Lebanon`s children: the true victims of the civilized world`s disregard during “Israel’s” attacks

Source: dailystar.com, 30-9-2006
By Hana R. Hamadeh
My experiences during those 34 days of war were but a very small portion of what hundreds of thousands of Lebanese endured. The "Israelis" hit hard, blow after blow after blow, a devastating storm of destruction and atrocities. To the civilized world, I don`t blame you for all the injustice you caused, nor the money spent to produce weapons that killed and still kill my people, nor for the blind eye you turned when hell`s gates were opened over my country.
I only blame you for one thing: I blame you for making my Ayya cry.
Some 185 people, all crammed into nine classrooms with two bathrooms and four showers, is enough to make one ponder how they survived that month. Unfortunately, conditions were even worse in other schools all over the country. We came to the public school of Choueir with the sole task of taking care of the children - all 44 of them. But in times of war one task is simply not enough.
The very first day we arrived, we were greeted with the curious eyes of the children, anxious for someone to take them far away from their sour reality. Each classroom had two or three families living in it, with walls made of cloth and floors covered with mattresses. Two showers were installed in each of the two bathrooms, and a cooker was placed outside the school walls. What upset me the most were the untold stories I read in the eyes of all the refugees, young and old. Each one had his one sorrowful story to tell: a mother grieving silently for the death of her parents, whose bodies remained under the ruins; a man praying that his son was still alive down in Maroun al-Ras; and 6-year-old Ayya playing with her new friend Malak outside in the playground. Guided only by their will to survive and the grace of God, Ayya and her family escaped to Choueir in the middle of the night after the "Israeli" planes had ravaged their village of Srifa. With no shelter to hide in, no siren to alert them of the planes above, no light to brighten their path to safety, Ayya`s family reached Choueir and settled in a classroom on the ground floor of the public school. I can never know the extent of the effect of this horrible and frightful experience on Ayya. With her long brown hair tied neatly with a ribbon, her face glowing with innocence and compassion, and a laugh as radiant and defiant as the sun, Ayya smiled all day long.
How many times have you stopped in the middle of your drive and gone back home because you forgot something in your haste? Well, imagine running out of your home with only a few minutes to grab your family and jump into your car before an "Israeli" plane drops a bomb on you. This is a brief description of how most of these people left their homes.
These people were able to touch my heart with their kindness, dignity, and courtesy, all making only the simplest of requests: water to wash their hands and faces, powdered milk for a 2-month-old baby, Panadol for a fevered child, sanitary pads, bed sheets to prevent skin irritations, diapers, soap, pillows - all basic needs that we take for granted in our daily life.
We brought paper and crayons to entertain the children, who drew pictures of roses, houses and sunny skies. Some drew bridges burning and airplanes bombing. Ayya refused to draw anything at first; she simply sat on my lap and stared at her friends while they poured all their emotions onto paper. Hesitantly, Ayya grabbed a red crayon, and a few minutes later she had drawn the Lebanese flag with a slightly tilted cedar tree. She turned to me and smiled: one flag for one nation.
One day we came to help a doctor mix measles vaccinations and calm the children as they entered one after the other to take the shots.
The measles vaccinations came with needles that would ordinarily be too large for use on children, but in times of war, you have to make do. Child after child, they all came in to take their shots, crying and screaming at the sight of these huge needles being pressed deep into their tiny arms and the drops of blood slowly dripping from their tiny wounds.
Ayya grabbed her mother tightly as she saw the needle being plunged into her skin, helpless and vulnerable. She twisted in her seat, unable to get away, simply accepting her fate like millions of other Lebanese in that month. A drop of blood rolled down her shoulder as the needle pressed deep into her skin. Ayya frowned, her face clouded, and her eyes swelled, and the tears began to fall. The second the needle was retracted from her skin, Ayya looked up and laughed, giving me a glimpse of happier days to come and faith that Lebanon will again thrive after these times of horror. And at the end of every shot, I hope Ayya will always laugh.
Hana R. Hamadeh is an MBA candidate at the American University of Beirut