By Hadi Abdullah
هادي العبدالله
The following is an excerpt from Hadi Abdullah’s forthcoming memoir, translated from Arabic by Alessandro Columbu. Posted with permission from the translator and the author.
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A stranger in our homes
The day al-Qusair became one big military camp, its revolutionaries had no choice but to pick up weapons to defend themselves as its neighbourhoods were being separated from one another and the city became segregated from its orchards. The checkpoints mushroomed around the city in an attempt to suffocate it, but that had the opposite effect of swelling the ranks of the revolution and of galvanising the morale of its men… the shackles were certain to be broken now that the patience (and perseverance) had taken root…
Tarad and I were covering the battles for the media in those days. The revolutionaries started trying to rid the area of the regime’s suffocating grip by taking control first of the checkpoints that separated different areas of the city, then of those that kept the city shut off from its countryside, which required an enormous military effort. Despite the magnitude of the task, the revolutionaries did it.
Then it was the villages’ turn. The revolutionaries set off, galvanised as they were by the recent success, and captured the checkpoints and the military barracks in the villages around al-Qusair as well as the ones in al-Tell and the artillery battalion in al-Qusair’s countryside. Then they set their sights on the al-Dab‘a military airport and captured it too. Ultimately, they aimed at capturing Homs with their artillery and liberating it. They followed their plans like clockwork, the more so since they were getting their hands on more heavy weaponry and tanks as they captured more and more territory. When the time came, they set their hearts on Homs and prepared for the showdown. One single military unit separated them from their objective, its name was Rahba Qattina. They figured that this would be their final obstacle before they could put an end to the siege of Homs. The civilians started preparing for the big day, while revolutionaries planned the liberation.
They headed north like one big human river, “God be on our side” was their weapon. It was not going to take them very long to finish their job since all their military equipment was concentrated on one single objective: Rahba Qattina. In the meantime, the Assad regime was losing its grip on all its checkpoints as well as on valuable military equipment. All predictions pointed in the direction of another victory for the revolutionaries, except this time their feat was going to be a much bigger one: the city of Homs. The regime wasn’t sitting on his hands and, out of despair to be saved, they sought the support of the Lebanese Hezbollah from the south and from the west.
Hezbollah started moving towards the villages around al-Qusair, which exerted a great deal of pressure on the revolutionaries. They encircled them from behind forcing them to temporarily give up on Homs and return to protect and retake the liberated territories from the grip of the Party of God. The fighting was fierce fighting and the battle raged with great ardour, with both sides claiming to be fighting in the name of God, except God knows the wrongdoers best. The battle went on for weeks, the regime’s airstrikes tore the sky apart supported by Hezbollah’s men on the ground, fighters whose ideology dictated that their struggle against the revolutionaries was a form of jihad which would be rewarded with a place in heaven. Tarad and I continued to cover the events in detail, however, a lot of the international TV networks didn’t believe us when we told them about the presence of Hezbollah fighters. The information came from the Free Syrian Army units in the villages around al-Qusair… they asked us to provide evidence in the form of documents, fighters or prisoners. Telling them that we heard Hezbollah fighters speaking in a Lebanese accent on their walkie-talkies didn’t convince them. This made us sit down and contemplate the best way to supply the necessary evidence.
The battles were extremely bloody. The number of men who fell on both sides was high. A Free Syrian Army fighter managed to snatch the body of a Hezbollah leader, which put us in a position where we could prove ourselves, expose Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation and gain international support. We took pictures of the corpse as evidence and, somehow, we found out that the man’s name was Abu Ali Rida. Someone called his family from his Lebanese mobile phone (whose signal was available in al-Qusair) pretending to be a member of the Syrian Arab Army informing them that the man had been injured. I recorded the whole conversation without broadcasting it. One of our friends in Lebanon took a picture of a death notice lamenting the departure of a Hezbollah leader which mentioned his name: Abu Ali Rida. This small detail was essential for the video to be broadcast, and this completed the picture.
