Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, September 1998, pages 27-28

Special Report

Sixteen Years After the Sabra-Shatila Massacre: The State of Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon

By Ghada Khouri

Sixteen years ago, Munir Mohamed survived one of the worst massacres in the recent history of the Middle East. He was only 12 at the time, but the memories still haunt him.

Three months after its invasion of Lebanon on June 6, 1982 and two days after the assassination of Lebanese President Bashir Gemayel, Israel transported its proxies—a special force composed of Phalangist militiamen and members of the Israeli-funded South Lebanon Army—into Beirut’s Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps on Sept. 16, 1982. They vowed revenge for the death of Gemayel and pledged to eliminate the remaining Palestinian presence in Lebanon after the PLO’s ouster by Israeli forces. Under the approving and watchful eyes of Israeli forces surrounding the camps, the militiamen went on a rampage, indiscriminately slaughtering children and the elderly, raping and then killing young girls and women, and butchering unarmed men. About 38 hours later, some 2,000 civilians lay dead—some so badly mangled that they were unrecognizable.

Last September when Palestinian refugees gathered at the mass grave in Shatila to commemorate the 16th anniversary of the massacre, Munir recalled the family he lost and his own ordeal as a survivor. He described how he faked death throughout the night, lying still amid a pile of bodies to the sound of moans and cries from his mother, Zehrah, and baby sister, Iman, who lay beside him. They both died within a few hours. The next morning, wounded and drenched in blood, Munir made his way out of a heap of corpses and was taken to a local hospital. Eleven months later, he started a new life in the United States. Out of a family of nine brothers and sisters, Munir has one brother left—Nabil, who settled with him in America—and one sister—Najat, who still lives in Lebanon.

Memories of his childhood growing up in Shatila camp are now overtaken by images of the horror he witnessed as a young boy. Yet, life goes on in Shatila for thousands of Palestinian refugees and destitute Lebanese who still live there. About 400,000 Palestinians reside in 12 refugee camps scattered throughout Lebanon, Ein El Helweh being the largest with 75,000 inhabitants. Although the massacre of 1982 is now no more than one painful event in the annals of the Palestinians’ tragic history, other crimes are still being perpetrated against the refugees in Lebanon—the crimes of poverty, marginalization and neglect.

Overcrowding, poor sanitation, and unemployment remain part of daily life in the camps. While Palestinian refugees in Syria and Jordan enjoy various social and civil rights, Lebanon presents a special case due to the country’s delicate sectarian balance and the legacy of a 16-year civil war.

Blamed by a large segment of the Lebanese population for playing a major role in the civil war, the Palestinian refugees command little public sympathy. In a country plagued by its own socio-economic ills, their plight is left to the whims of politicians. Today the refugees, who were left out of the now-defunct peace process, find themselves between a rock and a hard place. Neglected by the Palestinian Authority, the Lebanese government, and the international community, their hopes for a better future are dim. Their status is dependent on the policies of the host countries, which in turn are largely shaped by Israel’s firm rejection of the Palestinians’ right of return.

In Lebanon, Palestinians are prohibited from practicing 73 widely varied professions. They cannot be lawyers, doctors, pharmacists, engineers, bankers, doormen, guards, salesmen, cashiers, and so on. As a result, most Palestinians living in the refugee camps work as unskilled laborers in construction and agriculture—all low-paying jobs in which they must compete with other foreign workers. Since 1992, UNRWA has estimated that 60 percent of Palestinian refugees live below the poverty line. In fact, Lebanon has the highest proportion of Palestinian refugees enrolled in UNRWA’s Special Hardship Program, which provides aid ensuring a minimum standard of nutrition and shelter to the poorest of the poor.

Struggling to Make Ends Meet

Even those with a good education and strong qualifications find themselves struggling to make ends meet. Eid Khair Ferrawi, a 26-year-old Palestinian born in Bourj Al-Barajneh refugee camp, was one of a few Palestinians who received scholarships from Arab governments to attend college. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the Arab University in Beirut a few years ago and speaks English moderately well. However, he is unemployed. Ferrawi described the Sabra and Shatila massacre as a “Zionist effort to rid the country of ‘unwanted elements,’” adding that the Palestinians’ legal status in Lebanon today still marks them as ‘unwanted,’ although this is never said publicly.

Palestinians are excluded from the Lebanese public health and education systems and few can afford the high costs of private doctors and schools. Because they are barred from undertaking construction and rebuilding in the camps, some live in the ruins of bombed-out buildings.

Since 1995, they have been required to secure exit and entry visas when they travel abroad, even if they have spent their entire lives in Lebanon. Ironically, obtaining an exit visa does not guarantee permission to return to the country. Because of this law, several families find themselves separated. “There are cases in which a father leaves the country to work abroad and support his family still in Lebanon, and is then unable to come back to his wife and children,” said UNRWA spokesperson Hoda Samra.

As Lebanon continues to grapple with high unemployment, low wages, corruption and the burden of reconstruction in the wake of its devastating civil war, the Lebanese are more concerned with their own conditions than with the fate of the Palestinian refugees. Lebanese Interior Minister Michel Murr raised a storm of controversy last year when he placed the Palestinian armed presence on an equal footing with Israeli occupation in the south among Lebanon’s top security issues.

“Almost 20,000 Palestinian refugees are armed,” he stated on Sept. 25, 1997, during a visit to France. “All those who commit crimes on Lebanese soil take refuge in the camps, while our security forces are prohibited from entering the camps by international conventions.” One known fugitive, Ahmad Abdel-Karim Saadi, accused of masterminding the 1995 assassination of Sheikh Nizar Halabi, is believed to be hiding out in Ein El Helweh.

