Mouna Ali Hussein

Above: Mouna Hussein. Photograph by Philip Reynaers.

I was in my house in Horch, I was 4 months pregnant and I had an 8-month-old son. We lived peacefully. We heard the Israeli aeroplanes flying intensively overhead, their noise got louder and then the shooting started. I took my son and I said to my husband, “I want to go to my parents’ house in the Western quarter.” We went, and while we were there, the shooting increased. We stayed with neighbours who had a ground floor 2-storey house. When the shelling got worse, we stayed inside. It was six o’clock. We closed the door and stayed inside. There were only women and children there, except for my husband and a young man. We heard people shouting outside, and the armed men saying, “don’t shoot, use the axe. If they hear shooting they will escape.’’ A bomb exploded near the house, and everyone started screaming. They heard us, and started shooting at us. We shouted even louder and a young man was killed in front of us as he was trying to put the candle out. They carried on shooting, and when they heard us they threw a bomb at us. A woman was injured, as was my mother. The bedroom became a river of blood. The soldiers started shouting at us, “Come out! If you don’t come out we will dynamite the house!” They insulted us. My mother opened the door, saying that she wanted to sacrifice herself. She saw ten armed men. She said to one of them, “Don’t kill us.” He replied, “Everyone out, get in a line.” One after the other we went out. I stayed with my husband and with my other son, and then we went out. They said to my husband, “Come here, you.” My husband was carrying our son, so he gave him to me. The armed man said to him, “Get back.” My husband thought he wanted his ID card. As he was backing away, they machine-gunned him down in front of me. He didn’t say a word; he fell. I waited for my turn. They insulted me. I followed my mother and my sister to the orphanage, and we fled. The children lived alone, their father didn’t have any brothers or close relatives. They had no one at their side. Other orphans will find an uncle, but my children have only me. God help us. My son, even at his age, really needs a father to help him, someone he can talk to about his problems. When you’re an only child, what a huge empty space that leaves.

Mrs Ali Hussein lost her husband and her brother-in-law.

The above text is an extract from the Complaint lodged in Belgium against Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Amos Yaron and other Israelis and Lebanese responsible for the massacre. The full text of the Complaint can be found in the section of this website titled The Case Against The Accused.

[The Sabra & Shatila Massacres]