Mohammed Sami- Canada Sent us the link of this story, the main source of the story is www.samidoun.org

“I lost four of my children, who all of them were like the Moon…”

“I lost Ahmad, Aboud, Raghda, and Ibrahim when Maslakh Ally fell in 1982”, said Maqbola and added that they were children when the Israeli Army entered Beirut.

Ahmad, Raghda, and Ibrahim martyred as a result of non-stop [Israeli] artillery, while Aboud’s death is a different story. Due to the very bad economical status as a result of the general invasion in 1982, Aboud [13 year old then] during spring season, decided to help his family by searching for copper on roads and garbage piles in order to sell them for money. Fate decided that Aboud thinks a strange object was copper, but that alien object exploded and split his body.

Maqbola, who is of Turkish origin and at her 5th decade, came to Lebanon when she was eleven to follow her brothers who came two years earlier. She came to Lebanon because of pre-arranged marriage fixed by her family, to Omar, who is also of Turkish Origin, and came two years earlier as well. She married Omar, and they lived in Maslakh region, next to Oza’ai, and they brought twelve children. Four of them died during the Israeli invasion of Beirut, while eight remained: Mona and Fatima (currently live in Basta), Khodra lives in Beer al-Abed in Dahhieh (Southern Suburbs), and currently a refugee in Sanayeh gardens. As for Meriam, she lives in Maslakh alley, but currently a refugee living at her sisters’ place in Basta. Nora lives in Syria, while Ismail, Hamza, and Faraj live in Germany. 
When I asked Maqbola regarding her phone calls with her children to push away their worries about her situation and the situations of Khodra and Mariam (the two who also became refugees), she answered that she could not call neither of her sons who live in Germany, nor Nora who is present in Syria. At this moment, she approaches me in a manner of revealing secret information, and whispers: “My child, they want
Syria, the United States want Syria, I know”. She was also aware that at these moments the telephone lines are cut through out the region, she adds: “I can’t talk with Nora because there is pressure on Syria.”

Maqbola has plenty of grandchildren. If we counted only Khodra’s children that are present in the garden, we will find around us 10 children, and Maqbola can’t remember all her grandchildren’s name, but she loves them all. Ali (age 11) and Bassim (Age 13) were lying down on their grandmother’s lap, when Omar sat on a tiny piece of carton and attempted to avoid listening to our conversation. Omar turned sideways when we started talking, and placed his head under a pillow to confirm that he does not desire to listen. When I asked Bassem on what happened to Omar, he replied that his mother Khodra today went to the house in Southern Dahhieh in Beirut to bring some clothes and stuff, while currently they [the Israelis] are bombing that area; so Omar is afraid and he does not want to hear anything till his mother returns safely from there.

I spoke for a short moment with Bassem and asked him: “Why Israel is waging this war?”, and he replied in a strict tone: “Because Israel wants to hit Hezbollah for capturing two of its soldiers.” I asked him again: “And why did Hezbollah capture them, Bassem?” He replied: “Because we too have prisoners in Israel and we want them back.” At that moment of the discussion, Maqbola intervenes and explains to me that the Lebanese prisoners in Israel are like her sons, and she sympathizes with Umm Samir (Samir el Quntar’s mother) by putting herself in her shoes.

Maqbola, her daughter, and her 10 grandchildren have been sleeping in two carton boxes for the past five days. Maqbola lost four of her children in the Israeli invasion back in 1982, and the smile would never leave her…