Stranger in My Own Land by Fida Jiryis

Author:Fida Jiryis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: C. Hurst & Co. (Publishers) Ltd
Published: 2022-09-23T00:00:00+00:00

On Saturday, 5 February 1983, at 2:00 pm, my mother was leaving work with a group of other employees. They held the elevator and she asked my father if he was coming. He told her to go ahead and that he would leave later.

No one anticipated the force of the attack that took place. As the employees were coming out, a car carrying explosives equivalent to 550 pounds of dynamite exploded outside, setting the building on fire and blowing the windows out of nearby apartments. The explosion’s force covered a 500-yard circle; it tore the facades off the stores along the street and shook buildings throughout the heart of West Beirut. Pedestrians and drivers nearby were engulfed by the blast.

The employees on the upper floors heard no sound. All they saw was a bright blue light, flying glass and falling walls. It took them several minutes to realize that there had been an explosion and that they had to find their way out. They were surrounded by raging fires. As dense black smoke billowed from the Center, they gathered by windows and balconies, screaming for help. Women waved their scarves frantically on the balconies to attract attention. A few people slid down a drainpipe onto the shoulders of Lebanese Army soldiers, and some jumped into a nearby tree in desperation. Others held on until the fire engines arrived, twenty-five minutes later, with ladders and rope. The smoke was suffocating, and by the time survivors jumped to the bottom floors, the scene was a horrific one of blood, bodies, water hoses, and ambulances carrying charred corpses. Amidst this, my father stood, holding himself together and giving short instructions. In his office, all the doors had caved in, landing in front of him and around him, but none had hit him. He got out covered in dust and soot.

Soad Hayek, our neighbor, lost one of her legs, whimpering pitifully in the midst of the terrible destruction. The horror around her made the ambulance teams feel her case could wait. Relatives of the dead and missing rushed to the street, wailing and wrestling with policemen to get into the wrecked buildings. Horribly disfigured bodies were pried from the debris. Several people were trapped inside an elevator in the Center and died of smoke inhalation. Dozens of people were wounded. Survivors, blood dripping down their faces, staggered about in shock.

French paratroopers serving with the multinational force helped the Lebanese police try to bring order to the scene, which was horrifying even in war-torn Beirut.21 Bloodstained glass and clothing covered the streets. Fragments of charred papers from the Center were blown into the air and fluttered back down to the street for an hour after the blast.

My father went to the American University Hospital, where the ambulances had taken the dead. When he walked into the lobby, he saw my mother, lying on a stretcher.

She had lost her life.

VIII

After leaving the building, my mother had stopped at a grocery shop down the street to buy sweets for us.

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