I kept the dead man’s phone, and I started getting phone calls from people close to Hezbollah, one of them a doctor from the al-Zuaiter family, who were getting in touch to negotiate and ask me not to show the corpse to the media. Of course, I refused to negotiate and asked them to desist from trying to convince me. The person I spoke to pretended to be a neutral party, but I knew he was in fact with Hezbollah. Tarad shot videos of all these phone calls, which became further evidence that we could use in the future. They said they were ready to offer us as much money as we wanted in exchange for a deal. We turned them down and they raised the stakes offering us a travel visa to any country we wanted. They then tried to buy me out with an open cheque, but this only made us persevere even more. We realised that the video was going to be extremely damaging for them. When they failed to persuade us with their propositions, the negotiators moved on and started intimidating us. They told us that they knew our names, our families and where we lived and that Hezbollah fighters could hurt us.
Undeterred by their arrogance, we didn’t give up.
Naturally, Hezbollah kept denying its presence in Syria even as it was fighting the Free Syrian Army in al-Qusair, but then we showed the video. The pictures and the death notice were enough evidence to corroborate our argument. Arab and international networks broadcast the video presenting it as the first tangible proof of Hezbollah’s presence in Syria. This pushed Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s secretary general, to appear in the media and acknowledge the Party’s presence in our country. He also added that if there were a thousand of his men in Syria at the moment, they would become two thousand and that the party’s leaders were ready to take the field and fight themselves if necessary.
The only survivor
When the siege on al-Qusair became tighter, and the fierce airstrikes replaced the clouds, the revolutionaries defended us with strenuous courage and the number of injured started growing. Under the siege, medicine was in very short supply and it was no longer possible to provide first aid, nor to get the wounded out of the city to receive treatment. Every day we were getting between thirty and forty injured. Some of the most serious cases needed to be smuggled out of the city to save them, but we never managed to do that because most of the time the necessary movements involved running into a military unit. Then the food started running low too, flour and bread were in short supply and the warehouses were running out of everything, which meant that families had to rely on relief deliveries which soon became a mirage.
Al-Qusair’s area’s agricultural bent temporarily pushed away the threat of famine, making medical supplies our number one priority. There were multiple attempts to smuggle medicine in, but they were waylaid by land mines. Similarly, some of our cars were sent flying by landmines and the wounded became martyrs before we were even able to evacuate them. That’s how we played our last cards, except they would get burned too soon. The siege was also increasingly exerting pressure on the doctors and the paramedics in the field hospital. They barely slept. What made everything all the more distressing was that al-Qusair was the theatre of a humanitarian disaster whose cries for help never reached beyond the walls erected by the siege. At that point, rising to heaven became the best way to leave the city.
Shortly before the siege, one of the buildings had been converted into the only field hospital in al-Qusair. All the doctors that had found themselves in the siege were now working there and they were offering first aid. In addition, I was also documenting the lives of people living in basements, keeping a record of the wounded, the casualties, as well as of the military and political developments. I was going from one place to another trying to put together all the pieces of the catastrophe. The siege and the bombing were organised in such a way as to make the revolutionaries lose more and more men every day. My brother Shadi consulted me as to whether or not he should join the ranks of the rebels, given that he knew how to handle weapons and I gave him my consent. He was my second brother to join the rebels after my younger brother Munzir.
One day I was with Tarad taking pictures and videos on the frontline and as we were making our way back to my place he suggested that we make a stop at the field hospital. I tried to dissuade him at first but eventually I gave in. When we got there I was shocked to see Shadi among the wounded. A rocket fired by Hezbollah landed near him, from head to toe his body was riddled with shrapnel, his feet and his legs were injured, and he had a severe wound in his stomach. In the throes of bafflement, I burst out crying and praying for him. On the way to the operating room, I took his hand and held it as though trying to stop him from dying. He went in and so did I, in spirit. Death does not afflict the dead, it only deprives those who stay of their share of hope.
That same day I had to go back to the frontline to continue filming. When I returned, he had been discharged, but his condition was critical and he had to be evacuated from al-Qusair as soon as possible. A day or two after that, my nose was bleeding again so I went to the hospital to inquire and get treatment. I noticed that people around me were whispering to each other. They were talking about the two bullets in the stomach of my other brother Munzir, who is nine years younger than me. How could two bullets the size of my finger be a menace to a body like that? It was as if the bullets liked the smell of his flesh. He had previously got one in his hand during the first peaceful demonstrations, which resulted in him having to spend some time in Lebanon to receive the proper treatment although his hand never fully recovered… now his stomach.