While few would go as far as Murr in expressing displeasure with the Palestinian presence, most Lebanese leaders fear that granting Palestinian refugees social and civil rights would encourage their permanent settlement in Lebanon, lessen Israeli moral responsibility for alleviating their situation, and effectively render meaningless the Palestinian right to return to their homeland or receive compensation, as stipulated by U.N. Resolution 194. Lebanese leaders also are concerned that absorbing the refugees, who make up 10 percent of Lebanon’s population, would again upset the country’s delicate Muslim-Christian balance and spark renewed civil unrest by adding a large Sunni Muslim population to the country’s demographic make-up.

As a result of these political considerations, Palestinians are largely dependent on UNRWA as the main provider of educational, social and health services. UNRWA runs 25 clinics and 73 schools in Lebanon. Its budget increased by 70 percent from $32 million in 1993 to $55 million in 1997, thus dashing speculation that the peace process would soon lead to the agency’s dissolution. In addition to providing basic services to the refugees, UNRWA also acts as an employer. About 99 percent of its 2,400 employees in Lebanon are Palestinians.

Despite its undeniable role in alleviating the hardships of Palestinian refugees, UNRWA has been unable to meet their mounting needs satisfactorily—largely due to a limited budget dependent on voluntary contributions from U.N. member states. With a $20 million overall deficit for 1997, UNRWA launched a special emergency appeal to donor states last year and announced a series of austerity measures, including the imposition of tuition fees in all UNRWA schools. The proposed service cuts led to a 9-day hunger strike outside UNRWA headquarters in Beirut, which ended when the donor countries agreed to cover the agency’s deficit during an emergency meeting in Amman on Sept. 9, 1997.

Although the storm had passed, UNRWA’s financial troubles are chronic.

“The perfect solution is to give the Palestinians everything they need, but we simply can’t do it because of budget constraints,” Samra said. “UNRWA is already doing more than its mandate requires in Lebanon because of the special needs of Palestinians on the ground. For example, it is not within our mandate to provide secondary school education or hospitalization, but we are doing it in Lebanon only.”

Beyond UNRWA’s Mandate

Indeed, UNRWA recently opened a secondary school and provides hospital care through contractual arrangements with 12 private hospitals. However, in 7 percent of the cases, including cancer treatment and brain or open heart surgery, UNRWA only covers a portion of the costs—usually less than half—on a case-by-case basis, according to Samra. Few Palestinians are able to pay the remaining costs of these life-saving operations. “No one deserves to die,” Samra said. “But the cost of these operations is very high. If we have to choose between covering 93 percent of hospitalization cases and covering a mere 7 percent of very expensive cases, we have to opt for the first choice.”

UNRWA’s limits on spending have created resentment among those Palestinians who have felt the brunt of the agency’s belt-tightening approach to providing services. Samir Khalil, a father of four in Shatila camp, is still angry that his 12-year-old daughter, who suffered first-degree burns during the “war of the camps” against Amal militiamen, was denied hospitalization by UNRWA. Reconstructive surgery is an expensive procedure which apparently falls under those hospitalization requests that are either rejected or only partially covered by UNRWA. “Our conditions here are miserable,” Khalil said. “There are constant water and electricity shortages, and no way of making enough money to provide a decent life for our families. We are pawns and our fate is determined by how much money UNRWA receives.”

Pressures on UNRWA have been steadily increasing since the Gulf war, when remittances from Palestinians in the Gulf stopped coming in and when some of those expelled from various Gulf countries returned to life in the camps. But in spite of the sometimes tense relations between UNRWA and the refugee population, Samra asserted that the agency “will be here until a final solution is reached.”

Such a solution seems as far off today as it was when the peace process began. Indeed, the refugee problem remains one of the thorniest issues to be addressed in final negotiations, which are nowhere in sight. Most Palestinian refugees in Lebanon were opposed to the Oslo accords because they feel that their rights were signed away. “No one has the right to deny us what we deserve, and that is to return to our homes in Palestine,” said Abou Fadi Hammad, a Fatah dissident and a camp leader residing in Mar Elias. Hammad, who represents a rejectionist faction, sees the future as “moving us closer and closer to conflict.” The Netanyahu government’s continued intransigence has created mounting tensions and effectively halted any progress in putting the peace process back on track. Whether these tensions translate into U.S. and European pressures on Israel to abandon its provocative policies remains to be seen.

In any case, the Palestinian refugees want their plight to play a central role in any final outcome. “Whether in war or in peace, we are Palestinians and Palestine is our destiny,” Hammad said. “We did not come here of our own free will. We came to escape massacres at the hands of the Zionists. We do not intend to settle permanently in Lebanon, but if there is no return, are we to continue living in abysmal conditions? It’s a crime.”

As the Palestinian refugees continue to ponder their future, the need for improved socio-economic conditions through joint efforts by the Lebanese government and UNRWA is evident as they await a permanent political solution, which is inevitably linked to the fate of a peace process now in limbo.

“It is only with a fair political settlement that we can make sure that massacres are not repeated in the future,” according to 28-year-old Munir. For him, a new beginning in America has not erased memories of life and death in Shatila. He shares with those refugees who remain in the Palestinian camps of Lebanon the aspiration for a Palestinian state and a right to return to the land his parents fled in 1948. In the meantime, “there is only one thing that would help make the pain of the Sabra and Shatila massacre go away,” said Munir. “That is knowing that the Palestinian children growing up in the camps today, as I did many years ago, can live a life of dignity and respect among their fellow Lebanese.”