A
story of courage and heroism during the war in Lebanon in the
summer of 2006. In spite of shelling and extreme fatigue, an
aging lady never gave up on getting her wounded husband to hospital.
She carried her 80-year-old husband on her back at times and
dragged him for a while. Then, Hajjah Sahrifah, 64 years old,
used a wheelbarrow to get him to hospital when she could not
carry the old man any more. But, she never let go of him.
Despite heavy and terrifying Israeli shelling during the course
of the 15-kilometre trip from Tabnin to Aitaroun that lasted
for 13 days, the thought of leaving him somewhere on the road
did not even cross her mind. Her husband was hit by shrapnel,
but she never gave up. She took him to Aitaroun Hospital for
treatment.
How did she save their lives? How did the Lebanese Red Cross
help? This is the story, as told by the couple at their home
after the cessation of hostilities.
Terrified by the heavy bombing of their village, Tabnin, all
of Sharifah’s adult children fled to safer areas with
their families. But 80-year-old Haj Ali Mahmoud Al-Akhras, the
husband, would not heed their calls to leave the village.
But when 12 members of his family, including two brothers and
10 cousins died during a later bombing campaign, he had no choice
but to leave, especially “after the Israelis told us to
do so through leaflets”, according to Sharifah. Her 40-year-old
paralyzed daughter was with them when the exhausting trek began.
“What made leaving so difficult is that Haj Ali did not
want to leave”, explained Shrifah. “We could not
leave our daughter behind, and there was no transport of any
kind in the region”. They travelled to a vocational school,
3 kilometres away, where they came under heavy shelling and
were forced to hide for five days.
“We left our daughter with relatives and began walking
to Bint Jbail (the largest town in the area),” Sharifa
said, wiping a tear, “But Haj Ali was hit by shrapnel
on the way when the Israelis began shelling Beit Yahoon.”
Haj Ali asked his wife to leave him on the side of the road
and continue her trip; he was now unable to move due to injuries
sustained on different parts of his emaciated body. “Who
would care for him,” Sharifah wondered, before saying
jokingly: “Although he can be a pain, I could not leave
him.”
She looked for someone to help her. But, no one was in the area.
(An estimated one million people left South Lebanon during the
35-day-long war). “I had heard that a donkey was available
in one of the houses of the village,” said Sharifah. When
she found no one and no donkey, Sharifah carried her husband
on her back. His feet were dragging on the ground. “He
was too heavy for me,” she explained.
Then, to her relief, she found a wheelbarrow in a nearby house.
She was very tired by now and could not carry him to place him
in the wheelbarrow.
“I tilted the wheelbarrow on its side and placed it on
the ground and began rolling him in it,” Sharifah said,
laughing. The wheelbarrow fell on the other side as she tried
to set it upright and move ahead. “I tried once more,
the wheelbarrow began to wobble and I staggered on my way to
the house of Abu Hussein Hmoud.”
Hussein Hmoud, the son of Abu Hussein, is a volunteer with the
Lebanese Red Cross. Sharifah knew that from people she met during
her journey. Abu Hussein called his son who came to the rescue
in an ambulance and took Haj Mahmoud for treatment.
“We died many times on the road,” says Haj Mahmoud,
now back home in Tabnin with his wife and daughter. “I
have seen things never experienced since the Turkish War.”
“The strange thing,” commented Ali Sa’ad,
a Lebanese Red Cross volunteer who is in charge of the dissemination
programme and also heads the Byblos Bank in Bint Jbail, is that:
“Hajah Sharifah had a major operation to get rid of stomach
cancer nearly four years ago. She came to the Bank to release
her account to her son because she was in grave condition.”
She survived. Maybe to prove that life with her husband was
worthwhile.
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Haj
Ali Mahmoud Al-Akhras (on the right) who was hit by shrapnel
on the way when the Israelis began shelling Beit Yahoon
and Hajjah Sahrifah (on the left), his wife, who never
gave up on getting him to hospital. (p15347)
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Hussein
Hmoud, a volunteer with the Lebanese Red Cross, who came
to the rescue in an ambulance and took Haj Mahmoud for
treatment. (p15344)
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“We
died many times on the road,” says Haj Mahmoud,
now back home in Tabnin with his wife and daughter. “I
have seen things never experienced since the Turkish War.”
(p15345)
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