Death of a firefighter: Reem Haddad witnessed the bombing of a power station by … warplanes and finds herself haunted by one particular death

New Internationalist, Sept, 1999 by Reem Haddad

LOOKING back I can't really remember which of the firefighters was Wissam Chaaban. They all looked so young and eager when I stepped back to let them pass into the blazing inferno inside the building. I remember debating whether I should sneak in after them. But the soldiers were forcefully preventing all reporters from entering the burning electricity power station.

Israeli warplanes had bombed the station less than an hour before as part of a wide-ranging series of air strikes against the country's infrastructural targets. The air strikes, the heaviest in three years, were in response to a rocket attack by Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas against northern Israel earlier in the day. The rocket assault, in turn, was retaliation for the wounding of six Lebanese civilians over the previous four days in Israeli artillery bombardments.

While the residents living around the power station were fleeing the area, we reporters were trying to draw nearer to see what was going on.

All I could think of at that point were the praises of a satisfied newspaper editor. I gave little thought to the firefighters passing by though I did stare at them-rather enviously.

`Now you reporters get out of here,' yelled an army officer. `We don't know what machinery could explode in there. It's too dangerous.'

Just as we were about to argue our case, the warplanes returned for another raid. A flash of light and an appallingly loud explosion scattered us. Amid screams, journalists and soldiers ran in panic trying to seek shelter. The next few minutes were pure chaos as cowering journalists stared at each other in fear and soldiers forced everyone to retreat even further.

It was only then that it suddenly hit us: where were the firefighters we had just let through into the building minutes before the bomb had hit?

As ambulances raced passed us, we all held our breath. Some firefighters, we were told, were badly burned but still alive. Others couldn't be reached.

Fear turned to outrage. It had been over an hour since the first Israeli air raid. The Israelis must have realized that the scene would be crawling with firefighters and reporters but they attacked the power plant again regardless.

But our anger was overshadowed at the thought of the young men burning inside. Sombrely, we waited for any news of them.

Five, it transpired, were killed. One of them was 22-year-old Wissam Chaaban, though it was only the next morning that I found out his name. It was his mother who informed me. Dishevelled and in bedroom slippers, she ran into the street calling his name in grief. My journalistic training of not getting emotionally involved completely left me. I was already involved. I was one of the last people to see her son alive. When I told her this, she clung to me and would not let go.

`Then you know how handsome he was, how wonderful, how perfect,' she said. `Of course you liked him, everybody did.'

I said he was wonderful and perfect.

`My son, my son,' she yelled as she ran towards the mosque where funeral prayers were under way. `I want to see him. Oh, God, how could you do this? He's only 22 years old. It's too early.'

Female relatives ran after her trying to hold her back. But she broke through and ran after the ambulance that carried his corpse.

`May God strike down the Israelis by sending them earthquakes,' she screamed.

Pushing aside relatives, she joined the hundreds of men walking behind firefighters carrying the coffin of her son. `I want to see him, I want to see my baby's face,' she yelled among chants of Allah u Akbar (God is greatest). But since Wissam's face was burned beyond recognition, her request was refused.

Turning to me, she tearfully demanded to know whether Wissam suffered. I told her that he died instantly and didn't feel a thing. Grateful, she held me close to her before meekly letting herself be led by relatives back to her house.

But it was another 22-year-old firefighter, Danny Abu Daher, swamped in bandages and lying in a hospital bed, who recounted Wissam's horrific death.

`There was a sudden explosion and I was thrown across to the other side and my clothes were completely torn off my body,' he recalled. `I looked up to see two of my friends knocked into the fire and burning. Israelis have firefighters in their own country. We were only there to put out the fire and protect the people. We don't even carry knives. Why do they do this to us?'

Reem Haddad is a reporter for the Daily Star in Beirut.