CHRISTINE PLATT was a British nurse working in a refugee camp when the Israelis invaded Lebanon. She remarkable story of atrocities and herioc resistance to Ros Kaplan and Phil Hearse. When she came into our office her arm was covered with cigarette burns put there by Israeli paratroopers.
'I was in the middle of Sabra when the first planes came at 3.15 on 5 June. Nobody knew what was happening. I could hear the planes and buildings start to fall down around me. Everyone ran screaming and shouting. Women gathered up the children in the streets. Troops were moving and anti-aircraft firing started.
By this time the sirens were going in all the refugee camps. Fateh Arafat, Yasser's brother who commands the Palestinian Red Cross Society (PRCS), came into the hospital. Everyone had been evacuated down ground floor and all the men were in military uniform by this time. I looked over to the refugee camp at Sabra and just saw a huge column of black smoke, it was horrible.
Someone shouted the hospital's on fire that's where I worked. • got into one of the jeeps and went back there and stayed there. I couldn't get into my room - it had been destroyed in the bombing. We lived and slept and worked in the same underground.
The hospital was evacuated -we had mortar shells fired directly at the hospital from Israeli tanks 28 June. That's when PRCS decided to evacuate most of the hospital. I stayed with about five male nurses, mainly Iraqi and Palestinian - and all the others were commandos. All the people from the refugee camp at Sabra lett - many of them had relatives in the mountains.
Water at the hospital started to be a problem. The sanitary conditions were very bad. Eventually even the bottled water ran out. own generator but could only use it at Socialist Challenge 18 September 1982 Palestinian told her CLO the certain times of the day or night juries, phosperous burns, place down completely.
the they had bombed Acca completely.
Theology and was very hospital in the PRCS ambulances.
We had our First Trident victory Patient in a ward hit by a shell. He lay in the debris for two days.
We got in victims from bombing parts napalm ina lot of traumatic amputations. Gradually we ran out of basis medical supplies. So it was decided to close the hospital We took over a hotel called the Triomphe hotel which is just down the road from the Britsol hotel. The TOCKeTS.
tanks had occupied the airport road occupied Acca, they'd The we took over the College of turned that into a makeshift hospital. Because of all the tanks traps built by the Palestinians it were difficult to get the victims to tims.
bayonetting Palestinians My husband, who is a fighter in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, took me out one night and we saw the Israeli paratroopers going into each house with their bayonets fixed and bringing out the Palestinians and just killing them. This was house by house. The only thing which the Palestinians had to fight back with in that area were B-7 anti-tank At the College of Theology we worked underground again. We were in West Beirut itself which was now completely encircled. Then my husband said it would be better if I left.
Just about then I went out to a place called St. Michel where there DOTE victims. couldn't get the equipment to get the blocks of cement away from the vicThe people still alive underneath these blocks of cement.
could hear them, we could hear children crying. I went out in an ambulance to get more help, just me and a driver. We were stopped by Israeli paratroopers. They killed my driver, they shot him, and then they coming to Scotland.
Coulport naval base to service the missiles saving of £500 million. The decision takes away the government's only selling point for Trident that it would provide jobs the people of Scotland. The obvious ain Is to remove property and environmental concern.
But it does reduce the threat of nuclear destruction which took me away to one of their offices and took my Kalashnikov and saw who I was working for — it was obfor a while.
They did some cigarette burns on my arm. passport they let me go and I had to walk back to Beirut. And my husband said that it was too dangerous to stay.
Eventually I got over to East Beirut.
'They begged me for my husband's name' I was staying with a Phalangist family. armed forces but Phalangist and his bedroom was just plastered with pictures of Hitler and swastikas all along the wall.
They took Phalangist headquarters and they had tape recordings of Hitler, and fascist songs and gave Nazi salutes They talked about purging West Beirut when the PLO had gone. As A FIRST victory has been won in the campaign to stop the Trident nuclear weapons system Faced with growing public opposition - including a policy of non-cooperation by the local authorities - the government has scrapped plans for a massive development of the The maintenance programmme will now be switched to the United States, at an estimated Trident poses.
It seems that the Clyde will stil be used as an an. chorage for the subHEATICS with repairs the subs carried out at Faslane. The Triden warheads will still be dismantled al Coulport before being taken to the US for servicing.
move fighter.
Nasserite parly girl. across, was old children.
and fooled around with me When they saw I had a UK lieutenants Their son was in the Lebanese really he was a meetings at tients in the cut it off.
Certainly the campaign
to stop Trident altogether will Ian Leitch. chairperson of the SCOLLISI Campaign Against Trident pledged 'SCAT will not stor until the whole Trident project has been abandoned'.
Strathclyde Regional Council also going ahead with plans to hold UW! public enquiry since the Minister of Defence refuses to do so.
*The full implications of having Trident on our doorstep must made public', said deputy leader next focus For the The next focus campaign will be the week soon as the Israelis had finished with the Palestinians they were going to make it a pure Phalangist state.
The son of the family who took me to the meetings begged me for the name of my husband. He said "Well, if you give me his name, when we into West Beirut we'll spare him." He knew my husband was a Marxist and that he was a PFLP My escape to East Beirut was arranged via one of the leaders of a who was owed a favour by this Phalangist family they took me because I was an English After the Israelis had caught the ambulance I was in I was a patient myself for two days. I was told to cross into East Beirut at the National Museum area. Each time the Israelis told me my papers weren't in order Eventually I got through. I had to run I just had a bag on my shoulder and a pair of jeans.
Iran and the Israelis started firing I knew I was looking for a mustard. coloured Mini-Cooper on the other side. Fortunately I got to it and was 'Some of the children who came in were limbless After five days in East Beirut I went by boat to Larnica in Cyprus The boat was stopped five times by Israeli gunboats.
During the whole time I was nuring casualties of the war there were very few guerrilla casualties. Mostly it HICH and MY UHHICH and Some of the children who came in were limbless. A lot of the casualties were just Lebanese citizens. Why I liked working for the PRCS was that they would admit anybody. I'll never forget one night when two Israeli came into the casualty department one night.
Everybody wanted to kill them -they had their thumbs ready to pull the pins out of the grenades and their index fingers on the triggers of their sun hey were from a captured tank. with just superficial shrapnel wounds We treated them and sent them back Fateh Arafat came to the hospital and stopped them being killed. He said we should send them back During the whole time we were treating victims I can't remember going to bed for a month. The conditons were appalling. There were pa corridors, with their families under their beds. All the time the patients cried out for water, but there was no water — the Israelis had of action against Trident which SCAT is organising at the end of October. This will culminate in 'Stop Tri dent Day' on Saturday 30 October, when it is hoped that events will take place town and village in Scotland support England and Wales.
A particular emphasis in the week of action will labour movement support. Plans for further developing the campaign in this area will be discussed at the trade union conference SCAT is on November.
Further information from: SCAT, Third Floor, Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow G2.
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'I saw Israeli troops in their homes'