On Wednesday, 28  28 July 2021, the Ghassan Kanafani Brigade, the Samidoun delegation to Lebanon, spent its seventh day in Lebanon in the city of Saida, specifically in the Ain el-Helweh refugee camp.

Ain el-Helweh refugee camp is populated by 100,000 refugees, of which 90-95% are Palestinians. All of them are located in an area of 1 square kilometer. The camp was created in 1948/1949 to shelter all those Palestinians who were forcibly displaced from Palestine during the Zionist ethnic cleansing in 1948 (the Nakba). During the war in Lebanon, many other refugees from other camps, as well as Lebanese who had been displaced from their homes in the south, sought shelter in Ain el-Helweh, which has become the largest refugee camp in Lebanon.

The Samidoun delegation began its day in Ain el-Helweh with the coordinators of the “Nuwat – Social Solidarity Center Association.” This organization was created in 2004, mainly by young people. As its name suggests, “Nuwat” (“seed”) was born with the main objective of providing educational services to the new generations of Palestinian refugees in the camp. However, as time went by, it expanded the breadth of its activities to include health services, education, psychological support, sports, political training, media, training on international law and refugee issues, leadership training, etc.

The following programs are currently underway: a gymnasium for girls and sports activities; extracurricular reinforcement classes; alternative education programs to fill the gaps in the curriculum provided by UNRWA schools; psychological care, especially for women; recreational activities; bookstore and library; care and assistance for women in contexts of gender violence; courses for computer use; providing gas and other basic needs in the camps.

Between 2013 and 2018, the organization played a very important role also for Syrian refugees, just as they had in 2006 for Lebanese refugees fleeing from other areas of Lebanon, especially from the South. This was the first time that many Lebanese would have to come to Palestinian refugee camps.

Secondly, the delegation visited the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine office in Ain el-Helweh. This office is named after Abu Saleh al-Assadi, one of the founders of the Arab Nationalist Movement and later the Popular Front. Abu Saleh was a legendary figure of the Palestinian liberation movement, who repeatedly secretly passed through Zionist lines, from 1948 when he was forcibly exiled, until 1967, to be with his wife, who remained inside occupied Palestine.

He fought in the 1936-39 revolution in Palestine, defended Palestine in the Nakba; joined the organized Palestinian resistance from its earliest days; and fought back against the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Read this 1983 interview with Abu Saleh al-Assadi in the PFLP Bulletin (on page 20, English, 1983). 

The delegation met with Abu Ali Hamdan, the leader of the Front in the Saida region. He explained the role of the front in the camp as well as the role of weapons in the camp. Weapons are not shown and presented in offices and only used when necessary for the defense of the camp and confrontation of the enemy. In the office we were told about inspiring stories of strugglers and martyrs who overcame sectarian barriers to confront the enemy.

The brigade also visited the martyrs’ cemetery in the camp, visiting the gravesite of Abu Saleh al-Assadi and paying tribute to all those who laid down their lives to defend Palestine and the Palestinian people and struggle for liberation.

Next, delegates visited the shop of Abu Bayram, a Tunisian internationalist fighter for Palestine, who joined the armed wing of the Palestinian revolution and defended Beirut against Israeli invasion during the siege of the city in 1982. Abu Bayram lives steadfast in the camp, even after his son lost his life. Abu Bayram continues to live in the camp amongst the people and considers himself a Palestinian. He is yet another example of the Arab character of the Palestinian revolution and its broad international scope.

Finally, the delegation had a meeting in Al-Nidaa hospital (Human Call) with its executive director, Abu Atieh.

Al-Nidaa hospital was established in 1986 but became officially operational in 1988. There are many things that characterize and differentiate the Human Call Association, and one of them is that they openly recognize that they are an organization politically positioned on the left, unlike most of them that claim to be neutral. The Human Call Association was established in order to provide health care through a team of professionals in the field.

The hospital provides primary care services, inpatient facilities and admission wards and ICUs. Palestinian doctors working in the center are not allowed to work in the Lebanese hospitals and health centers, nor are they allowed to unionize, due to Lebanese labor law excluding Palestinians in registered professions. As Palestinians, they are only allowed to work in UNRWA or other specifically Palestinian centers. This is just one example of the many discriminatory laws and forbidden professions for Palestinians in Lebanon.

