedayeen since their jet airliners were hijacked three weeks ago. Moving through the battered New Camp, a detachment suddenly heard shouts from a locked house: "We are foreign hostages. Help, help! Don't shoot!" Eight Britons, six Swiss and two West Germans were freed. Soon afterward the guerrillas, on their own accord, released 32 more hostages, leaving six Americans still unaccounted for at week's end.