Word: zaatar
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...Fully 85,000 Lebanese and Palestinians in Lebanon are homeless, and there is little hope of finding space before winter winds and rain begin next month. Damour, twelve miles south of Beirut, was once an affluent community of 10,000 Christians. Palestinians from the ruined refugee camp of Tel Zaatar, the scene of some of Beirut's bloodiest fighting, now live in Damour's bombed-out, windowless buildings, existing on a single loaf of bread a day. 'We have to scrounge for anything else to eat,' complained...
Even in the best of times, the refugee camp at Tel Zaatar, meaning Hill of Thyme, was a terrible place to live. An island of sweltering poverty not far from the high-rises of Beirut's Christian merchants, it had no modern plumbing, and water had to be drawn from wells and carried by hand to the tin-roofed shacks where the refugees lived...
...original Palestinian refugees in the camp-both Christians and Moslems-came from villages along the border of what is now northern Israel. They settled at Tel Zaatar in 1950. Later they were joined by impoverished Lebanese from areas of South Lebanon devastated by Israeli attacks. The flow of refugees eventually swelled to a crushing total of 30,000. At Tel Zaatar they provided a cheap labor force for the Christian-owned factories in the area. For most, it was a sweatshop existence in airless rooms where they rolled tobacco or cut cloth or finished dresses...
...Phalangists going back to 1969. Eventually the encircled Palestinians began stockpiling arms, food, medicine, ammunition. At the same time, they built underground shelters that were to prove the backbone of resistance. On June 22, as the civil war grew fiercer, the Christian rightists launched a major offensive against Tel Zaatar and its sister camp, Jisr Basha, which fell a week later...
That the Palestinians managed to hold out as long as they did was something of a miracle. TIME'S Dean Brelis cabled: "Overlooking Tel Zaatar from the Christian headquarters, I could not see how anyone remained alive in the camp. The Christians had every kind of artillery piece from 75-mm. howitzers to 155-mm. heavies. The arsenal of machine guns ripped into the fragile tin-roofed shelters of Tel Zaatar with the thundering force of an avalanche. Later, talking to Jean Hoefliger, chief of the International Red Cross, who had just gone into the camp to help...