There is only one UNRWA hospital in Ain el-Helweh; further, it covers only 50% of the necessary medical services and does not provide services to undocumented people. It mainly provides primary care services, Mainly those related to primary care. More complex diseases and surgeries, including cancer, are not treated. The two private clinics in the camp are very expensive and only open from 9 am to 2 pm. Al-Nidaa however, is open to anyone for the price of 40,000 Lebanese lira (2 USD at the current unofficial exchange rate) per appointment.

Another essential characteristic of Al-Nidaa, which is part of the historical and political context in which it has been developing, is that it not only works in the health sector, but also provides services for Palestinian children. In the last year, Al-Nidaa has carried out three projects focused on consolidating the awareness and active political role of young Palestinian refugees. They brought together 2,000 young people from different social, family and political backgrounds in a program that aimed to strengthen the bonds for a healthy community and prevent them from falling into violence and idleness in the streets.

This project included all kinds of training, especially those related to human rights, the environment and a specific course on humanitarian and international law for Palestinian refugees. At the end of the course, a large conference was held to evaluate and continue the project in the long term.

Al-Nidaa hospital and Human Call Association represent not only a specific infrastructure that provides the necessary services to maintain optimal health in the camp; it also represents a project that goes beyond the limits of mere humanitarianism to become a political idea that seeks to elevate the Palestinian struggle on the political agenda. That is why they consider it essential to strengthen relations and collaboration with other leftist organizations at Palestinian, Arab and international levels to press and raise the issue of the liberation of Palestine and the return of the refugees to an ever higher level.

• Read the Day 6 Report: Samidoun Delegation to Lebanon Day 6: Borders of occupied Palestine, Khiam prison and Mleeta resistance landmark
• Read the Day 5 Report: Samidoun Delegation to Lebanon Day 5: With the Democratic Popular Party in Saida
• Read the Day 4 Report: Day 4 of the Samidoun delegation to Lebanon: Ghassan Kanafani Brigade at the Al Naqab Center
• Read the Day 3 Report: Samidoun Delegation to Lebanon Day 3: Generations of struggle for return and liberation
• Read the Day 2 Report: Samidoun Delegation to Lebanon Day 2: Political and cultural discussions at Mar Elias camp
• Read the Day 1 Report: Samidoun delegation to Lebanon begins: Visit to Shatila camp, meeting with boycott campaign

The delegation will proceed throughout the coming days, with ongoing reports of the delegation’s meetings and work throughout Lebanon. You can also follow the progress of the delegation on Samidoun Stockholm’s social media (@samidoun08), Collectif Palestine Vaincra (@collectifpalestinevaincra) and Samidoun Spain (@samidoun.esp).

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The delegation is self-funded by Samidoun Network and the participants taking part in the delegation and its meetings. However, the delegation also aims to support organizing and build resources in the Palestinian refugee camps and throughout Lebanon, which is currently experiencing an extreme financial crisis, the greatest burden of which is falling on the most marginalized.

Your contribution can help the delegation to support the work of grassroots organizers in the Palestinian refugee camps to sustain and build their work as well as launching new centers for organizing for liberation and return for Palestine. Make your donation below to support this important initiative. 

Click here to make a donation.

The sixth day of the Ghassan Kanafani Brigade, the Samidoun delegation to Lebanon, began with a trip to Maroun al-Ras, on the border with occupied Palestine. The delegation traveled with members of the Global Campaign to Return to Palestine, an international campaign founded in 2013 headquartered in Lebanon to defend and promote Palestinian refugees’ inalienable right to return to their homeland. Samidoun, member organizations and allied groups, including Collectif Palestine Vaincra and Alkarama Palestinian Women’s Mobilization, have participated widely in many campaigns and actions of the Global Campaign over the years.

At Maroun al-Ras, the delegates overlooked occupied Palestine and the homes of the settlers. It was a powerfully emotional moment for the delegation, especially its Palestinian members displaced from their homeland and living in exile.

Next, the delegation traveled to visit the park in Adaisa village, dedicated to the families of the martyrs who were slain as they tried to return to Palestine, crossing the border. The Global Campaign to Return to Palestine plants a tree in the park for each of the martyrs, to honor their memory and pledge to continue to move forward towards return and liberation for Palestine.