How did that happen?! I could barely close my own eyes that every time I opened them I had to confront yet another bad situation… they said he was with his friends, they were trying to deliver some food to al-Jausia, one of the villages under siege near al-Qusair. As the first group of them was trying to cross into the village near one of the checkpoints they came under fire. He went forward to help rescue those who’d been shot but in turn, he also got a bad one in his belly. He was in very bad shape when they brought him in and because of the hospital’s general state of decay, his situation didn’t improve following an error during surgery.
One with his guts injured, and the other in desperate need of a lift out of the area to be treated. I was the only one among my siblings not to have been wounded, in a city surrounded by fierce fighting from all sides. And since death never stops during the war, my maternal uncle, Abdelmula Abu Ali – who was more or less my age – also joined the list of those wounded, until he left al-Qusair forever from his hospital bed and ascended into heaven.
My younger sister also got her share of grief. Her husband was injured in his face during the siege, which resulted in his disfigurement. My family’s situation was difficult, and my parents were increasingly worried… they couldn’t bear it for much longer. My siblings and my brother-in-law were smuggled out and made their way to the Qalamoun region first, then into Lebanon where they completed their recovery. While they were being taken out in a car, they thankfully escaped another attack targeting the vehicles that evacuated the wounded.
* * *
Throughout this journey of loss, there was always someone who’d say “Here I am”… My maternal uncle died, my cousins and my friends died leaving me both with a painful void, like a black hole in my heart but also with cherished memories that kept me going. I continued kneading tree leaves with the revolution’s water to plant them in my heart and cover these holes.
Exiting paradise
Back when the rebels were making progress, before Hezbollah stepped in, it was difficult to even contemplate the idea of withdrawing. The battle of al-Qusair was a pivotal moment in terms of both aims and recruitment, something the external involvement by Hezbollah only made all the more crucial for the first time. This fact won the revolutionaries’ support from several Syrian provinces, although the efficiency of the siege put in place by the Assad regime and Hezbollah, together with the little knowledge of the area possessed by those men who came from other parts of Syria to join the ranks of the rebels, made it difficult for them to enter it. Only a few men from Aleppo made it through the land-mine-infested areas to al-Qusair, under the leadership of Abdel Qadir al-Salih, the young fellow with a brown complexion and a broad forehead commonly known as Hajji Mari‘, and Abdel Jabar al-Akidi a valiant man who was the head of the Aleppo military council at the time. They came with a group of fighters among which I remember my friend Firas al-Halabi, and six others whose lives the mines took before they could join the battle.
You know that feeling when you’re falling over but find something to hold on to that catches you? This is what the arrival of the new fighters from outside al-Qusair meant to us, an arm that bolstered us and a shoulder upon which we relied when things were tough on us.
The attacks were fierce and the clashes were intense, but every time we were on the verge of defeat the rebels always managed to pick us up and bring us back to the battlefield from which retreating or withdrawing was no option. Resistance was the only choice. We tried hard to break the silence of the siege, but no one cared about our situation. We were steadfast, we were like candles struggling hard to remain lit to show the way to the civilians under siege …but inside we were melting. We had to make a key decision to put a limit to the soaring numbers of people who were getting hurt.
A single field hospital working round the clock like a beehive until they were so overworked that the place looked like a cloth saturated with water, heavy and burdened. The number of wounded was going up, and to make things worse, the hospital itself was bombed multiple times, but it managed to save patients and carry on. With every passing minute, things were deteriorating. There were way too few doctors for the number of injured, they were working overtime and they knew that the fact alone that medical supplies were running low meant that the area was facing the prospect of a humanitarian catastrophe. Soon they would be unable to help and the injuries would become necrotic.
Under the siege, the value of all kinds of goods was soaring, except the value of human lives. Fighters no longer feared for their lives as much as they were terrified by the idea of getting wounded, aware as they were that before they died, they would have to endure the pain of infections, ulcers and decay. Why not make things easier then and embrace death from the start by saying: hello!
