“Yes, you’re right, Sitt Bayan. The siege of the camps by Amal is another subject. You want me to talk to you about our response to the evacuation decision. Some of my comrades among the young men from the 1948 families decided to leave with the resistance, and some of them decided to stay. There were some who decided to go and said goodbye to their families and settled their business, and then turned around and came back before reaching the port. And there were other cases when the opposite happened; someone would say ‘I’m not leaving,’ and then as he was saying goodbye to his comrades who were leaving he became frightened and overwhelmed by the separation, so he jumped into the truck and it took him with them to the ship. I was wretched — each of my brothers was in another country far away, should I leave my father and mother and Maryam and my grandmother? Why should I choose a new refuge? We were refugees, yes, but I was born in Lebanon and had lived there all my life, so why would I leave it and become a refugee all over again? Why would I go farther away from Palestine? I sneaked into Sidon — it was a dangerous adventure, in the presence of such a number of occupying troops — but I managed to get to Ain al-Helwa. The bastards had destroyed it beyond all imagination. I got lost in the streets, because the destroyed houses had changed the look of the place. I went to say goodbye to my uncle Ezz; I wasn’t about to leave without telling him goodbye. Then I came back to Beirut and decided to go; then I changed my mind at the last instant. They left and I stayed. My morale was at its lowest, I don’t know how my mother put up with me. I was overcome by a feeling of absurdity, as if I had never been one of the fedayeen and carried a weapon. My mother doesn’t know that I was thinking of suicide. The truth is that I had decided; the only thing that held me back was a discussion with one of my comrades. I told him it was natural for us to commit suicide, and here was my comrade, who was two years younger than I was, scolding me as if he were a teacher and I were a small boy. He said, ‘You want to kill yourself? Kill yourself, no one needs you. Because when you think about suicide you’re fleeing from the battle and abandoning your family, who had confidence in you. It’s disgusting, how easily you say, “Confront it alone, as for me I’m going to die and to rest.” Damn your god, brother, you’re stupid, an animal.’ He insulted me and left the place, and I cried like a kid. Usually I grab the throat of anyone who insults me and make him pay the price twice over; but he insulted me and I cried. On the next day I went to him and kissed his head.
“On the morning of Wednesday, the fifteenth of September, the Israeli tanks entered West Beirut. I had spent the night with comrades of mine who live in the Fakahani. Wednesday morning we had seen the tanks advancing. There was no one in charge to turn to; we decided to act on our own authority. They were centered on the College of Engineering, and there were clashes between us and them. We were different groups, some of them very young, cubs. The battle continued all day. Then the Israelis pulled back behind the College of Engineering.
“The next day we decided to investigate the situation and go to our office opposite Acre Hospital, to see if we could get more weapons. I repeat, Sitt Bayan, there was no local leadership; the leaders who had gone had not left us any instructions, nor was there any committee responsible for the security of the camps. They left us cut off, as if we were foundlings or orphans. With the situation like that it was natural for the residents to feel that the presence of any armed man or any weapons in the camp was a threat to the camp and to everyone in it. Many people got rid of their individual weapons; sometimes they got rid of them by wrapping them in newspaper and throwing them in a garbage can, or in any heap or pile.
“I headed for the office of the Popular Front with a number of my comrades, and a group of young men and two girls joined us there. I remember that one of the girls was from Fatah. We decided to skirmish with the Israeli soldiers, using hit and run tactics. One of us would fire a magazine or half of one and rush off to another place. Notice, Sitt Bayan, that up to that moment we did not know about the presence of the Lebanese Forces; we thought that we were confronting Israeli soldiers only. We were able to hit an Israeli officer and two soldiers, or maybe three. They were standing near the Kuwaiti Embassy, on a hill, looking toward the camp with binoculars. We fired a B7 rocket-propelled grenade and bullets at them.
“There was another group from the Arab Front. Their office was in the Farahat neighborhood, southeast of the camp. When the Israeli shelling concentrated on them they decided to blow up the arms depot they had, to make the Israelis think they were facing stiff opposition. The depot contained Grad and Katyusha rockets and artillery missiles; imagine, a weapons depot that we were blowing up with our own hands, since what good were the weapons after the evacuation of the trained cadres and leaders who could tell us when and where to use them?
“There was a cub named Hani who was known in the camp. A cub from Fatah. Somebody shouted to him, ‘The Israelis are underneath you, Hani.’ Hani threw a grenade on an Israeli truck carrying soldiers (at the time we thought they were Israeli soldiers, they might have been Israelis, or maybe they were from the Lebanese Forces). He hit them, then he came back and hit a half tank. He was one individual, acting alone. There was also a girl named Fatima from Fatah, who caught up to us and joined in with us. That evening we lost Comrade Butrus, that was his name in the movement, he was from the Popular Front fighters.