Journeyman Pictures - Lebanon Features (1997-2000)

Speaker 1: רגל ביניך תביט לשלומת ראש העיר כזה, ידה אדוני מראשי עליון נותן לך מעונך, לא תעונה לך רע במגלון יעבור לך, ובא להשיב אתו ולא יעיר כל חמתו, ורחום יכפה רבון ולא ישחית.

Speaker 2: In a graveyard north of Tel Aviv, Israelis bury a Marine commando, one of 12 blown apart in a failed raid on a Lebanese He was killed in the bombing of a Lebanese guerrilla headquarters and one of 39 Israeli soldiers killed in southern Lebanon this year.

Speaker 3: No!

Speaker 2: Here, the calls for a troop withdrawal from the so-called security zone have never been louder, each death adding to a sense the Jewish state has stumbled into its own version of Vietnam. It would be barely 2 hours' drive north, if only you could drive it. Another cemetery, this one in Lebanon.

Speaker 4: Papa?

Speaker 5: Papa?

Speaker 6: Hmm?

Speaker 4: Papa?

Speaker 6: Who's the papa?

Speaker 2: Mohamed took his father's name because he was born on the day his father died, the day last year Mohamed Mrour, father of 6, told his wife he had work to do, took his Hezbollah weapons and joined a daring raid on an Israeli position inside the security zone.

Speaker 3: زوجي كان من من الناس الأبيين الشرفاء اللي بخافوا على الوطن كان من الناس اللي ما شدوا للدنيا لا بيت ولا زوجة ولا أولاد مقابل إنه يخلص من إسرائيل.

Speaker 2: Here among the headstones of Lebanon's martyrs, some call them terrorists. Death for all its sadness is a triumph.

Speaker 3: Iyab habti, بحب أقول إنه نحن كشعب عام بأي حسب الله إلو نصر إلو فخر بأنه مستمر مع حسب الله لأنه الشهيد بحسب الله هو حي وعائلة الشهيد هي عائلة عايشة حياة سعيدة حياة مرتاحة.

Speaker 2: Nabatiya, the Marwa family's hometown, has long suffered the bloodshed that comes from being on the edge of the security zone. Here, there's fierce support for the family of the martyr and the party leading the Islamic resistance, Hezbollah.

Speaker 3: سلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته.

Speaker 2: A former teacher, Nazik sends her children to a school built with money from Iran and run by Hezbollah. As the wife of a martyr, she pays no school fees. Here, 10-year-old Maryam Rua knows she is a special child. The daughter of a martyr.

Speaker 5: كان يلعبنا ويطلعنا ظهره ويحطنا واللمبة يعلقنا بالحديدات ويمرحنا.

Speaker 3: خيط أقسامات الورد أول شيء معنا الخطوط التي تجي من هون هي خطوط وهمية. أول شيء بدي علمه بدي علمه يعني لأقصى درجات العلم لأنه الإنسان بالعلم بيتغلب. بعدين ببدأ بعلمه من خلال علمه الحالي العلم اللي العلم اللي منقله نحن علم تربوي نبدأ نعلمه علم مقاومة يعني كيف يستخدم علمه ضد إسرائيل.

Speaker 2: Directly across from Nabatiya is the Israeli army. In between, Lebanese villages inside the security zone Israel occupies at such a high cost. These young conscripts sing half. tongue-in-cheek about serving for the Middle East's most advanced defense force on its most dangerous assignment. Tonight, the soldiers' regular training exercise turns to a real alert when something trips the post's perimeter warning system. It has all the toys of war, but on the Lebanon border, Israel's army is easily spooked.

Speaker 1: Guerrillas are very difficult to fight.

Speaker 7: This is why we have to be so creative, so wise, so delicate. They are very brutal, they are very bitter, they are very dangerous, and we have to fight them. We have to fight them in order to protect our lives.

Speaker 2: The alert turns out to be a false alarm. Like so much of its work in Lebanon, Israel is left boxing its shadows. It's the security zone's northern bases that form the front line against Hezbollah. We joined this supply convoy into the zone to see one of these bases.

Speaker 3: We are here to support the Lebanese people.

