Watching Gaza from Shatila: Reviving unity and the dream of return

Mayssoun Sukarieh, Mondoweiss, August 26, 2024 — 

Watching the Gaza genocide from Beirut’s Shatila refugee camp brings back painful memories to Palestinians who lived through siege and war, but it is also providing inspiration to a new generation with hope of a liberated Palestine.

“I remember the soldiers came from this side, they climbed on the roof and came down. Abu Mahmoud left from the front door and went to the mosque where most men escaped to take shelter,” Umm Mahmoud tells me as we sit in her home in Beirut’s Shatila refugee camp, where decades ago war raged as Israel and its proxies laid siege to Palestinian life in Lebanon.

“I do not know how he was saved. In the War of the Camps, I happened to have had three big bags of flour, each weighing thirty kilos. I made bread with my sister every single day for the fighters and my eight kids until I had none. In times of siege, this is what people do; they share what they have. I had no idea the siege would take so long,” she tells me. “My eldest was eight. He started to starve and it is hard to tell kids there is no food, let alone telling them there is a siege. I looked on top of the closet and saw a big jar with something round. I thought I had some fava beans and was happy, and I promised Osama he would have food, but when I grabbed the jar, all it had were small balls. I had collected them. It was wishful thinking. My kids spent nights crying.”

“Now I watch Gaza and cry,” says Umm Mahmoud.

“You can hear the same stories from the Palestinians who were displaced from Yarmouk camp in Syria and ended up in Shatila: siege, hunger, humiliation, and endless displacement,” adds Umm Mahmoud. “Perhaps we Palestinians have to experience the same experiences at some point to feel each other more. I feel Gaza deep in my heart, deep in my bones. May God rid us of Israel and the U.S., and all those who are standing with them for what they are doing to these kids, these men, these women in Gaza.”

Umm Mahmoud starts sobbing. “I live Gaza in Shatila, I feel Gaza in Shatila, not because of war, but because we are all bound together, bound in pain and trauma, but also bound together in pride, resistance, and dignity, proud to be the resisting Palestinians.” 

Factions and the war on Gaza 

Umm Mahmoud is devout Fatah, but now identifies as Hamas: “I have been Fathawiyyeh [a Fatah member] since I was in high school. I collected money for Fatah in the 1970s, I supported Fatah in the War of the Camps, but now I am a Hamsawiyyeh [a supporter of Hamas] — I am even going to the meetings with Hamas. It is hard for me to say it, I am Fatah at heart, but now Hamas is the resistance, and I am for anyone who is fighting Israel. Most of the camp people support Hamas. I guess we are still the Fatah of the 70s, not the Fatah of Abbas. There is a feeling of anger that it is not Fatah that is resisting, but one has to be proud of those who took the torch after Fatah went for Peace.” 

Despite admitting that there are divisions between the factions in Shatila, residents of the camp insist that these divisions are not as clear as they look in the West Bank.

“Here, Fatah is mostly the Fatah of the 70s — they still believe in armed struggle. The Fathawiyyis here are not so keen on the new development of Fatah; after all, we were abandoned by the peace process. This does not mean there is no division; there was a conflict before the war between Hamas and Fatah, and now I think it was part of what the Israelis want, to get rid of Hamas,” Ayman, a Shatila resident in his thirties, tells me. “At the beginning of the war, in the marches from the camp, factions made blocs, and each walked alone with their flags. It felt like we have apartheid walls between us, areas A, B, and C, like the Bantustans in the West Bank.”

This strong division, however, started to fade with time as people were all focused on the genocide. The sharp divisions in October are being overshadowed by the feeling of anger. The blood never turns into water, after all — we are all Palestinians, most residents of the camp agree. 

For Umm Mahmoud, Fatah’s lack of support for October 7 wasn’t due to its outright opposition to armed resistance to occupation. It is more about jealousy and competition over who will liberate Palestine. “At the beginning of the war, you could always hear Fatah members [in the camp] saying, ‘When we were fighting, where was Hamas? We did this and that and Hamas was not even born,’” she says. “They are just keeping score of who is doing more to help Palestine, but they still believe in armed struggle, they are the 70s Fatah, not the Mahmoud Abbas Fatah.”

Regaining the camp as a Palestinian space 

Over the past decade or two, Shatila has become more of a slum for the poor of Beirut. Lebanese poor and workers from all over who came to Beirut to work before the crisis — Syrians, domestic laborers from Sri Lanka and Ethiopia — were joined later on by refugees from Syria, mostly Palestinian Syrians from Yarmouk Camp, but also Syrian refugees. “This made the camp lose its identity as a Palestinian space,” Osama, Umm Mahmoud’s son, says. “It became mostly a gathering of poor people who share the same misery. It is not like the old days. Even the NGOs stopped teaching Palestinian Dabke and folk songs. They dance to Lebanese songs now.” 

“This was a normal result of the abandonment of Palestinians in Lebanon,” Osama adds. “We were abandoned by Oslo. Not even put on the table. The generation of the 90s had some memory of resistance from the PLO presence in Beirut, but the new generation, they have no memory of resistance. In schools, they do not teach us about Palestine, so we were turned into just poor people with no struggle and no cause.”