The brigade then visited Khiam prison, the former detention center that has been converted into a museum to honor the prisoners of the Lebanese resistance jailed by the Israeli occupation. The Khiam prison was founded in 1933 by the French colonial mandate in Lebanon before being taken over by the Lebanese Army in 1943 to become a military base. After the Zionist invasion of the southern part of Lebanon in 1982, the prison was taken over by the “South Lebanon Army,” the proxy militia of collaborators with Israeli occupation.

In 1985, Khiam was turned into a prison camp where thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese were detained and brutally tortured. Khiam became notorious internationally for the severe torture to which the detainees were subjected.

Following the liberation of the south of Lebanon in 2000, the torturers of the SLA followed their Israeli occupation sponsors into occupied Palestine, fleeing justice. The detention center was closed and converted to a museum.

In 2006, the majority of the Khiam prison was destroyed when the museum was targeted by the Israeli military for aerial bombing in their attack on Lebanon, destroying not only much of the prison but also evidence of Israeli crimes against humanity.

The remaining parts of Khiam prison have remained a museum, and prison cells and small metal cages used as a method of torture are still standing at the center.

The delegation was led through Khiam by Abu Ali, a former detainee who spent four years held there under the SLA and the Israeli occupation.

He spoke about his experience and those of his fellow detainees, and delegation members shared their work to liberate Palestinian and Arab prisoners from Zionist jails and their messages of solidarity.

The brigade ended the day with a tour of the Mleeta Resistance Landmark. This museum and center for resistance tourism was opened on 25 May 2010, the 10th anniversary of the liberation of southern Lebanon in 2000.

In Mleeta, delegates were shown the museum of resistance, including tanks, machinery and items left behind by the Israeli occupation army as well as commemorating the heroism of the resistance and the sacrifice of the martyrs to liberate the south of Lebanon.

On the fifth day of the Ghassan Kanafani Brigade, the Samidoun international delegation in Lebanon, the delegation met with the Popular Democratic Party in Saida, Lebanon, incuding the General Secretary, Mohammed Hashisho and Coordinator, Rita Hamdan.

The Democratic Popular Party is a historic Lebanese Marxist-Leninist political party which was actively involved in the armed Palestinian resistance, both in the south of Lebanon and in organizing in the cities. Being a Palestinian and Lebanese political party, they consider the cause of Palestine their own and central to the communist struggle within Lebanon.

The Party and the delegation engaged in discussions on a wide variety of topics. The Party operates a People’s Kitchen which provides free hot meals to eight hundred people in need each day and health clinic that serve the community in Saida city.

The Democratic Popular Party shared with the delegation their history of active participation in armed struggle against the Zionist state from inside Lebanon. The party recognizes the importance and necessity of encouraging and supporting all forms of struggle aimed at the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea.

Another of the fundamental premises on the basis of which the Party operates is the rejection of any solution that does not seek to decolonize all of Palestine, so they position themselves categorically against the Oslo Accords. They view the Oslo Accords as aiming to close the possibility of confrontation and Palestinian resistance both inside and outside Palestine (Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Syria) while at the same time opening the door to Zionist and U.S. imperialism, using occupied Palestine as its center of military operations and its neo-liberal experiment in the region.

The role of the Democratic Popular Party was fundamental during the Lebanese “civil war” in the protection of the popular classes and the Palestinian resistance. They have historically worked in coordination with Palestinians inside Palestine, but also with Palestinians in Lebanon, as well as with other internationalist causes struggling for liberation. That is why they are part of other projects, such as the campaign for the release of Cuban prisoners in U.S. jails or the campaign for the release of George Ibrahim Abdallah. In the same way they play a role in the formation of the Alternative Palestinian Path (Masar Badil) and its local committee in Lebanon.

The role of the Palestinian resistance has gone through three different stages (being at this moment centered inside Palestine and especially in Gaza). The Democratic Popular Party focuses its efforts on generating the optimal objective conditions to consolidate the resistance to overthrow Zionism in a coordinated manner.

The Party also mentioned to the delegation as a fundamental point the creation of an international Arab force that breaks with the years of normalization with Zionism and undertakes a social and economic war against imperialism, whose spearhead is Zionism.

In relation to the current state of the Palestinian liberation movement, the Party believes on re-establishing Palestinian armed struggle outside of Palestine in unity with the resistance inside Palestine. It considers this aspect crucial to the success of the project which is the liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea. The Party has unwaveringly stood for this political line.

