Red Cross volunteers tell horrific tale of Israeli bombs
By RICHARD PENDLEBURY, Daily Mail
22:01pm 24th July 2006
If it was not the most crass of accidents then there is no way of describing what happened in Kana other than a cold blooded war crime.
Yesterday they were sluicing out the blood from the surviving ambulances at Tyre's Red Cross headquarters, a daily ritual in this war stricken town.
But this morning was different. Beside the vehicles a stretcher with a shrapnel hole through its canvas lay in the gutter and on a nearby table sat a white helmet, bearing the Red Cross symbol. It had been hit by at least a dozen missile splinters.
Somewhere, out in the bomb ravaged countryside, were the mangled remains of two of the organisation's ambulance fleet. For the time being at least the survivors would not be venturing outside Tyre.
Over the past 13 days the roads of southern Lebanon have been a free fire zone for the Israeli air force, whose indiscriminate air strikes have killed and wounded hundreds of civilians fleeing the fighting.
Now it seems the Israelis are targeting the emergency services who are sent out to rescue the victims. The Red Cross and purely humanitarian aims are no protection any more here.
Late on Sunday night in a small town near Tyre Israeli warplanes attacked and destroyed two ambulances as wounded were being transferred between them.
Yesterday I saw the tragic aftermath; three generations of one family horrifically injured and six volunteer Red Cross paramedics and drivers - the bravest of the brave in this war - put out of action with shrapnel wounds.
In the Jabal Amel hospital 14 year old Mohammed Fawaz was lying in a shallow coma, attached to a monitor, a catheter and a drip with a tube protruding from one nostril.
He had a serious head injury and a broken shoulder. One could see that two of the toes on his left foot were missing.
In a ward on the floor above, his father Ahmed Fawaz was feebly moving his right arm, though apparently unconcious. His right leg was missing above the knee, his left severely fractured and he had a wound in his right side. "He has lost a lot of blood and is in a critical condition," explained nurse Ismail Said.
A few yards down the same corridor Mr Fawaz's 80 year old mother was less seriously injured and concious but weeping in her bed. "The Israelis hit our house,' she kept repeating.
And yet their serious injuries were not sustained when their home in the town of Tibnin was destroyed by the first of the missiles that night.
"We got the call from our operations room at about 10pm," explained Red Cross volunteer Kassem Shaalan, 28, who in 'peacetime' works for a mine clearance charity as a medical co-ordinator. He was lying in another ward, next to colleague Hamed Hassan, his cut and burned face swathed in bandage.
"We were told to drive to Kana, where we would meet an ambulance arriving from Tibnin, transfer the three casualties it was carrying and return them to Tyre."
He said it was dark but the ambulance, clearly marked with large red crosses, was using its blue flashing lights and the Red Cross symbol on its roof was illuminated. "There is no way they could not see what we were," he claimed.
They sped through the night and made the rendevous in the centre of Kana, next to a memorial to the victims of a previous Israeli war. "We always stop in an open area so the Israelis can see what we are," said Mr Shaalan.
It seemed quite straightforward, although they could hear planes overhead. "None of the casualties were seriously hurt," said Mr Shaalan. "They had minor shrapnel wounds and were easy to move."
Mohammed and Mr Fawaz were transferred from the Tibnin ambulance to the Tyre vehicle and Mrs Fawaz was being secured in a chair in the back by 25 year old volunteer paramedic Nader Joudi who normally runs a record shop and likes heavy metal music.
"I was standing outside the ambulance," said Mr Shaalan. "We had been stopped two or three minutes when the first missile hit."
It tore through the roof and exploded in the back, blowing off Mr Fawaz's leg and inflicting the other serious injuries I saw in the hospital.
Mr Hassan was wearing the helmet which was peppered with shrapnel. It probably saved his life.
"A big fire came out of the ambulance," said Mr Shaalan. The crew of the Tibnin ambulance tried to call for help over their radio and almost immediately their vehicle was hit as well.
Missiles began to fall around them. The wounded Red Cross crews managed to pull the boy and his grandmother out of the wreckage, but Mr Fawaz had to be abandoned because of the continuing airstrikes.
"We took cover in the cellar of a nearby house," said Mr Shaalan. "There was no light, it was totally dark and we had to treat ourselves by touch alone, feeling for wounds.
"We tried to treat the boy, who was crying and calling for his mother. But we had no equipment. I took off my shirt and used it as a bandage. We could hear the man screaming in the ambulance still."
They used a mobile phone to summon help but had to remain for 90 minutes in that cellar, wounded and terrified, until, they said, the International Red Cross managed to arrange a ceasefire so that they could be taken back to Tyre.
"I do not think it was a mistake,' said Mr Shaalan. "We do not understand. Why the Red Cross?
"You know the rules which cover the Red Cross. It was a war crime."
Tyre's four remaining ambulances are now limiting their work to the town itself; the roads are just too unsafe, even though people are being wounded every day and need their help.
"I will get out of my bed later today and go back to work," said Mr Shalaan. "If I don't do it, who will?"
In the great scheme of Lebanon's bloodshed this was a footnote. But yet another line has been crossed by the Israelis in their desire for retribution. Sometimes such incidents can be the tipping point for international action.
Maybe what has happened to the ambulances of Tyre will convince Condoleezza Rice of the need for an immediate ceasefire, not just rhetoric.