Speaker 2: And here, even the convoys can become death traps. Last year, Hezbollah ambushed another supply column. The deadly result, captured by a Hezbollah cameraman for broadcast on Hezbollah's own TV station in Lebanon. Indeed, we arrived at the base just days after five Israeli soldiers had died in a fire started during a battle with Hezbollah.

Speaker 8: We know it; it wasn't these five soldiers. It was can be. One of the civilians in Israel, in one of the biggest cities in Israel, Kiryat Shmona, or one big— or here in Aria or something like that.

Speaker 3: So—

Speaker 2: Better 5 soldiers die than an Israeli civilian?

Speaker 8: Yeah, because this is the reason that we are here, to give security for these civilians, people.

Speaker 1: I think my mother is very concerned, but she doesn't know exactly what I've been through, what I'm doing. I'm trying to keep them as less concerned as I can, but I think they are concerned. Most of the people, most of the soldiers here have their parents too concerned about them.

Speaker 2: Tonight, the increasingly vocal and growing protest movement against the security zone meets at the Tel Aviv home of Linda and Sam Benzvi, whose son has just finished serving in southern Lebanon. Tens of thousands of Israelis, including several key cabinet ministers, now want their country to withdraw.

Speaker 5: But we no longer want to be put in the position where we have to send our sons off to a meaningless war.

Speaker 2: Israeli TV crosses live as part of a debate on the policy of guarding northern Israel with troops in southern Lebanon. Efrat Spiegel's son died in Lebanon.

Speaker 1: Because this is not a solution, because the blood of a soldier is not red more than the blood of other one.

Speaker 5: He's a child, like every other child.

Speaker 1: It's wrong for us to be there. It's useless for us to be there. It serves no purpose. And we need to pull out. So, no, I'm not a traitor, really.

Speaker 2: There's another view of the Lebanon border problem which says the solution isn't in ending or extending the security zone. In fact, the solution isn't in Lebanon. It's here, on the strategic plateau that overlooks Jordan, Syria, and Israel. Israeli troops have held the Golan Heights for 30 years. Syria wants the land back badly, and some believe if Syria and Israel can compromise over the Golan, then the Lebanon problem will unravel.

Speaker 7: Well, definitely Iran is the major motivator of Hezbollah. Syria has to agree that Hezbollah continues its activities from Lebanon, and the Lebanese government has no say whatsoever.

Speaker 2: On the Golan Heights, Israel's famed Gevarti unit trains in the lead-up to another 3-month rotation in the security zone. As leverage to get back the Golan, Syria reportedly allows about 3 jumbo jetloads of weaponry a month to pass from Iran to Hezbollah. In return for this land, Syria might cut the supply line, crippling Hezbollah and allowing Israeli troops to withdraw from southern Lebanon. But there are those who insist even if Israel pulls out, Hezbollah will continue fighting.

Speaker 1: We will not stop.

Speaker 7: If we will withdraw today from South Lebanon, from the security zone, then the terror activities inside Kiryat Shmona and Manara and Nahariya will be 10 times worse than what they are today.

Speaker 5: I'm a refugee.

Speaker 2: In scrub on the slopes directly under the Israeli lookouts is a Hezbollah unit. There are no guitars here, just 4 men armed with the latest weaponry and trained to use it. Abu Jaffar is the unit commander. He knows if his unit's position is discovered, the Israelis might well shell the area. So our meeting needs to be quick. Have you ever killed somebody from an opposing force?

Speaker 1: كان لي شرف أن أقتل إسرائيل.

Speaker 2: Abu Jaffa is serious about the business of killing and being killed.

Speaker 1: يعني أنا عم بدعي الله. للمنهار إن موت أنا ولبس عسكري أبو شيخ.

Speaker 2: It's this commitment Israel must judge. If it leaves southern Lebanon, will Abu Jaffa and his men stop shooting? The border is the issue now, but you get the feeling if there's a war beyond the border, Abu Jaffa will fight it.

Speaker 1: هلأ أهمنا هلأ نطلع إسرائيل من لبنان. هلأ بعدين شو بصير ما بنعرف. بس هلأ لازم نطلع إسرائيل من لبنان.

