‘The Palestinians won’t be wiped out,’ says witness on anniversary of Sabra-Shatila Massacre

Consultant orthopaedic surgeon Swee Chai Ang volunteered to use her skills to treat wounded civilians in war-torn Beirut in 1982. Almost by chance she found herself working in Sabra, a Palestinian refugee camp in the Lebanese capital. Within weeks of her arrival, Israel invaded West Beirut and the Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps fell victim to the appalling massacre.

Last week, Dr Swee returned to Beirut to speak at an event commemorating the 42nd anniversary of the massacre. The following is an edited version of her speech.

Your Excellencies, dear brothers and sisters. Before I start I would like to pay tribute to one of the patients I operated on last evening. I arrived last Tuesday and was sent to operate on patients who were blown up by the pager attacks. Several thousand people were injured when their pagers exploded in their hands, faces and eyes.

The pattern of their injuries is the same. Their hands were blown to bits; one or both eyes were blown out; and most had multiple shrapnel wounds across their torsos. In the most serious cases, there were nasty brain and facial injuries.

This particular patient had a mutilated left hand; he had lost the entire middle finger and chunks of the index finger and thumb. He also lost his left eye and had blast injuries to his other hand. After the operation, I went to the recovery room to explain to him that although he retained all digits except the middle one, he will need many surgical procedures before he acquires some sort of meaningful use of them. I told him I was really sad about what happened to him and to the thousands of other victims of the explosions.

His reply was totally unexpected and moved me to tears.

“Please do not feel sad doctor,” he told me. “I have no regrets suffering these injuries. This is the price I pay for standing with humanity and justice in Gaza.”

Forty-two painful years have passed us by since the Sabra and Shatila massacre. Today I can see among you so many young faces born since the massacre, as well as some of the faces of those with whom I lived during that awful event.

All of you have taught me the meaning of struggle, of hope, of never succumbing to despair and of never giving up. You have also accepted me as your friend and family. Your generosity to me in the midst of your suffering and deprivation will never be forgotten.

Today we commemorate the events of 1982, but we also stand in solidarity with Gaza and the West Bank. We will not rest till Palestine is free and every Palestinian refugee has the right to return to a free Palestine.

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The genocide in Gaza is designed to eliminate the Palestinian people and to drive them all out of their homeland. All of us have seen in real time the killing of so many, with bodies incinerated and pulverised, and many still buried under the rubble. We see all means for human life and survival destroyed: hospitals, schools, solar panels, water tanks, farms, orchards, factories as well as home, all destroyed. The world watches in real time the man-made famine which not only kills by starvation, but also brings diseases to emaciated bodies and homelessness to people with amputated limbs and thousands of orphans.

However, history has taught us that it is not over. The Palestinians will not be wiped out.

In case anyone has forgotten, let us remember that the perpetrators of the Sabra-Shatila massacre killed 3,000 Palestinians in three days in a refugee camp that was home to 100,000 people. If such killings continued at the same rate, we would have seen 30,000 killed within a month, and nearly half a million in a year. And in two years, a million.

There was no International Court of Justice probing events at that time, so what about justice?

Today, forty-two years on, Shatila camp is still there, and the Palestinian refugees are still here in Lebanon, and in Syria, Jordan, Gaza and the West Bank, as well as in the diaspora around the world. They are dignified, strong human beings. Furthermore, millions of people around the world stand in solidarity with them.

What has been destroyed will be rebuilt. Palestinians are builders and rebuilders Palestinian children who lost parents and homes during the massacre stood in front of rows of decaying bodies and lifted their hands in the V-for-victory sign. This told me that they were not afraid.

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Yes, amidst all the death and destruction, there is life. Standing here among you fills me with resolve that tomorrow is for Palestine. Tomorrow the sun will rise in Gaza. Tomorrow the tears will stop flowing and there will be rejoicing and laughter.

We will look back with pride on how you have built the road to justice and freedom. Justice will be the laughter of our children in a free Palestine where they reclaim their humanity and their place under the sun. They who are trampled upon will arise and be free citizens of this world.