Tough homecoming for Lebanon's refugees

In Mahmoud's home, sacks of stored flour, rice, and sugar were sliced open with knives or bayonets and spilled onto the floor. Two rooms were set on fire, the walls and ceiling streaked with black lines from the flammable liquid thought to have started the blaze.

"We had one television smashed and one stolen, three radios stolen, and $8,000 in cash stolen," says Mahmoud. "The soldiers wrote us a note saying that the money was for them not us."

Last week, the human rights watchdog Amnesty International called on the Lebanese government to launch an inquiry into the alleged arson and looting.

In response, the Lebanese government said in a statement that it "does not accept at all any violation of the law or human rights, especially against our Palestinian refugee brothers."

A spokesman at the Lebanese Ministry of Defense declined to comment, saying it was an internal military issue.

The allegations have gained little traction in the Lebanese media. The army won considerable praise and respect and boosted national pride during the bloody campaign against Fatah al-Islam, and its image of sacrifice and nobility risks being tarnished by the airing of reputed misdeeds in Nahr al-Bared.

A senior Lebanese army officer said that soldiers had little choice but to adopt tough measures against the militants.

"The terrorists booby-trapped entire buildings with explosives. They had to be set on fire to safely detonate bombs. This was a very tough enemy we were fighting," the officer says.

All that is of little consequence to the returning Palestinians. It took two weeks for Abu Tawfiq and his family of 12 to clear the rubble from the ruins of his home. One outer wall and several internal walls were blasted away during the fighting. There is no running water, no electricity, and no sanitation, forcing refugees to defecate into plastic bags.

"We are going to put up a tent inside our home for the winter," Abu Tawfiq says.

Summer clothes in winter

Most Palestinians had fled the fighting dressed in light summer clothes.

With their household goods destroyed, many continue to wear T-shirts and shorts despite the freezing rain, sloshing through ankle-deep mud in flip-flops.

Medics report increased cases of diarrhea, infections from cuts, chest and stomach problems, and even a few cases of dysentery.

"No socks, no jackets, no shoes, they are living in houses with no doors or windows. The situation is very bad and if it stays like this it will become a catastrophe," says Ahmad Tayyar, who runs a makeshift clinic in an abandoned house.

Yet, despite the miserable circumstances, seven young brides and grooms were married on Friday, a chance for the Palestinians to briefly forget their woes and celebrate instead. Gathered in a reception hall, guests and children dressed as clowns danced and clapped to the beat of drums, ignoring the icy drip of rainwater seeping in through the shrapnel holes in the roof.

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