Speaker 2: For Abu Jaffa and his men to stop fighting, the decisions. The words of one man are crucial— the military leader of Hezbollah. His headquarters are hidden in Beirut's mainly Muslim southern suburbs, and getting to him is no easy matter. The first part of the journey is an unnerving ride in the back of a Our pistol-carrying escorts drive us 10 minutes to a garage, wait in darkness for 10 minutes, and drive us to another garage. You'd almost laugh at this subterfuge if you didn't know that the last Hezbollah leader died when an Israeli helicopter gunship blew apart his car. The last Hezbollah leader died when an Israeli helicopter gunship blew apart his car.

Speaker 1: Mr. Nasrallah, please.

Speaker 2: Hezbollah doesn't give out the address of his replacement, Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah.

Speaker 1: يدعمون ويؤيدون هذه المقاومة. إذا مصدر قوة هذه المقاومة هو جهادها وصدقها وتضحيات أبنائها والتفاف الشعب اللبناني حولها. وأي شيء آخر لا يضيع هذه المقاومة بشيء.

Speaker 2: Here at least, the war isn't simply to get rid of an invader in Lebanon; it's to get rid of the Jewish state.

Speaker 1: طالما أن الإسرائيليين على أرضنا نحن نقاتلهم عندما يخرجون من أرضنا نحن لسنا جهة معنية أن تقدم ضمانات للإسرائيليين المقاومة تقاتل لإزالة الاحتلال ليست هي الجهة المعنية بتقديم ضمانات للإسرائيليين. نحن نقول على السوائلين أن يخرجوا.

Speaker 2: but it's the guarantee Israel needs that if it withdrew, Hezbollah would stop at the border, and Hassan Nasrallah won't give it. The soldiers' funeral in Israel is now commonplace.

Speaker 1: Today they bury a Jewish Jewish soldier of Ethiopian descent.

Speaker 2: Each death weakens public commitment to the zone, while deaths across the border just add to the enemy's anger and zeal. But Israelis fear an early withdrawal from Lebanon would simply shift the guerrilla war south across the border. After 12 years, Israel is all but trapped in the security zone, until its longtime enemy, Syria, chooses to clear a way out.

Speaker 6: This is Hezbollah. The Party of God. These guerrilla fighters are waging a successful hit-and-run war on the Israeli army in South Lebanon. Yet this war is entering a new phase. Other groups are becoming more actively involved in the resistance to Israeli occupation. For the Israelis, this could mean it will be more costly for them to stay, and yet more difficult than ever for them to consider leaving.

Speaker 3: I'm a Palestinian.

Speaker 6: With a force of several hundred fighters, Hezbollah uses speed, mobility, and stealth to attack its enemy. These classic guerrilla tactics have allowed Hezbollah to strike at the time and place of its choosing. Few journalists have ever been this far near the front with Hezbollah as they scout around an Israeli position Just a few hundred meters on the top of the hill, but the fighters are anxious to remain anonymous. We were asked not to film their faces.

Speaker 9: بالتأكيد نحن سنربح الحرب.

Speaker 1: نوماً تكتيك العسكرية على حرب الأسرة. Of course, we are going to win this guerrilla war. We own the land, and we are the ones who are in the right. We believe our cause is just, and we have a total conviction and faith in God. We are going to carry on fighting. Because the Israelis are occupying our land, we are not occupying theirs.

Speaker 6: In another part of South Lebanon, fighters of the Amal movement discuss final details of a mission towards the Israeli lines. Recognizing that resistance enjoys popular backing, Amal has increased its attacks in recent years. We were given special permission by Amal. to follow its fighters. The aim of their mission, we were told, was to move up on an Israeli position and attack. The fighters say a last prayer before leaving.

Speaker 1: Of course, I don't feel sorry when I'm fighting the enemy, because he has taken my land. That's his purpose here. I want to defend this land.

Speaker 3: 5, 10!

