YP Letters: Face to face with suffering in refugee camps

From: Heather Stroud, Gilling East.
World leaders meeting at the United Nations last week, but will there be any end to the suffering in the Middle East?World leaders meeting at the United Nations last week, but will there be any end to the suffering in the Middle East?
World leaders meeting at the United Nations last week, but will there be any end to the suffering in the Middle East?

DURING the past week, I have been visiting Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon – Shatilla, Bourj AlBarajineh, Naher ElBarad, and Rashidieh.

Besides meeting with various Palestinian leaders including the Ambassador, I visited Wavel Camp in Baalbek, the Bekka Valley. I also attended the commemoration of the 1982 massacre of Sabra Shatilla.

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While in Wavel Camp I met a Palestinian woman with three small children.

She had escaped from Yarmouk Camp in Syria after it was taken over by Islamic State (paid mercenaries). Both she and her children have only ever known suffering. I couldn’t even assure her that her, or her children’s suffering, will end soon. Maybe like her grandparents, her parents and her husband, their suffering will only end at the time of their death.

I’m truly lost for words. How is it possible we can celebrate a situation that has led to such atrocities? I weep for the Palestinians, for the Lebanese.

I weep for my own countrymen because of the disgrace brought upon us by a government that only sees what it wants. I weep for the ordinary Jewish people who feel tainted by these crimes that are committed in their name.

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