Palestinian children play amid the bombed-out rubble of their refugee camp on the outskirts of Beirut, Lebanon.
Palestinian children play amid the bombed-out rubble of their refugee camp on the outskirts of Beirut, Lebanon.
The poorest of the poor in Lebanon are the Palestinians. Many are refugees, their families having been displaced in 1948. Over 50 years later, they continue to live in squalid camps that their parents and grandparents lived in. On one trip to Beirut, I met a Palestinian photographer, Hussein, in a Beirut bar dedicated to Che Guevara. Hussein and others I'd met agreed to take me where I wanted to go; Chatila, a Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut.
Some wondered why I, as a "tourist" would want to go there. I explained that I felt pulled to go. But the misery is unbearable, they said. A few days later, Hussein, several others, and I drove into the mire that is Chatila.
Hussein led us through alleys where children played. These alleyways saw hundreds of its residents massacred in 1982, during the Lebanese civil war.
The way was claustrophobic; only about 5 feet wide. Most buildings wore an irregular tattoo pattern of bullet holes, their chaotic pattern occasionally broken by huge holes caused by rocket-propelled grenades. Runny-nosed children sat on the damp steps of the dwellings, greeting me by enthusiastically shouting "musawer!" which I later learned means "photographer."
The photos on this webpage have never been published. I don't know of any answer to the Palestinian problem. I don't know how the Israelis and the Palestinians can learn to co-exist. But I hope that they learn how to. Because no child should have to grow up in the conditions that I saw in this camp.
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©1998 Billy Calzada