Speaker 6: In a Palestinian refugee camp in South Lebanon, history seems to be repeating itself. These well-armed Palestinian fighters are a new generation of die-hard radicals. Born inside a refugee camp and having nothing to lose, they are actively preparing for their chance to attack and destroy Israel. We gained exclusive access into the training ground of these Palestinians to see how they have rearmed and are ready to fight. It was Palestinian fighters such as these who first drew Israel into Lebanon over 20 years ago. Israel first invaded Lebanon in 1978 to strike at the Palestinian guerrillas who were launching attacks on Israel from South Lebanon. United Nations Resolution 425 passed in that year called for Israel's total, immediate, and unconditional withdrawal from South Lebanon. Israel disregarded the resolution and instead established what it called a security zone on 10% of Lebanese territory to prevent further guerrilla attacks into Israel. The security zone has remained 21 years after it was first set up. To this day, it is still an area of continual insecurity. I'm from Lebanon. Hezbollah guerrillas have consistently attacked Israeli troops inside their security zone. As Hezbollah continues to inflict casualties on Israeli troops, the public mood in Israel has swung towards a withdrawal. For the leadership of Hezbollah, this has confirmed that their guerrilla war is a success.

Speaker 1: The enemy has started to feel he is in a dilemma in Lebanon. There is a large increase in those asking for Israel to withdraw from Lebanon unconditionally. Surveys of Israeli public opinion show this figure is now at 55%. This is how we are winning.

Speaker 6: Attacks against Israeli troops in South Lebanon have become increasingly successful in recent years. The guerrillas have scored numerous successes with ambushes and the use of remote-controlled roadside bombs against passing Israeli patrols.

Speaker 7: What has happened in the past few years is that the resistance has become more effective, especially Hezbollah, in its attacks. The Israelis are being hit. They're finding it much more difficult to travel on roads in the south. Perhaps the Israelis lost more in the past at various periods, but it's today that the Israelis are talking about a withdrawal. So there is a cumulative psychological effect of the resistance, which is far more important to my mind than simply the number of attacks or the number of casualties.

Speaker 6: The fighters of Amal, like those of Hezbollah, have proved an elusive target for the Israelis. Through constant attacks, the guerrillas have sought to weaken the morale of the Israeli army rather than attempting a single knockout blow. Many Israelis today refer to South Lebanon as Israel's Vietnam. The fighters we accompanied have now moved close to Israel's security zone. So far, they have remained undetected, but the Israelis on a nearby hill. are constantly on guard for guerrillas moving below.

Speaker 8: The nature of guerrilla warfare, it's totally different from a war perceived between 2 armies. It doesn't seem that the Israeli army has won over the Islamic resistance. It's not a question of the technology here. The nature of guerrilla warfare in these rigid, rugged mountains, terrains, It makes it difficult for any regular army, basically, to capture the whole land.

Speaker 6: Amal and Hezbollah come from the same community, the Shia Muslims, who are generally recognized as the largest of Lebanon's 17 religious minorities. The 2 organizations were established during Lebanon's 15-year civil war and have struggled with each other to win influence among the Shia. Thousands of Shia live in Beirut's southern suburbs. The poverty and crowded conditions of this area made it fertile ground for a party with a radical message. Young men found meaning and purpose in a new militancy. Hezbollah was able to back its appeal with financial support from the Islamic Revolutionary regime in Iran. Money from Iran helped Hezbollah establish an extensive system of social welfare services badly needed by the Shiite community. Determined not to lose out to Hezbollah's growing popularity, Amal has been keen to stage military operations of its own. The Amal fighters we followed have now moved close to an Israeli position. Amal recognizes that resistance against Israel wins popular support among its Shiite constituency in Lebanon. This translates into votes during elections. Amal leaders are quick to put the record straight on their party's contribution to Some people want to say that Hezbollah is the only resistance in Lebanon.

Speaker 1: They say only part of the Lebanese are defending their land. Moreover, they say only part of the Shia are resisting. In fact, the whole of Lebanon is resisting.

Speaker 6: All the Lebanese today feel outraged by Israel's occupation of their land. And the steady rate of civilian casualties.

Speaker 3: Ah!

Speaker 6: This 2-year-old girl was injured by Israeli shelling. She was playing outside her home in a civilian area several miles from the front line when an Israeli shell exploded nearby. She has a piece of shrapnel lodged in her head and the possibility of permanent brain damage.

Speaker 1: Israel does this sort of thing to incite the locals against the resistance. They think that by victimizing the children, this will make the parents turn against the resistance.

