The following is co-founder of the charity Medical Aid for Palestine, Dr Swee Ang’s speech in Beirut’s Ghobeiry Municipal Hall last Friday, on the 42nd Anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila Massacre opposite Martyrs Square, where over a thousand bodies were buried in Shatila Camp.
‘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 have been sent to operate on patients who were blown up by the pager attacks. Several thousands were injured when their pagers exploded in their hands, faces and eyes.
‘The many injured have the same pattern of injury.
‘Their hands were blasted to bits. Eyes blown out on one or both sides, with multiple shrapnel wounds over their torso and in the severe cases nasty brain and face injuries.
‘This particular patient had a mutilated hand on the left and had lost the entire middle finger and chunks of the index finger and thumb.
‘He also lost his left eye.
‘I went to the recovery to explain to him that although he retained all digits minus the middle, it will be many surgical procedures before he acquires some sort of meaningful use.
‘He also had blast injuries to his other hand.
‘I told him I was really sad what happened to him and to the thousands of victims.
‘His reply was totally unexpected and brought me to tears.
‘He told me he was not sad.
‘He accepted that this was the price he was prepared to pay for standing in solidarity with Gaza and humanity.
‘He said “Please do not feel sad doctor. I have no regrets suffering these injuries. This is the price I pay for standing with humanity and justice.”
‘Forty-two painful years have gone past.
‘Today I can see among you so many young faces born after the massacre and also the faces of those whom I have lived with through and during the massacre.
‘All of you have taught me the meaning of struggle, of hope, of never despairing 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.
‘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 those whose bodies are still buried under the rubble.
‘We see all means for human living and survival destroyed – hospitals, schools, solar panels, water tanks, farms, orchards, factories – 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.
‘But history has taught us that it is not over.
‘The Palestinians will not be wiped out.
‘Some might have forgotten.
‘The Sabra-Shatila massacre killed 3,000 people in three days in a refugee camp home to less than a 100,000 persons.
‘If it continued, 30,000 would die in a month and nearly half a million in a year. And in two years a million.
‘There was no ICJ (International Court of Justice) at that time! So what about justice?
‘But forty-two years on there is still a Shatila camp.
‘And the Palestinians are still here in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Gaza and West Bank – and in every corner of the world – human, dignified and strong.
‘Millions around the world stand in solidarity with them.
‘What is destroyed will be rebuilt. Palestinians are builders and rebuilders.
‘Your children who had lost parents and homes during the massacre stood in front of rows of decaying bodies lifted their hands in the victory sign telling me they are not afraid.
‘Yes 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 is 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.’
• ‘When I came off the plane to go to the commutation of the massacre I received an SOS that they badly needed a hand surgeon. I was afraid I was not up to 12 hours of operating on complex blast injuries daily. But I knew God will give me the energy to do my small part… There were more than 4,000 civilians injured.
‘Eighty of the most severe were brought to the American University Hospital for primary debridement. All 80 were done within 4 days. All 10 theatres going daily for them alone. There were hundreds elsewhere still waiting for their first debridement but it enabled me to leave that our 80 were completed and ready for stage 2.’