There were fifteen hundred wounded in al-Qusair and its surroundings. Food and supplies were running low. Medicine no longer reached the area, and death from illness or the bombs was the only way to leave for those who were poorly. Retreating was very hard, but staying in that situation was even harder. As activists, we had to abide by the decisions of the military leaders, because ultimately they were the ones who persevered on the frontlines of the battle, and they knew what was best for us and them. Naturally, many refused this decision, and although some were dying from their injuries, others preferred to stay in the motherland, al-Qusair, until their last breath. Tarad and I were among the latter, a group of approximately a hundred people. We said that we would stay there until we died. We were like unbudgeable roots, like soil that was not going to let down its orchards. How could we leave, when we were no longer capable of telling the difference between our memories and our dreams? When every one of us had concerns, and corpses scattered around that we were unable to pull out from the debris… what other air could we breathe? What other land could bear up under the misery of our pierced hearts…
But it never rains, it pours.
“What you’re doing is called suicide. You can’t stay without supplies nor food… even if the least that awaited you was death…!”
* * *
June 2013
“The battle of al-Qusair isn’t over…we’ve had massacre and tragedies on a daily basis…unimaginable things that I can’t even begin to describe… by God, we won’t forget anyone.”[1]
* * *
We hadn’t managed to bid farewell and it was already time to leave. The retreat took place at night. The last car left at six-thirty in the morning, tears flooded the eyes and grief squeezed the hearts. If our houses could talk, one reproachful look from them would’ve been enough to make us go back… the guilt made us leave covertly under the night’s blanket, so that at daybreak the place would look as if nothing had happened, except that our absence was going to give us away. Al-Qusair remained a hostage that wailed as we departed, while our distressed hearts sank and implored for forgiveness.
We headed over towards the outskirts of al-Qusair where everyone had gathered, and from the rebel fighters we found out that we were going to have to walk. Fifteen thousand people, most of us civilians. We didn’t differentiate between young and old, rich or poor, my grandparents themselves walked with us, with the rest of the convoy of displaced people.
Members of the Free Syrian Army also walked with us carrying light and middle-size weapons. Heavy weapons and artillery had been incinerated so that Hezbollah and the Assad regime would not be able to use them. The wounded were being carried and we walked at the pace set by the children and the elderly among us, which meant that covering a distance of thirty-five kilometres was utter folly. In this journey of fleeing from the siege and the bombing, thirst and hunger were our two worst companions.
We set off from the outskirts in the evening, and we walked nonstop until the early hours of the morning. To avoid being noticed, we refrained from lighting cigarettes or using our phones and flashlights. And much as that was tough on us, it was nothing compared to what we endured when we got to the international Damascus motorway. We were in a dangerous area, all of us in the crossfire. Our next move was akin to suicide: crossing the international motorway. In order to reach a safer area, we had no other choice but to cross the motorway at a point located between two checkpoints sitting approximately one mile away from each other, and it had to happen at night so that they would not target us. When we got there, a new day had just dawned wrapping up one of the worst nights of our lives. A whole city crawls out of its skin, then suffers from hunger and thirst in its outskirts … as though the land was telling us: come back, because you have no other home but me. …but the tears soaked our eyelashes, we sowed the seeds of our own longing in the land we walked on, hoping that one day they would spring in the form of our return. Five in the morning, no chance of moving. For the first time, I prayed sitting. … I was too weak, hungry and thirsty to stand. We prayed fajr sitting: Abu Firas, Abdel Qadir, Tarad and myself, then we all leaned on a tree and rested. The plan was to spend the rest of the day in the woods until the night was covering us again, and among those deep-rooted trees we tried hard to unload the agony that entangled us.
At 7:10 am, escape from hell turned into hell. The sound of rockets sent shivers down our spines, the Assad regime and Hezbollah surrounded the woods and moved towards the civilians, two or three thousand people in each group. The more people gathered, the easier it was for the rockets to strike and hurt someone.
And while there was nothing that the rebel fighters could do to alleviate our hunger and thirst, they did what they could to push back the soldiers surrounding us. They stood firmly by the few weapons they had left, but the splinters from this unequal battle hit us in the form of rockets and live ammunition. I remember Tarad’s face very well as he said: “what are you covering yourself with?” When I looked at myself, I realised what he meant, I was standing behind a thin tree trunk.