“The Gaza war turned Shatila again into a Palestinian space.”

“The Gaza war turned Shatila again into a Palestinian space; suddenly, you get Palestinian flags everywhere, and the revolution songs are heard from the windows. I felt Palestinian again, I felt proud to be Palestinian again. After years of Oslo and inaction, everyone thought that Palestine was not important anymore. There was no hope, and we were resigned to the fact that there is no return, no liberation struggle, nothing,” says Osama. “Then here comes October 7. It felt like my dormant pride of being Palestinian, my longing to return, was reignited. It was not the act of killing that made me proud, but the idea that there is still a cause that returned Palestinian blood into my veins. Only last year, there were clashes in some Palestinian camps in Lebanon between Hamas and Fatah. It was perhaps a way to destroy the resistance. I know now that after ten months, and despite all the sacrifices, things might not turn out in the way we hope for. But we are Palestinians again, and it will take a lot of work to destroy this feeling again. Perhaps, this is not the case in other camps, like in ‘Ayn al-Hilweh and other camps outside of Beirut, where they are still mostly Palestinian. But in Beirut’s camps, this has been the feeling.”

“Gaza was not in our imagination when we spoke of Palestine . . . But now when we speak of Palestine, we speak of Gaza. I want to return to Gaza, not only to ’48.”

The war has also made Gaza part of the Palestine that Palestinians in the camps identify with: Palestinian refugees in Lebanon originated from 1948 Palestine, mostly from the Galilee area. There are barely any Palestinian refugees in Lebanon from 1967 Palestine. “Gaza was not in our imagination when we spoke of Palestine,” Abed says. “When we spoke of Palestine, we spoke of ‘48 Palestine. This is where we came from in Palestine, this is all that we grew up learning about Palestine. I had no idea that there are Palestinians from ‘48 who also were displaced to Gaza. Like many others, I thought that most ‘48 Palestinians are in the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. But now when we speak of Palestine, we speak of Gaza. I want to return to Gaza, not only to ’48.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gaza has become not only part of Palestine but has also become well-known to the Shatila residents,” echoes Waleed. “I never knew anything about Gaza, it was on the margins of Palestine, no one spoke of it. Suddenly, I feel I know everything there, the names of the camps, the streets, and family names. God bless those who will have no record in the registry. I know Gaza food, and how much the sea means to the Gazans. This year, Gaza became part of my political imagination of Palestine, like Saffuriyya, where I come from. Gaza has become another village, just like the villages we originated from in Palestine — it has become part of Shatila.” 

The camp walls in Shatila are now filled with graffiti celebrating Gaza, banners with pictures of Ismail Haniyeh and other Hamas leaders, slogans for return, and vows not to forget Palestine. Much like elsewhere around the world, there are now shops that sell Palestinian flags, kuffiyahs, pins of Palestine, and “I love Gaza!” t-shirts with Abu Obaida and other leaders’ pictures on them. Slogans like “We are all Gaza!,” “Jerusalem, we will return!” and “What has been taken by force will only be returned by force,” are inscribed across the walls of the alleys of the camp in all colors.

A new political imagination

“Peace has led us nowhere,” a 14-year-old girl from Shatila claims in a discussion about the best way to achieve the Palestinian right to return. “We lost more land to settlements, the Palestinian cause has been forgotten. We tried the path of peace, but Israelis do not want peace. Now the only way to return is through armed struggle. We have to take back Palestine by force. Hamas’s road is the road to return.” 

Armed struggle now seems to be a main drive for return for the new Palestinian refugee generation. The discussion among 12 to 15-year-old Palestinian and Syrian refugees from Shatila camp lasted over two hours and centered on the question of how to return and how they want Palestine when they do return. Besides the dominant view that armed struggle is the only way, one girl argues for the need “to keep telling our story, to make the world hear, to tell our plights over and over again till the whole world knows Palestine is for us.” 

But this call for the new generation to become public intellectuals and speak up about their plight was challenged by another girl, who declared that changing world opinion does not do much: “Look at the social movements now all over the world for Gaza. There are no democracies, and leaders won’t listen. So, I think the best way to return is for us to know what we want, to have our project, and then the world can stand with us or not. It does not matter, first we need to have a political project ourselves.” 

A Syrian refugee who lives in Shatila suggests that Palestinians and their supporters start buying land from the Israelis: “Isn’t it what they did to Palestinians? They tricked them into taking their land and they settled there. We can do the same; we can start buying land from the Israelis, and we can buy a lot until it becomes ours again. I do not like wars. I still have nightmares from Syria. We must be creative about the way to return.” 

Between armed struggle, reclaiming land, and having a political project as a way to achieve the right of return, there were many other suggestions, none of which relied on international law or the UN. When asked if this could be a war, the new generations seem to have no hope in these organizations — partly because they already have been subject to UNRWA and its policies in Lebanon, which they think are not pro-Palestinian policies, and partly because, as one child argues, “it seems all the world and all of international law can be fixed to benefit Israel.” 

Pride, fear, and hope seem to be the overwhelming emotions for Palestinians in Shatila.

Mayssoun Sukarieh: Mayssoun Sukarieh is a member of the research committee at the Institute of Palestine Studies.