(3 of 3)
Refugees from the Palestinian-dominated town of Damur, twelve miles south of Beirut, swarmed last week into the capital, seeking refuge from the bombing. Four hundred refugees made their way into the abandoned Concorde Theater, where they slept on the concrete floor without blankets. There was no milk for their children, though the Red Cross had provided some canned food. Said a 90-year-old woman, gesturing at her squalid surroundings: "I am a Palestinian and look at what Palestinians are today—nothing but rubbish." Mustafa Kamal, 37, a baker from Damur, came to the theater with his five children. "As soon as the first bombs dropped, I knew we had to leave," he said. "But for the first time in my life I cannot feed my children."
There were scarcely enough hospitals and doctors in Beirut to tend to those injured in the bombings. Lines of stretchers waited outside the American University Hospital. Distraught civilians kept vigil at the city morgue. The old, long-empty Triumph Hotel was converted into a P.L.O. hospital. Most of the patients were from the three Palestinian camps near Beirut airport that had been bombed by Israeli jets. In one of the dingy rooms on the fourth floor lay Autra Waehe'h, 43, who had deep shrapnel wounds in her right side. An Israeli bomb had crashed into the house next to hers at Bourjel-Barajneh refugee camp. The blast knocked out a wall of Mrs. Waehe'h's house, killing her 23-year-old daughter and seriously injuring her 16-year-old son. Waehe'h, a Palestinian, talked only of her desire to return home to her shattered house and start her life again. "I'm not afraid," she said. "Everything is from God."
Last week, amid reported criticism of Israel for preventing some relief supplies from reaching Lebanon, the U.S. and other Western countries prepared to send aid to the civilian victims of the war. In Washington, a House panel voted $20 million in emergency help for Lebanon. France sent the ship Argens with 35 tons of supplies. U.N. Secretary-General Pérez de Cuéllar announced that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency would supply $1.5 million for food, medicine, shelter and other necessities, and the U.N. World Food Program would deliver food worth $11.5 million.
Still, continued fighting around Beirut's international airport has so far prevented U.N. agencies from airlifting supplies. The International Committee of the Red Cross has been able to dispatch aid to Lebanon via Syria and Israel. In addition, the Israelis are gearing up to help the civilians they have made to suffer so grievously. Last week they sent a convoy of 20 ambulances, ten medical-supplies vehicles and 25 doctors to Tyre and Sidon. Individual Israelis have donated chocolate candy, blankets and clothes to Lebanese youngsters. There was even a scheme devised by the Israeli National Labor Federation to bring homeless mothers with infant children from Lebanon into Israeli homes for several weeks. Such moves were admirable. But to the innocent victims of Israel's push northward, there was little that could justify the suffering. —By Patricia Blake