During six or seven hours, an unspecified number of Hezbollah fighters were killed, and three of their tanks were destroyed. In the same stretch of land that witnessed the tragedy of our evacuation, we buried twelve martyrs that had fallen under the bombs or during the clashes, and they didn’t want to be buried too far. Tarad and I had been filming, and he asked me to give a speech.
“I don’t feel like it… I can’t say a word… it turns out I’m delusional… nobody will ask about us if anything were to happen to us…”
All the content that I had conveyed, the news that I had risked my life to cover, all for nothing. What difference was this speech going to make? He said, “We film for the anniversary.” Which anniversary? Of what? Were we ever going to recall this? Will we still be alive anyway? And even if the camera made it alive, would it be safe from the hands of the regime’s and Hezbollah’s men? All my questions meant nothing to Tarad, who continued to film himself and to take videos of Doctor Qasim al-Zein as he treated the wounded among the trees using rudimentary tools, a heart-breaking scene to say the least. Sleeplessness, hunger and thirst scrambled for my body, which one was going to kill it first? Abdel Jabar al-Akidi tried to take the edge off us, he reminded us of how Prophet Muhammad – peace be upon him – also experienced the siege in his land and with his people who also ate tree leaves like we did when nothing else was left after we ate almonds off the same trees. His story would have made an impact had it been told in a different situation than the one we were in. We were so tired and hungry, we didn’t even have the energy to listen.
The night fell. We were at the end of our rope after such a long day. About an hour before midnight was the time we’d been expecting. Crossing the international motorway was the hardest part. Five hundred metres from one side stood one of the two checkpoints, while the other one stood a kilometre away on the opposite side. Civilians had to cross while under fire from Hezbollah and the Assad regime. I tried to stand up but I felt dizzy and collapsed. Tarad extended his hand and told me: “I’ll carry you.” I said no. I didn’t feel I could walk, even if I leaned on him. I tried to convince him to go ahead without me, and that I would catch them up, but Tarad refused categorically. I told them: I want some water then. When Amid – one of the guys from al-Qusair that I knew before – saw what was happening, he went towards the orchards looking for water and came back after fifteen minutes or so carrying a metal can which I suspect someone used for their cattle. In it, some of the water look like… something else and smelled like cow excrement, petrol, or just a mixture of all things disgusting … but then again what’s a bad smell when you’re dying of thirst? My throat was so dry and thirsty that those drops that coursed through me were more delicious than honey itself. I had no excuse to sit so I rose.
We walked in single file, a thousand wounded leaning on someone’s shoulder or hand, but the soldiers knew what we were planning to do and rained a storm of mortars on us until a fire broke out in a spot near us. Under the cover of darkness, no one knew what hit or who got hurt…we came across a short rock wall and they told us that that was where the danger started. People were waiting for us on the other side and to reach them we were going to have to cross the international motorway that connected Damascus and Homs as fast as we could. Crossing that road was a gamble, a shot in the dark: we could get hurt, or perhaps die, or start a whole new life.
A group of people went ahead before us, but when the sound of heavy gunfire resumed the rest of us stopped. I gave out and collapsed again. Tarad picked me up and he carried me, and our bags too. That was more than the words friendship and brotherhood can convey, for someone’s shoulder to become your crutch and have you closer to their heart… to hear their heartbeat and partake in the agony of letdown and defeat.
Crossing that road was a turning point, which forced us to move forward and leave the past behind. A journey of search for a homeland every part of which cried its sorrows to the other. As you looked across the road, you’d recall the dreams you left behind in your grandparents’ house, on your table and in your wardrobe; the streets that you used to contemplate thinking which one you should take, the faces whose features you didn’t commit to memory because you never thought you’d part from them one day. What’s more worthy of being remembered, before departing? Is it your heart? The same one that will be consumed as time passes, resiliently and refusing to give in? Why shouldn’t you also carry with you objects whose smell can remind you of the people you hold closest to your heart… the same ones that will remind you of Qusair, rescuing it from oblivion.
