"As we passed the group of people, a number of them stood up and tried to join us in the hope we could afford them protection. They were pushed back. Swee Chai Ang, an orthopedic surgeon, later told me how one mother tried to give Swee her baby, as if she knew what was going to happen. The militiamen stopped her.."
I am a Dutch doctor currently living in North-Wales, United Kingdom. In the summer of 1982 I was working as a nurse in West-Beirut in a medical team sponsored by the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC). The Israeli army had invaded Lebanon on the 4th of June 1982 and subsequently laid siege to the forces of the Palestine Liberation Organisation and the Lebanese National Movement in West-Beirut.
During the siege many civilians were killed or injured and we looked after them in makeshift field hospitals in the northern part of West-Beirut.
The American negotiator Philip Habib had mediated an agreement under which the Palestinian fedayeen would evacuate Beirut in return for a solemn Americian pledge to safeguard the security of the remaining Palestinian civilian population. Another fundamental part of the agreement was that the Israeli army would refrain from further efforts to occupy West-Beirut.
I am a Dutch doctor currently living in North-Wales, United Kingdom. In the summer of 1982 I was working as a nurse in West-Beirut in a medical team sponsored by the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC). The Israeli army had invaded Lebanon on the 4th of June 1982 and subsequently laid siege to the forces of the Palestine Liberation Organisation and the Lebanese National Movement in West-Beirut.
During the siege many civilians were killed or injured and we looked after them in makeshift field hospitals in the northern part of West-Beirut.
The American negotiator Philip Habib had mediated an agreement under which the Palestinian fedayeen would evacuate Beirut in return for a solemn Americian pledge to safeguard the security of the remaining Palestinian civilian population. Another fundamental part of the agreement was that the Israeli army would refrain from further efforts to occupy West-Beirut.