Speaker 8: Recently, we have seen more booby trap injuries. The kids are the children are targeted because. Because these things, they usually have bright colors. They are— they look like toys. Or if they don't look like toys, they are something interesting for the kids. From what I heard, from what I've heard, I think some tennis ball was a booby trap. Another one was a small radio transistor. Right. Another one was like a teddy bear.

Speaker 1: We consider the Israeli occupation to be an aggression. We have the right to resist in order to free our land. This is not negotiable. If you want to call that extremism, radicalism, or terrorism, we don't have a problem.

Speaker 6: On the top of this hill, a 12th-century Crusader castle in which the Israelis are based overlooks the frontline village of Arnoun. Fouad Fawaz has been able to revisit his village since last February, when civilians pulled down fences that had kept it inside Israel's security zone. But he can only look at his house, which remains inside the Israeli area.

Speaker 8: I'm living in Beirut because I can't live here in this village, you know. My house, The house is really right up there, you know. And it's been for me more than 6, 7 years I can't go in there, you know, because it's really dangerous to go and go inside there, because the Israelis are on the top of the castle, you know, up there. And once they see me going in, they're going to start shooting.

Speaker 6: Since this interview, the village of Anun has been retaken by the Israeli army following the death of an Israeli soldier. Killed by a bomb detonated on this road leading up to the castle. The Amal fighters have now taken up positions. We learn that this is to be a decoy attack. The main attack is to come from fighters on an adjacent hill. Through the haze, we see in the distance the Israeli compound come under attack from mortar fire. An Amal official told us that the group had increased the number of attacks it carries out to as many as 30 operations a month. Having completed their mission, the fighters quickly retreat in case of an Israeli response. In this cemetery, families come to visit the graves of Many have mourned their loved ones killed fighting in the resistance. This mother lost one of her sons who fought with Hezbollah. She claims to be ready to sacrifice more of her family.

Speaker 1: I still have 3 young boys, and I'm willing to offer them to the resistance. I don't fear for them. We want Israel out of our land. They are the occupiers, not us. I am ready to volunteer our girls.

Speaker 6: If we don't make the sacrifice, who will?

Speaker 1: If we don't defend our land, who will?

Speaker 5: إذا نحن ما دفعنا عن أرضنا من بدو دافع.

Speaker 3: يا حبيبي يا حبيبي.

Speaker 1: وما أنزلنا على قومي.

Speaker 5: يا حبيبي يا صبر.

Speaker 1: وجاء من أبصار المدينة رجل.

Speaker 6: While Israel struggles to come to terms with each body bag that comes home from South Lebanon, families of resistance fighters killed in action mix their grief with a defiance.

Speaker 1: We are not scared of death. We know our road begins with sacrifice and ends with martyrdom. Death is with us every day, in every operation. It would be embarrassing to say that I fear death when I am facing this enemy.

Speaker 6: Another group also ready to make the ultimate sacrifice is the 13th of September Group. This Palestinian faction takes its name from the date on which PLO leader Yasser Arafat signed a peace accord with Israel in 1993. For these men, that day marked the betrayal of the Palestinian cause.

Speaker 1: We are resistance fighters. Resistance will never stop as long as Israel occupies Palestine, South Lebanon, and the Golan Heights. It's our duty to prepare for all kinds of missions, including suicide missions. We stress there is no peace with the Israeli enemy. As long as it occupies even 1 inch of Palestine or Arab land.

Speaker 6: In a hidden location in the heart of Ain al-Helwi refugee camp, Palestinians are taught military tactics in a school of war. This 130mm Chinese-made rocket, commonly categorized as a Katyusha, has been the guerrillas' most effective weapon in hitting northern Israel in the past. This classroom instruction suggests that the Katyusha will have a role in the future, too. The Palestinians appear to have rearmed themselves and are ready to use South Lebanon once again as a launching pad for attacks on Israel. These radical groups have close links to Syria, which exercises a political and military dominance in most of Lebanon. The guerrilla war is a card for Syria to play in its own confrontation with Israel to win back the Golan Heights, which Israel has occupied since 1967.