* * *
All my life, I’d always loved broad roads, except this time. This motorway going up and down in all its width was now just another chance for a person to draw their last breath. The presence of so many wounded behind us meant that a few had to attempt crossing the road before them. The people had been scared off by the shooting, I looked at Tarad and the other guys. With the little energy I had left, I said to them: “Guys, if we stay here until tomorrow, we’re going to die hungry and thirsty, the regime might capture us alive… if worse comes to worst we’ll die.”
During a war, standards are overturned and death, once the worst nightmare for the living and healthy, becomes a ticket to salvation. We took each other’s hands fearlessly facing death and we ran, the four of us – Tarad, my cousin, the Ameed and myself – shaking off the last shreds of fear, we ran so fast we almost kicked our backs with our legs. We didn’t even have time to figure out how much was left for us to cross when bullets came raining down on us. The night, the sound of bullets, hands letting go, bodies rolling down, wounded and scattered along the road, moments that lasted so long as if they were endless. Between the tongues of flame from the sky on one hand and the gasping lips on the ground, those who were still running had no other choice but to look out for themselves. I lay down and blended in among the wounded, unable to help them and I pretended to be dead. The four of us were dispersed and I was alone. I was lost. I crawled as much as I could and reached the other side of the road, I felt so battered as though I was coming out of a hurricane… and what a hurricane! I longed for air as much as I had longed for water before. I breathed as if I hadn’t breathed at all since crossing from the other side of the road. I don’t know exactly where I stopped, nor who died and who didn’t…the area wasn’t safe, but it was free of gunfire. I was too scared to move because the regime soldiers would capture me, and I was too exhausted to oppose if I happened to get arrested. I wasn’t in a position to think about running away, had someone put their hands on my shoulder…I rested for about fifteen minutes, then I tried to walk even though I was frightened as to which direction to take… “so!! Where should I go?!!… I was carrying computers and cameras in my backpack, and fear in my heart about what the next few minutes had set aside for me… I was torn and uncertain as to what to do.
I put my fate in God’s hands and walked until I heard a noise nearby and I stopped. I tried to listen carefully to what was being said to figure out who they were and to what division they belonged. I hid behind the wall of an old abandoned service area. I listened awhile until my waiting ultimately paid off when I heard them mention the al-Faruq brigade and call out the names of its leaders in al-Qusair and I knew they were rebels. I went up to them and they could see the signs of weariness on my face in the dark. They recognised me immediately, they looked after me and they started yelling to each other: “Hadi’s here, we’ve found him.” They said they were going to take me to a safe area, but first I wanted to see Tarad and my cousin. I lay down and took a deep breath before I fell asleep, now that I was in safety. Shortly after that Tarad appeared before me, I rejoiced and greeted and hugged him, I couldn’t believe that he was safe and sound. It was a few minutes before my cousin also joined us and we drank some water with the rebels. Tarad and my cousin told me they’d been looking for me for a long time.
The evacuation of al-Qusair had death painted all over it, except our destiny was to go through separation, hunger, thirst, mortars and bullets no matter how tight we held our friends’ hands. We decided to go to an area situated on the Damascus-Homs motorway called al-Hissia, and we rested for a couple of hours. Then cars came to rescue us and eventually took us to Qalamun.
[1] Facebook post by Hadi Abdullah.
Hadi Abdullah is Syrian reporter and activist. Born in Homs in 1988 he rose to prominence in Syria in 2011 and 2012 when he covered the siege of Homs at the hands of the Syrian regime. In 2016 he won the prestigious Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Prize in the citizen journalist category. He currently resides in Homs in Syria and has worked for various Syrian opposition networks including Syria TV. Follow him on Instagram and Telegram.
Alessandro Columbu is Senior Lecturer in Arabic at the University of Westminster. Originally from Sardinia, Alessandro learned Arabic in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, and earned his PhD in Arabic literature from the University of Edinburgh. His latest publication is Zakariyya Tamir and the politics of the Syrian short story – Modernity, gender and authoritarianism published by IB Tauris. He won the 2023 edition of the Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding for his translation of Zakariyya Tamir’s Sour Grapes, published by Syracuse University Press.
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