Written by Raida Hatoum, worker for the Najdeh Association and friend of Tadamon!
Yesterday Israel bombed two houses and a school inside the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein El Helweh, where more than 45,000 Palestinian refugee live and hundreds of displaced are staying after fleeing their homes in the Tyre region. Ein El Helweh camp is in the city of Sidon and the bombing killed two and injured tens, most of them children. Israel claims that it bombed the house of a Hezbollah fighter.
One of the men who was killed, Anwar, was from Tyre. He had fled his home to seek refugee inside the UNRWA school in the camp with others.
This used to be a school.
Today, hundreds of Lebanese and Palestinians fled Ein El Helweh camp and Najdeh, an NGO who works in the refugee camps, had to close one of its centers where it was hosting 80 children for recreational activities.
At one of the UNRWA schools (UNRWA is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East www.un.org/unrwa) in Ein El Helweh camp in Sida (http://www.un.org/unrwa/refugees/lebanon/einelhilweh.html), as part of the emergency program that Najdeh is running in cooperation with other NGOs to assist and aid the internally displaced, Najdeh’s staff and volunteers who usually work with children are organizing recreational activities with the displaced children. These Lebanese and Palestinian children were forced to flee to Sidon from their homes in the Tyre region because of the Israeli bombings. They have taken refugee in Ein El Helweh, a Palestinian refugee camp that has been the “temporary” home of 60,000 Palestinian refugees for 58 years, since they were forced by Israel to flee their homes and villages in northern Palestine (now Israel) to south Lebanon in 1948.
One of the activities consists simply of distributing paper and colouring pencils to the children so they can draw whatever comes across their minds and then to talk about what they have drawn and why.
Fleeying Ein El Helweh camp
Malak, 11 year olds girl: I fled my home in Tyre. I draw the sun because the world is sad and dark now. I remembered my grandmother telling us (the grand children) how when she was young she was forced with her family to flee their home in their village northern Palestine by the Israelis. I remembered her because I was forced with my family too to flee our home by the Israelis.
Hawra’a, 9 year olds girl: I want my home, I need to be in my home, but the Israelis bombed it, we ran away with many people, this is why I draw my home leaning, it was bombed.
Isra’a, 9 year olds girl: I draw a house and bridge both destroyed because the Israelis bombed them. And I draw my family and myself on the road because we became displaced with no home to stay at.
Ahmed, 9 year olds boy: I draw a burning home and the warplane that bombed it. Also, I draw the lemon trees by our home in fire after the bombing. And I draw an eye because I saw a man who lost one of his eyes.
Khalid, 11 year olds boy: I draw children running away and I draw Sharon because he used to kill children and he showed Olmert how to wage a war.
Ismael, 11 year olds by: I draw an Israeli small war plane, throwing leaflets and I draw myself stepping on those leaflets because they tell us to evacuate our homes or they will kill us.
Dina, 9 year olds girl: I draw a child who doesn’t want the war, because I want peace and I want to go back to my home.
Sara, 11 year olds girl: I draw a gas station burning after being bombed because the Israelis bombed the gas station beside our home, and I draw my brother because he broke his leg as he fell from the stairs when the bombs hit the gas station and the fuel flamed and our home was affected badly. And I draw my father, he is still in our village, and I draw my mother, uncle, myself, my cousins in the car running away while holding a white sheet outside the car’s window so the Israelis won’t bomb us in the car like they did to other people. I think the Israelis hate us. I hope this war would stop and that we would live in a good situation not like the war.
Hanady, 11 year olds girl: I draw my siblings and myself dead. Because this is how I saw children in Qana dead. I feel I know all those children I saw on the television, I don’t like it when people die and I am alive, either we all die or we all live.