Speaker 7: The paradox in itself is very simply this: it's that the Syrians are not keen to defeat Israel in the south too soon, because if the Israelis pull out of South Lebanon, then they will no longer have a means to hit the Israelis. They will no longer have a terrain on which to hit the Israelis, which means that they will no longer have leverage, the leverage they want for eventual negotiations on the Golan Heights.

Speaker 6: While Amal has While Hezbollah has stated that it would only fight until it had secured the withdrawal of Israel from South Lebanon, Hezbollah's ideology is altogether more radical. Hezbollah considers the whole of Palestine to be occupied Muslim land and contends that Israel has no right to exist. Such ideology suggests that Hezbollah's objective of forcing Israel out of South Lebanon may not be an end in itself, but a prelude to an onslaught against Israel. The party leadership refuses to state whether it would stop attacks if Israel withdrew from South Lebanon.

Speaker 1: Let the Israelis withdraw, and then I'll answer. Keeping some of the cards is normal. It gives strength to the position of Lebanon. The Israelis never show their cards. They hide a lot of the things To do with the future.

Speaker 8: Nasrallah cannot show his cards because this is might lead at the same time to split within the party itself. Should Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, who's the secretary general of this party, for example, follows the pattern that okay, we will disarm and we will confine basically ourselves into politics. Then one ought to question the radical elements in the, in the party, especially the military elements of the party. Those might not be satisfied with such model or such pattern that the party should follow.

Speaker 6: Even if Hezbollah and Amal were to stop their attacks if Israel withdrew from South Lebanon, the Palestinians, for their part, are determined to go all the way. They have vowed to fight until the state of Israel is Abu Khaled is the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command in Lebanon. His group has remained active over the years in launching attacks on Israel from South Lebanon. We interviewed Abu Khaled inside the group's secret underground base in Ain al-Hilawi camp.

Speaker 1: We now have Katyushas and armor-piercing missiles. Each era has its own weapons. We have friends around the world who support our cause and supply us. We cannot specify who they are, but they supply us in good quantity. أصدقاء قضيتنا إني يدعموننا بهذا.

Speaker 6: These Palestinians are preparing for the day when they may assume the task of continuing the resistance against Israel. They may well find that they have an important backer in the region.

Speaker 7: It has been rumored that the Syrians have threatened, through indirect channels, to continue to use the Palestinians against Israel. The argument has been something— Has been similar to the following: Well, indeed, the Israelis have pulled out of Lebanon, so Lebanese parties will no longer attack Israel. But the Israelis have not pulled out of occupied Palestinian territory. So who are we to prevent the Palestinians from continuing attacks against Israel?

Speaker 8: إحنا التدريب عنا متواصل ومستمر والمتطوعين دائماً Our training is continuous.

Speaker 1: A steady flow of volunteers come from all camps. Hundreds come here from Syria and Lebanon. The training programs are continuous, and we are ready at any time to carry out a military operation.

Speaker 6: Besides training themselves, the Palestinians have gained important experience of guerrilla fighting Through coordination with Hezbollah, our relationship with Hezbollah is one of shared struggle.

Speaker 1: We have the same goal. There is a lot of common denominators between us and Hezbollah. Hezbollah attacks the Zionist enemy because South Lebanon is occupied. We fight the Zionists because Palestine is. lost and raped by the enemy. A lot of planning takes place to ensure the operations are successful through a joint operation room.

Speaker 6: The groups in Lebanon have found a common cause in fighting the Israelis. Amal has rejoined the resistance. Hezbollah still refuses to state if it will disarm. And a new generation of Palestinians are rearmed and ready to strike. Israel faces a dilemma: whether to stay on in South Lebanon and accept the cost of casualties, or to withdraw and risk facing attacks on its northern border. Nobody in South Lebanon is going to make the choice easy for the Israelis.

Speaker 1: Allah akbar!

Speaker 3: We are the people of the world.

