From the Australian: ‘Safe house’ that held no refuge by Peter Wilson in Qana, Lebanon
MOHAMMED Zaatar did not celebrate yesterday’s news that Israel would limit itself to land and sea attacks for two days because of the outrage over the killing of more than 50 people in a single house in the Lebanese village of Qana on Sunday.
The 48-hour suspension of Israeli air attacks would allow Zaatar and other Red Cross volunteers to look for bodies in south Lebanese towns that had previously been too dangerous to approach, he said last night — and that was not something he was looking forward to.
On Sunday, Zaatar, a 32-year-old industrial mechanic, had been in the first group of rescue workers to arrive in Qana after an Israeli bombing raid had brought a three-storey home down on top of two extended families, including more than 30 children, who were sheltering in its basement.
Zaatar joined the Red Cross 13 years ago, hoping the service would help him to overcome the shyness of his teenage years. He is still quietly spoken.
Talking beside the house as a large excavator was still clawing away at the wreckage, he paused several times to gather his emotions as he explained how he had pushed his fingers into the rubble looking for survivors.
“We had no equipment, so we had to search with our hands in the earth,” he said.
Scrabbling in the dirt was a weird sensation.
“Because you are following your senses and your fingers, whenever you think somebody is under your hands you feel like it is you trapped down there, and something shakes you inside.”
First, he came across an arm. When he pulled away the debris, a seven-year-old boy was curled up dead on his side in a sleeping position. Many of the 34 dead children were in similar positions — they were killed just after 1am.
As he carried the small body to a waiting stretcher, Zaatar heard a neighbour wail that the boy’s name was Yousef.
Next, his probing fingers struck the head of a smaller child. It was a baby of about four months, lying on his back, face upwards. As he gently wiped the dirt from the baby’s face, Zaatar could see his little tongue was clenched between his teeth.
Zaatar winced at the memory and looked away silently.
He was on Red Cross duty in 1996 when there was a similar Israeli atrocity in the small town atop a rocky hilltop in Galilee, 11km from the Israeli border.
That Israeli attack, said to be intended for Hezbollah guerillas, killed 105 people sheltering in a UN compound.
Their mass grave is two minutes’ walk from the scene of Sunday’s disaster.
“In 96 the bodies were all chopped up and burned by artillery. It was horrible, but this has been worse because it’s mainly children, and they were buried alive — terrible,” Zaatar said.
His three-year-old daughter, Mariam, begged him not to go when the call came from the Red Cross, and his wife was angry with him because he was putting himself into danger. The Israelis had already hit two Red Cross ambulances on the road to Qana.
When Zaatar’s 15-strong Red Cross crew arrived, neighbour Mohammed Ismael was already helping to pull bodies from the wreckage of the house.
“The bombing had gone on all night and we didn’t realise until dawn what had happened here,” said the 38-year-old glazier and farm worker.
“The house was still being built and the owner is away in Africa, and the families thought they would be safe there because it was so big.”
The families did not have enough money or petrol to leave the town and the roads were not safe anyway, he said.
The first thing he saw when he ran to the house was the body of seven-year-old Zainab Hashem al-Sheik. He had taken some food to her family a few days before because they were trapped in the town and had little money.
“Her father, Mohan, survived — he is in hospital — but his wife and children were all killed.”
Ismael’s T-shirt carried a portrait of Moussa al-Sadr, a former Shia leader who disappeared on a trip to Libya in 1978. Qana is firm Hezbollah territory. Like other witnesses, Ismael denied the Israeli claim that guerillas had provoked the attack by firing rockets from the village.
Many are now hoping the tragedy will have the same effect as the 1996 massacre in Qana, which is believed to be Cana, the Galilee town where Jesus performed his first miracle by turning water into wine.
In 1996, the international uproar over the killing forced the Israelis to end their campaign.
But for that to happen this time, when the Bush administration and the Israelis are still ruling out an immediate ceasefire, might require a second miracle.