The Samidoun delegation also presented their political work and perspectives to the Democratic Popular Party organizers, speaking about Samidoun’s history, formation, membership and chapter-building activities in Europe, Palestine, North America and internationally. Each country presented on their work, with members of the Collectif Palestine Vaincra in France speaking about their work to liberate Georges Abdallah and to organize among the left, Palestinian and Arab communities, and other marginalized groups; Samidoun Netherlands spoke about their work to strengthen the ties between the people’s struggle in the Philippines and the Palestine liberation movement as well as to develop resources and study centers for Palestine.

Samidoun Spain spoke about their work with the United Left to push for a broader support for Palestinians’ right to return and right to resist, and for the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea, as well as the work in the European Parliament to stand for Palestine and confront anti-Palestinian repression in Europe, such as the political ban imposed on Palestinian writer Khaled Barakat in Germany. The comrades from Samidoun Stockholm and Malmo in Sweden spoke about their work with antifascist groups and the Kurdish movement as well as their efforts to rebuild an anti-imperialist front, which has been particularly devastated in the past 20 years.

Finally, the delegation discussed with the party the situation of political, social and economic crisis engulfing Lebanon. Their analysis of the Lebanese regime is that it is a fundamentally unproductive economy, without any industry or agriculture, depending mostly on the financial sector. This situation is being maintained by the comprador state, which serves the interests of US imperialism instead of the popular and poor classes in Lebanon. Lebanon’s current economic and political crisis is a clear reflection of this, and the crises will worsen unless there is a revolutionary change.

For our comrades, this crisis is neither sporadic nor accidental, but is part of a concrete form of political organization. The Lebanese political system, direct heir of French colonialism, is fundamentally based on financial speculation and the destruction of the national productive system and, while the neo-liberal economic forces have dragged the country into misery, the hegemonic Lebanese left has not been able to give an adequate alternative to the people.

This crisis especially affects the Palestinians living in the refugee camps in Lebanon, who are under siege both by the Lebanese army, by the Lebanese reactionary forces, and also by some Palestinian parties, notably the Palestinian Authority. Therefore, it is essential that the true Lebanese revolutionary left is able to create a strong alternative that prevents the above mentioned forces from using the situation of misery brought by the crisis to make the Palestinian community dependent on them.

The Party has good relations with all organizations which practice resistance against Zionism and US imperialism, inside and outside of Palestine and Lebanon. While the liberation of Palestine is its central goal, it practices this alongside anti-sectarian revolutionary struggle in Lebanon and proletarian internationalism.

The delegation also visited the memorial for the martyr Maarouf Saad, the assassinated Lebanese political leader in Saida, Nasserist and strong supporter of Palestine. Saad was assassinated in 1975 as he led general strikes in Saida against the attempt of a corporation to monopolize fishing and destroy the union organization among the fishers.

• Read the Day 4 Report: Day 4 of the Samidoun delegation to Lebanon: Ghassan Kanafani Brigade at the Al Naqab Center
• Read the Day 3 Report: Samidoun Delegation to Lebanon Day 3: Generations of struggle for return and liberation
• Read the Day 2 Report: Samidoun Delegation to Lebanon Day 2: Political and cultural discussions at Mar Elias camp
• Read the Day 1 Report: Samidoun delegation to Lebanon begins: Visit to Shatila camp, meeting with boycott campaign

The delegation will proceed throughout the coming days, with ongoing reports of the delegation’s meetings and work throughout Lebanon. You can also follow the progress of the delegation on Samidoun Stockholm’s social media (@samidoun08), Collectif Palestine Vaincra (@collectifpalestinevaincra) and Samidoun Spain (@samidoun.esp).

**

The delegation is self-funded by Samidoun Network and the participants taking part in the delegation and its meetings. However, the delegation also aims to support organizing and build resources in the Palestinian refugee camps and throughout Lebanon, which is currently experiencing an extreme financial crisis, the greatest burden of which is falling on the most marginalized.

Your contribution can help the delegation to support the work of grassroots organizers in the Palestinian refugee camps to sustain and build their work as well as launching new centers for organizing for liberation and return for Palestine. Make your donation below to support this important initiative. 

Click here to make a donation.