Speaker 5: Deep in the heart of Beirut, Palestinian refugees live much as they have lived for the past half a century. The plight of these people was once the central concern of the entire Arab world. But today, they are the forgotten Palestinians, the Palestinians who have no place in Yasser Arafat's new state, the Palestinians of 1948 who were driven from Palestine when the state of Israel was first created. Their exile will not be ended by Arafat's small and fragmented state, a state built only on the territories occupied by Israel in 1967. There are more Palestinian refugees in Lebanon than in any other Arab country. More than 300,000 live in overcrowded camps like this, prohibited from expanding outside their original boundaries. Many live in subhuman conditions 52 years after they first tasted exile. Their streets are The houses are small and dirty. Sewers are open. Drinking water comes only in jerrycans. It's no place for children or for adults. We wait until midnight to sleep because of the heat from the tin roofs. It's impossible to sleep before that. Almost 75 families live like this. Millions of delegations visit us here. They all make promises, but we see nothing. They promise to fix the sewers, the water, and the pipes, and that's the end of it. Banned from 70 professions, from janitor to physician, and given no state benefits, most refugees live on the poverty line. Im Turki was 26 when she was driven from Palestine. Today she's 78 and lives from hand to mouth. My life in Palestine was wonderful. It wasn't like it is here in the garbage. See how it is? If we collect garbage, we can eat. If we don't, we can't. We're forced to eat dirt. Dirt. Palestine was a golden land. It wasn't like this. Here there's nothing but noise, and the roads are all broken. Most PLO offices in Lebanon have long since been closed. PLO officials who remain, like Soheil Nattour, are fighting an uphill battle to improve the lot of the refugees.

Speaker 9: Lebanese government is, between the Arab governments, the worst in dealing with the Palestinians. They didn't give us any civic right. We only have the right of residence. We don't have the right of work. We don't have the right of civil social security. We don't have the right of education or access to the healthcare given by the government. Nothing in Lebanon. That's why we are very impoverished in the Palestinian camps. We don't have infrastructure repaired since 15 years.

Speaker 5: In order to have room to breathe, 75 families built new homes on the edge of this camp. The government's response was uncompromising, as Namad Hamad remembers. The noise of the bulldozers woke me at 5:00 in the morning. I have a young daughter, and I took her to her grandmother's. When I came back 10 minutes later, our homes were gone. Troops using tear gas forced Abu Ibrahim to flee. I was in my home when they raided us. I wanted to collect my medicine, but they wouldn't let me. I wanted to get a shirt, but they wouldn't let me. My wife wanted to bring her slippers, but they hit her. Lebanese policy has always been designed to prevent the Palestinians from putting down roots, as Prime Minister Salim al-Hosse acknowledges.

Salim al-Hosse: We would try to make life easier for the Palestinians, but we wouldn't want to do anything that would smack of settlement. We cannot accept any resettlement of Palestinians in Lebanon, not in the least, actually, for the simple reason that Lebanon had been immersed in a 15-year war between 1975 and 1990. This Internal war, domestic war, ended with a reconciliation formula in which there is an explicit provision that there should be no resettlement of Palestinians in Lebanon. Well, after so much suffering in Lebanon, we cannot afford to compromise.

Speaker 5: The presence of Palestinian fighters was central to Lebanon's civil war. PLO fighters attacked Israel across the border of South Lebanon And ran a state within a state from their headquarters in West Beirut. It was a domineering and often violent reign that ended with the evacuation of PLO fighters after the Israeli invasion of 1982. Professor Youssef Saïg, once an adviser to the PLO, says life in Lebanon has become harder since '82.

Speaker 4: The horizon is closed. Palestinians don't know what is going to happen to them. Those in Gaza and West Bank are on their land, as it were. Those in Syria have more or less been absorbed. In Jordan, the same thing. A Palestinian can be a prime minister in Jordan. But in Lebanon, what are the options for people? Everything is blocked.

Speaker 5: Even funding from the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees. which has cut back its spending on Lebanon to concentrate on the Palestine Authority.

Speaker 9: Inflation in Lebanon has reached, during the last 10 years, less— not less than 300%, while the budget of UNRWA only increased by 2% of the old figure since 10 years. That's why they have schools, and we have children in these schools, but the newborn children, they don't find place in these schools.

Speaker 5: Palestinian youngsters denied an education have taken their protest to UNRWA headquarters, but there's simply no money for Lebanon. Leila El Ali works with young Palestinians in Shatila camp, where Christian militiamen massacred hundreds of civilians under Israeli eyes in 1982. Her mother Fatmi survived by hiding on this roof.

Speaker 3: صارت أيام المجازة.

Speaker 5: The killing went on and on and on. We were all at home. This home has been destroyed 3 times. My daughter was wounded and lost a leg. One son was shot. Another was captured. My children are scattered all over the world. We Palestinians have sacrificed a lot for the revolution and for the right to return. But the suffering endured in Lebanon is nothing compared to the pain Palestinians still feel at the loss of Palestine. Leila's father, Refaat Alareer, was once an affluent man with land and herds. All he is left with are the papers that prove it. His land will not be returned to him by Arafat's state, and his family feels betrayed. We, the refugees of Lebanon, don't want Arafat's It means nothing to us. We want to go back to our land. Arafat doesn't want us. He wants a place for himself. He doesn't care about us. He doesn't care about the Palestinians who sacrificed their blood for him. We will accept nothing less than our land. If they gave us Jerusalem instead of our land, we wouldn't accept it. We want the land of our parents and grandparents. Concern over the limitations of Arafat's mini-state has tarnished his image among all but his closest supporters.

Speaker 4: What kind of a state will it be? It will not be a state with sovereignty. Decision-making will not be in the hands of the Authority, either in the field of economics or politics or security. It will be an expanded municipality. With authority to sweep the streets and look after the streetlights and streetlamps, but no more than that. It will not be a state in the real sense. There might be a national anthem and a flag and recognition by other governments, but in the heart of the Palestinians, in the minds of Palestinians who If Palestinians don't have a political sense and a sense of reality, it will not be a state.

Speaker 5: But the dream of a real state that will enable them to go back to their homes is what keeps many Palestinians going in their difficult Lebanese exile. Hasna Mohamed and her 84-year-old husband, El Haj Taha, think of little else. They don't know what rights the Palestinians of '48 will have in Arafat's Some may be permitted to settle there, or at least to visit, but for them it will be just a different form of exile. Our land is still occupied. It's been occupied since 1948. We must get it back. We'll be happy if we get all of Palestine back. The Palestine of 1967 gives us nothing. We're the Palestinians of 1948. Arafat wants a state? Let him have it. In Arafat's state, we'd just be refugees again. We want to go back to our land, to our homes. But the sad truth is that the generation of '48, the generation that knew a real Palestine, Palestinian state, is unlikely to get any closer to the land they lost than this. When Israel ended its occupation of South Lebanon in July and withdrew to the international border, thousands of Palestinians journeyed south to look across the border at the land they knew as Palestine, land that Arafat has signed away to Israel. Hearts were bursting on both sides of the wire. They were crying, and we were crying. We were strangers to each other. We hadn't seen each other for 50 years. When you see people you love, Don't you clasp them to you? All that Arafat's state offers these people, the Palestinians of '48, is an uncertain future in refugee camps where they have already spent half a century.

Speaker 4: Surely it is neither fair nor just nor human or humane to expect people to submit to another 50 years in camps. And Lebanon will be putting a great deal of pressure to get all of them out. It may not succeed in getting all of them out. It may have— end with 25,000, 50,000 being absorbed into Lebanon. But where will the others go?

Speaker 5: Today there is palpable concern that Arafat has sold out the Palestinians of Swept them under the carpet as he builds his Palestinian state. Despairing of their own leader, Palestinians are looking elsewhere for help.

Speaker 4: I think the Arab peoples, who are much more honest and serious than their rulers, will rise in protest. There will be a lot of disturbance, a lot of violence in support of the Palestinian cause.

Speaker 5: Despite a close Lebanese eye on the camps, Arafat recently rearmed his Fatah movement in Lebanon. They sing the same songs that they sang when the PLO was a real fighting force in Lebanon. But no refugee believes any longer that young men like these can open the road to Palestine. They know that weapons in the camps are not the answer to their problems.

Salim al-Hosse: This is a matter that should be discussed at all levels. This is not Lebanon's preoccupation alone. This should be the preoccupation of the world community that was behind the creation of Israel and the Eviction of all these refugees outside Palestine.

Speaker 5: Children like these may never see Palestine without international pressure. It's been a long time since the Arab world was united on anything. The Arab street today is as quiet as the alleyways of Shatila, the future of the refugees as impenetrable as the air They breathe.